This is part 3 in the Willpower Workout Series.  If you missed it, you can catch up here:

Part 1:  Scone: 1, willpower: zip. Is there a way to give your willpower a workout?
Part 2:  2 proven ways to give your willpower a workout

In Part 2 of the Willpower Workout Series, we found out that there are 2 direct, simple ways to strengthen your willpower:  exercise and meditation.  Part 3 includes details about how exercise flexes and strengthens your willpower muscle.

The rapid effects of exercise on willpower

The willpower-strengthening benefits of physical activity are immediate:

• exercise reduces cravings
• exercise relieves stress
• exercise enhances self-control
• exercise makes your brain bigger and faster

Exercise does all of these by enhancing the activity of the pre-frontal cortex, otherwise known as willpower central.

15 minutes on a treadmill reduces cravings, as seen when researchers try to tempt dieters with chocolate and smokers with cigarettes.  The long-term effects of exercise  are even more impressive.  It not only relieves ordinary, everyday, stress, but it’s as powerful an anti-depressant as Prozac.  Workouts also enhances the biology of self-control by increasing baseline heart rate variability and training the brain.  When neuroscientists have peered inside the brains of new exercisers, they have seen increases in both gray matter – brain cells – and white matter, the insulation on brain cells that helps them communicate quickly and effectively with each other.  Physical exercise – like meditation – makes your brain bigger and faster, and the prefrontal cortex shows the largest training effect.  ~ The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonical, PhD.

What kind of exercise is best for building willpower?

I repeat: Any activity will do when it comes to stress-busting and brain-building for willpower.  For flexing that pre-frontal cortex, everything from spirited grocery marketing to taking the stairs instead of the elevator counts.

Even 5 minutes works willpower magic