Does exercising our minds a lot help us burn excess calories?

Cognitive activity can burn energy internally, but that's not enough to affect our overall physique.

You are sitting absent-mindedly by the window, doing almost nothing, your eyes staring into the distance, but do you know that even at that moment, your body is still burning calories inside. You read that right! Our body is still burning calories even though you are sitting alone on the chair, letting your mind wander. Amazing, right?

Going deeper, it is the human brain that is constantly devouring calories even when we are not moving. But how does this happen? To explain this phenomenon, let's take a look at how the brain works.

Brain: "The Energy Hunger"

The brain accounts for only 2% of body weight, but consumes up to 20% of the energy in it.

The brain is the central organ of the human body, responsible for maintaining all vital functions and is kept isolated from the rest of the body. It is well protected by a hard skull and strong meninges. The brain accounts for only 2% of the body's weight, but consumes up to 20% of its energy. Most of the energy the brain receives comes from the breakdown of glucose - its favorite "food". Blood continuously supplies glucose to the brain, because the brain itself cannot store glucose.

So what does the brain do that consumes so much energy?

Talking about the different functions of the brain is like discussing every drop of water in the ocean! The human brain is constantly active, even when we sleep. Different parts of the brain have different functions, and the coordination between them at the same time will bring about specific effects. Even in its most idle state, the brain is doing a lot of work.

Neurons are always 'working' to keep us alive and it takes a lot of energy for neurons to transmit impulses. The brain is always active because it undertakes a series of human actions such as receiving stimuli, sending feedback signals, monitoring involuntary activities, maintaining homeostasis and it also constantly communicates with the internal organs of the body. All of these require a minimum amount of energy which is called the basal energy requirement.

When you're sitting and thinking about a complex problem or trying to figure out how much money you need to save for a new smartphone, the amount of calories your brain burns during such stressful moments increases.

How does the brain use energy?

The brain uses about 300 calories a day to keep things running smoothly. Cognitive activities like learning, thinking, and calculating can increase the brain's metabolism beyond that baseline.

Research continues to explore how the brain uses energy. Scientists using neuroimaging techniques have shown that the rate of glucose metabolism in the brain increases by approximately 10% when subjects perform the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (a neuropsychological test). The increase in glucose uptake during the test is also accompanied by an increase in blood flow to the brain.

On average, the entire brain consumes about 0.25 calories per minute. (Illustration)

The test requires participants to classify each card based on the number, shape, or color of the characters on the card. The feedback will be an assessment of whether the classification of the cards is correct or not. Based on this, participants can better understand the classification pattern. Furthermore, after 10 cards, the classification will change.

In further studies, scientists have attempted to quantify the number of calories the brain consumes. It has been found that the entire brain consumes an average of 0.25 calories per minute. Cognitive activity is thought to increase by about 1% across the entire brain. These numbers are approximate and subject to change. Therefore, research to find the exact figures is still ongoing.

So far, there is some evidence that performing highly complex tasks such as learning a new language or performing math calculations can increase the brain's use of glucose.

Think more, burn more?

Perhaps when you read this, you will think of a pretty interesting "strategy" to achieve your weight goal, such as "thinking a lot to have a slim body" . But unfortunately, everything is not that easy.

In fact, the overall change in the body's glucose consumption is measured in minutes. Solving the math would increase the brain's glucose expenditure by no more than 20 calories out of a total of 300 calories (basal energy needs). So this calorie increase is insignificant compared to the brain's overall energy expenditure.

Also, if mental tasks are to burn a lot of calories, they have to be done continuously for many hours without stopping. You might burn some calories if you solve math problems all day long, but again, under normal conditions it would be impossible because we all have our own cognitive limits.

We need to take a break when our brains start to get "saturated" with a particular task. Moreover, many people will like to eat during this break. At this time, the amount of calories consumed from food is even higher than the number of calories we just burned, making the overall "calorie burning" effect no longer meaningful. Even if we control our desires, math exercises will only help very little in the long-term weight loss or need to measure our weight periodically.

Solving math problems all day will burn less than 20 calories, but walking for 30 minutes can burn up to 150 calories. Physical activities can burn more calories. Therefore, look for high-intensity exercises to burn calories in the body most effectively and bring the balanced body you have always wanted.