September 25, 2018
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The human brain has to work much harder to avoid sluggish behaviour
Coach potatoes have an excuse for their laziness thanks to a new scientific study which has found that human beings are hardwired to avoid wasting energy. Evolution favoured sluggish behaviour because this may have given our ancient ancestors an advantage when it came to survival, experts say. Wasting energy unnecessarily could have left them vulnerable to predators, whereas conserving energy would have afforded them a boost when it came to searching for food, hunting their prey, and fighting off rivals.
Scientists from the University of British Columbia (UBC), in Vancouver, Canada, say society encourages people to be more physically active. Yet the latest figures reveal they are actually becoming less active, in what researchers have termed the 'exercise paradox'.
For their latest study, UBC recruited young adults, placed them in front of a computer screen and gave them control of an on-screen avatar. Researchers then flashed small images one at a time that depicted either physical activity or physical inactivity.
Subjects were tasked with moving the on-screen avatar as quickly as possible toward the pictures of physical activity – and away from pictures of physical inactivity and then vice versa. Meanwhile, electrodes recorded what was happening in their brains.
Participants were generally faster at moving towards the active pictures and away from lazy pictures, but brain-activity readouts called electroencephalograms (EEGs) revealed the latter required their brains to work much harder. This suggests our brains are hardwired to be attracted toward the lazy activity.
Study leader Matthieu Boisgontier said: 'Conserving energy has been essential for humans' survival, as it allowed us to be more efficient in searching for food and shelter, competing for sexual partners, and avoiding predators. The failure of public policies to counteract the pandemic of physical inactivity may be due to brain processes that have been developed and reinforced across evolution. We knew from previous studies that people are faster at avoiding sedentary behaviours and moving toward active behaviours. The exciting novelty of our study is that it shows this faster avoidance of physical inactivity comes at a cost and that is an increased involvement of brain resources. These results suggest that our brain is innately attracted to sedentary behaviours.'
The research will now look at whether people's brains can be re-trained. Mr Boisgontier added: 'Anything that happens automatically is difficult to inhibit, even if you want to, because you don't know that it is happening. But knowing that it is happening is an important first step.'
The findings are published in the science journal Neuropsychologia.
Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk
