What is cognitive function, and why does physical movement improve it?
The answer is more surprising than most people expect.
Sea squirts have brains when they're young.
They swim around, searching for a good rock to attach to.
Once they find one and settle down, they do something remarkable: they digest their own brain.
They don't need it anymore.
No movement, no brain required.
This reveals something important about the relationship between cognitive function and physical movement.
What Is Cognitive Function?
Cognitive function refers to the mental abilities your brain uses to process information and interact with the world:
- Attention - Filtering what matters from what doesn't
- Working memory - Holding information while using it
- Processing speed - How fast you react to new information
- Executive function - Planning, switching tasks, inhibiting impulses
These cognitive abilities are what brain training programs claim to improve.
But here's what most people miss: every one of these mental abilities evolved for physical movement, not abstract thinking.
How Cognitive Function Evolved From Movement
We think of the brain as a "thinking organ."
A biological computer for reasoning, memory, and decisions.
But evolution tells a different story.
Brains first appeared in organisms that needed to move.
Plants don't have them.
Stationary animals lose them.
The brain's original purpose wasn't abstract thought.
It was predicting what happens next and coordinating a physical response.
- Attention developed to track prey and predators
- Working memory evolved to hold a mental map while navigating
- Processing speed determined whether you caught dinner or became it
- Executive function let you change plans mid-chase
These cognitive functions aren't abstract abilities.
They're movement abilities that we later borrowed for math and spreadsheets.
Why Physical Movement Improves Cognitive Function
Most brain training treats cognitive function like software you can upgrade by running the right program.
Sit still, tap puzzles, level up your memory.
But if cognitive abilities evolved from movement, this approach trains the wrong end of the system.
Physical coordination demands exactly what we call "cognitive function":
- Catching a ball requires attention, prediction, and fast processing speed
- Juggling loads working memory while you track multiple objects
- Balancing while counting forces executive function to divide resources
You're not just exercising.
You're using your cognitive abilities the way they were designed to be used.
The Brain Training That Actually Works
When you train coordination, you're not isolating one cognitive skill.
You're integrating all of them under time pressure, with real consequences for failure.
This is why physical movement training shows transfer effects that puzzle games don't.
You're training the cognitive system as a whole, not poking at one piece through a screen.
Research supports this connection between physical movement and cognitive function:
- Coordination training improves reaction time and processing speed
- Dual-task exercises (physical + mental) show cognitive benefits
- Balance training engages attention and spatial processing
Your brain is a movement controller that learned to think.
Train your cognitive function that way.
Next read: See how one specific skill puts all these cognitive abilities to work. Hand-Eye Coordination: The Skill Modern Life Stopped Training
BounceIQ provides progressive coordination drills designed to improve cognitive function through physical movement, challenging attention, reaction time, and working memory.