No, seriously.

What’s crazy is this was already said even by Greek philosophers.

Check this out:

“In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection.”

You know who said that?

Plato.

This shows that physical activity has always been seen as key to reaching one’s full potential.

To explain how true this is, I’ll share what I’ve learned from the book “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain” by John J. Ratey.

Let’s start by looking at Ratey’s way of describing exercising:

“If exercise came in pill form, it would be plastered across the front page, hailed as the blockbuster drug of the century.”

Well then, let’s find out why.

The fundamental reason behind it is that exercising primes the brain to work faster and more effectively.

As Ratey himself says:

“Physical activity sparks biological changes that encourage brain cells to bind to one another. For the brain to learn, these connections must be made; they reflect the brain’s fundamental ability to adapt to challenges. The more neuroscientists discover about this process, the clearer it becomes that exercise provides an unparalleled stimulus, creating an environment in which the brain is ready, willing, and able to learn. Aerobic activity has a dramatic effect on adaptation, regulating systems that might be out of balance and optimizing those that are not—it’s an indispensable tool for anyone who wants to reach his or her full potential.”

Look at the words used to describe the positive impact exercising has on the brain:

‘Unparalleled,’ and ‘Indispensable’.

Ratey goes further and says:

“In addition to priming our state of mind, exercise influences learning directly, at the cellular level, improving the brain’s potential to log in and process new information.“

Now you might be wondering:

“Ok, sounds cool and all, but… How come this is the case?”

Well, it all has to do with 4 letters.

BDNF.

These letters stand for “Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor”.

In short, it is a protein responsible for the growth and maintenance of neurons in the brain.

But there’s a catch.

Its role is also to increase neuroplasticity and neurogenesis.

Neuroplasticity meaning the brain’s ability to rearrange itself to learn new information and develop new competences.

And neurogenesis meaning the process by which new neurons are formed in the brain.

Just so you understand how all of this is relevant to language learning, look at this example given in the book:

“Say you’re learning a French word. The first time you hear it, nerve cells recruited for a new circuit fire a glutamate signal between each other. If you never practice the word again, the attraction between the synapses involved naturally diminishes, weakening the signal. You forget. […] A neuron is like a tree that instead of leaves has synapses along its dendritic branches; eventually new branches sprout, providing more synapses to further solidify the connections. These changes are a form of cellular adaptation called synaptic plasticity, which is where BDNF takes center stage.”

In other words, when you’re trying to solidify any new bit of information in the brain, BDNF ensures it will be done faster and reduces your chances of forgetting it.

As Ratey put it:

“(BDNF) is the fertilizer that encourages neurons to connect to one another and grow, making it vital for neuroplasticity and neurogenesis.”

Once you understand this, one thing becomes clear:

If you want to learn anything faster, having more BDNF present will make it so.

Now the question becomes:

What can we do to increase BDNF?

The answer: exercising.

“A 2013 study in the journal of sports science and medicine showed that just 20 to 40 minutes of aerobic exercise increased BDNF in the blood by 32%.”

Compound that with studying and guess what happens?

“in a 2007 study of humans, German researchers found that people learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster following exercise than they did before exercise, and that the rate of learning correlated directly with levels of BDNF. Along with that, people with a gene variation that robs them of BDNF are more likely to have learning deficiencies.”

Do you have any idea how incredibly powerful this is?

It genuinely means you have a “cheat code” to speed up learning!

And what’s more, it’s completely free!!!

I say that because ‘exercising’ here doesn’t necessarily mean going to the gym, doing crossfit or something similar.

It means moving your body for a long enough period and stress-free.

That could mean walking, jogging, running, dancing, working out… The list goes on.

However… There’s another catch.

And, once again, Ratey points it out for us:

“Experiments with lab rats suggest that forced exercise doesn’t do the trick quite like voluntary exercise.”

That’s why I said ‘exercising’ could mean lots of different things.

Because if you just do it ‘cause I or Ratey said so and you have a horrible time at it, it won’t work the same.

The reason for it is that, even though the brain has an amazing ability to change itself, this change depends entirely on the input it receives.

This is also explained in the book:

“When we learn something, whether it’s a French word or a salsa step, cells morph in order to encode that information; the memory physically becomes part of the brain. As a theory, this idea has been around for more than a century, but only recently has it been borne out in the lab. What we now know is that the brain is flexible, or plastic in the parlance of neuroscientists—more Play-Doh than porcelain. It is an adaptable organ that can be molded by input in much the same way as a muscle can be sculpted by lifting barbells.”

Since this is the case, make sure you choose a physical activity that has the least amount of friction for you.

If you’re sedentary or have been postponing doing it, here’s a practical tip:

Do not overthink.

Your current state will lead you to come up with as many excuses as possible to not start.

Considering that, use your desire to learn another language (and anything else, really) to generate the momentum you need to get going.

And in order to leverage it the best way possible, here’s another practical tip:

Expose yourself to the language during exercise.

Podcasts, audiobooks, YouTube videos, songs + lyrics, there are tons of possibilities at your disposal.

Just make sure it’s balanced with your current level in the language and to use it to expand your vocabulary, not just understand.

So, here are the key takeaways I want you to have from all of this, and they’re mainly three:

1. If you don’t exercise, PLEASE start as soon as possible. It will improve your health in tons of different ways and make you learn literally anything you want (like another language) a lot faster.
2. Exercising = moving for a long enough period of time in a challenging enough manner. Choose what best suits you and go for it. All gas, no brakes.
3. Couple it with exposure to the language and you are guaranteed to retain it a lot better and progress a lot faster.

Be active in the body, and the language will be active in the mind.

Onward and upward, my friend.

References:

• Book “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain”, by John J. Ratey (2007).
• YouTube video from the channel What I’ve Learned that explains how physical activity helps with learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVzKCk066g
• 2007 study shows that subjects who did high intensity exercise beforehand could learn vocabulary words 20% faster than those who remained sedentary: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17185007/