right brain left brain exerciseThe concept of people being right brained or left brained is not black and white, by any means. The most current studies have found that people are constantly using both sides of their brains in interpreting the world. There are still brain faculties that favor the right or the left, but they do not apply to the whole of the brain. They apply to compartments of the brain that represent particular faculties. It has been found that exercising, like the kind that is accomplished by riding a bike, while mentally organizing is a dual activity that uses more of the right and left brain together than most other activities.

The right brain is responsible for circular, creative thinking. Imagination, conceptual thinking, creativity and mental wandering take place within the right brain. The right brain is largely in charge of potentials and possibilities. The right brain is experimental and spends time wondering about the higher ideas. The right brain is in charge of our thinking that is inventive and original.

The left brain, on the other hand, is responsible for organizing information. This is the center of our linear thinking. The left brain is all about structure and memory. It works much more like a computer than our right brain does. It is responsible for data input, time management and memory. The left brain handles our executive functions, or all the tactical and logistical functions.

When we engage in healthy exercise, like the kind that cycling offers, it stimulates good mental health within us because it facilitates use of the right and left brain together. Exercise alone is practice for the left brain, because it seeks to improve on familiar patterns. When combined with right brain mental activity, a lot is accomplished. We resolve difficulties and challenges by putting our right brains and left brains together. We need the creativity and innovation to invent a way out of the problem, and we need our left brain to inform the inventions of the right brain with information and past experience.