Exercise with Someone for Good Brain Health

Exercising with someone might sound simple enough, but there are profound benefits to having an exercise partner worth exploring.

Some people just go to the gym, hop on the treadmill, throw in their earbuds, and do their thing. Others like to take a power hike or mountain bike trip alone in nature. Sometimes that meditative experience is important, and they don’t want to necessarily share that special time in their mind with someone else. Certain martial arts traditions encourage you to work out alone for the meditative quality of the experience.

If your workout time isn't meditative, you should strongly consider finding someone to work out with.

The Benefits of Exercise with Another Person

One of the biggest benefits of having a workout partner is simply having another person offer you encouragement. There are days when it’s really easy to just stay in bed, and you don't want to get up and put in your workout. If you have somebody you're meeting up with, it holds you to a higher degree of accountability and a certain amount of social peer pressure.

For some people, there's also an element of friendly competition. People can push each other, in a well-intended manner, to go that extra tenth of a mile, or an extra 10 miles.

There could also be an element of safety involved. People who lift weights routinely need another person to spot them during a wide variety of exercises. It allows them to safely lift a little more weight and push a little farther through the wall than they are used to doing. Many martial arts involve doing forms to master routine movements. Some of them, like aikido, are greatly improved by having another person involved in the form, or even by providing added dynamic motion.

There is a social aspect to it as well. Talking to someone throughout your workout is, in itself, an added source of stimulation. Just be smart about it and make sure your conversation doesn’t take away from completing your workout in a timely and effective manner.

Social interaction is critical to brain health and development. When you combine this with other activities like exercise, the compound benefits are something we can't even measure but are incredibly helpful to the brain. Contributor Author: Dr. Michael Trayford is a Board-Certified Chiropractic Neurologist and Founder of APEX Brain Centers in Asheville, NC. For more information, please visit our Author's page.

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