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Volume 10, Issue 6

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16 | WheelsOfGrace.com | Issue 46 In a motorcycle industry that's strapped for bike sales, Harley- Davidson Inc. has turned to neuroscience to be er understand riders. Motorcyclists have always said there's no be er prescrip on for stress than riding a bike, even for a short me, as you lean your body into the wind and forget about everything else. Now, a study from the Semel Ins tute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, at the University of California, Los Angeles, seems to confirm that. The study, funded by Harley-Davidson Inc., demonstrated poten al mental and physical benefits of riding, including decreased levels of cor sol, a hormonal marker of stress. Three UCLA researchers studied more than 50 motorcycle riders in tests that recorded their brain ac vity and hormone levels before, during and a er riding a bike, driving a car and res ng. The bike ride resulted in a 28 percent decrease in biomarkers of stress, according to the researchers. On average, riding a motorcycle for 20 minutes increased par cipants' heart rates by 11 percent and adrenaline levels by 27 percent, similar to light exercise. Changes in the riders' brain ac vity suggested an increase in alertness similar to drinking a cup of coffee. Sensory focus was enhanced while riding, versus driving a car, meaning that riders were more alert to what was going on around them. Harley-Davidson says the study's findings validate what it's known for more than a century: that riding is good for your mental health. The company has struggled to a ract younger customers in a marketplace where fewer people are taking up motorcycling and baby boomers are aging out of riding. So it's seeking new ways to sell bikes. "We're leveraging the latest technologies as we shi our focus from exclusively motorcycles to growing ridership, so it only made sense to tap technology to explore the impact of riding itself," said Heather Malenshek, Harley's senior vice president of marke ng. On the bike, many riders say they tune out anything that's not relevant to the road. The study, which used electroencephalogram equipment to measure brain ac vity, seemed to validate that point. "We knew riders had reported that motorcycles gave them peace of mind, but no one had really rigorously quan fied it before," said one of the researchers, neuroscien st Don Vaughn. "When I measured it, these were just the facts I observed," he said. The study included men and women across a wide age spectrum. Some had been riders their en re adult lives, while others had By Rick Barrett ridden for only a few years. In the tests, they rode for about 20 minutes on somewhat rural roads, in two loca ons, where there was other traffic but it wasn't too intense. They wore what looked like a swimmer's cap, with electrodes, to measure their brain waves while on a bike and while engaged in other ac vi es such as driving a car. "Measuring brain ac vity is challenging," Vaughn said, "because the signal is only one-millionth the strength of a AA ba ery." Much different than in a laboratory se ng, it some mes took 40 minutes to adjust the cap and make sure the electrodes had a solid connec on. "While scien sts have long studied the rela onship of brain and hormone responses to a en on and stress, doing so in real-life condi ons such as these is rare," said Mark Cohen, a UCLA professor who was part of the study's research team. The reduc on in hormonal biomarkers while riding was notable, according to the researchers, though you could probably get a similar stress reduc on in other ways, such as going for a morning jog or playing a round of golf. "It's not going to completely alter your percep on of reality, but it's significant," said Vaughn, who is not a motorcyclist. Too much stress has long been associated with nega ve health effects. "I would take any reduc on in stress," Vaughn said. The researchers said they're considering more experiments before submi ng the results of their study for peer review and publica on in a science journal such as Nature. "In our minds, this is the first me a study like this has ever been done. We think it's pushing the limits of what can be measured," Vaughn said. UCLA study, says motorcycling reduces stress, increases alertness

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