When I was in my 20s and 30s, my health varied a lot; sometimes I was sedentary and sometimes I was very active. But I never noticed a cognitive effect.
Now that I'm well into my 40s, it's very noticeable when I've been off the exercise wagon. Not day to day, but definitely on timescales of a week or two. When I'm active, my recall is sharper and my memory clearer. I also feel this with my diet (real vs. processed foods) and drinking.
Not the op, but I am 45, did a lot of sport till my 20s, I don't exercise anymore, since at least 20 years, what I notice now is the lack of proper rest: not sleeping enough, for example.
Exercise actually makes me numb these days and I need a couple of days to recover.
While immersing in deep focused studying or exercising my mind by learning new stuff, makes me feel a lot better and much sharper.
To each his own I think.
edit: a friend of mine who never did sports at young age tells me he feels better now that he goes swimming regularly at the age of 42, but who can tell if it is just because exercise is a new experience to him?
>Exercise actually makes me numb these days and I need a couple of days to recover.
Sounds like you're under-recovering. With proper food and rest, a normal intensity exercise shouldn't make you feel tired the next day. I had a similar problem and turns out I wasn't eating enough protein(I have to get in at least 200 grams when working out or I feel awful, idk why)
> While immersing in deep focused studying or exercising my mind by learning new stuff, makes me feel a lot better and much sharper.
I certainly agree with you on this. In my case, a healthy lifestyle makes taking on new challenges much easier: I'm less intimidated, and less frustrated by the slope of the inevitable learning curve.
My cognitive abilities at my actual age (mid 40s) improved significantly when I quit with my younger age lifestyle, much more than exercise could do.
Of course I'm not saying that exercise is futile it surely keeps the body healthy and that's extremely important as years go by.
the old saying "mens sana in corpore sano" ( a healthy mind in an healthy body) is still relevant today for a good reason.
My theory is that is not exercise per se, but the power drained by the excercise.
There's a good example about it in an episode of the BBC series Horizon where people are asked to solve simple arithmetic computations and then to do the same while walking at a fast pace.
All of the people involved need to stop to complete them.
The cognitive part of our brain is very power hungry and can't function properly when power is needed somewhere else.
I think that power drain from exercise can prevent becoming more and more risk adverse because it keeps us from over thinking things, the inner thoughts are mostly about negative outcomes (not specifically negative thoughts, just the outcome)
So theoretically we could gain the same benefits by tricking us into thinking about the positive outcomes.
I am not an expert in such matter, so take everything I say with many grains of salt.
p.s. I was walking when writing this and I had to stop to write something that made sense.
I'm in my mid 30s, and feel that same effect on the timescales of a week. I was particularly sedentary for most of my youth, and have only been intermittently active since my early 20s.
When I was in my 20s and 30s, my health varied a lot; sometimes I was sedentary and sometimes I was very active. But I never noticed a cognitive effect.
Now that I'm well into my 40s, it's very noticeable when I've been off the exercise wagon. Not day to day, but definitely on timescales of a week or two. When I'm active, my recall is sharper and my memory clearer. I also feel this with my diet (real vs. processed foods) and drinking.