The Danish study I cited in my earlier piece, which shows that kids concentrate better after biking or walking to school, is far from the only research showing positive cognitive benefits from cycling, and not just for school-age kids. And yet these connections are only beginning to be adequately explored.
A recent article in _Bicycling _magazine, “Riding Is My Ritalin,” looked at the effects of cycling on ADHD in children and adults, telling the story of one young man who has been using an intense road cycling regimen to treat his own attention disorder. As the article points out, researchers were looking at the link between physical activity and attention deficit as long ago as the 1970s.
People who ride bicycles are almost ridiculously eager – and I include myself in this company – to tell you about how getting on the bike and riding for transportation or for pleasure elevates their mood and helps calm anxiety. It’s one of the reasons that people become so passionately attached to their bicycles. Yet scientists still don’t fully understand why this might be so.
These experiments on bicycling and brain function, along with other studies about the connection between exercise, mood, and concentration, are clearly in their early stages. But they raise profound questions about the way our preferred mode of transportation affects our cognition and mood.
What effect has our dependence on the automobile had on our collective mental health? What role does passive transportation play in mood and attention disorders, especially for children? What therapeutic effects could a shift to more active transportation modes have for people who suffer from these disorders? What are the social costs of an environment that enforces auto dependence? Does cycling have special benefits that other exercise modes don’t?
These are important questions. We should be trying much harder to answer them.