At first glance, the world of work can be roughly divided into two camps: mental work on the one hand and manual work on the other. Transitions are of course liquid. For example, I’m a mind worker, even though I type every word with my hands on a keyboard that sucks with my fingers. Whoever accuses me of having two left hands, it must be said: I also master the ten-finger system – and blindly!

Conversely, manual work also takes a lot of brain work. It is said that someone pushes with his mind. There is practically no greater appreciation for the pleasant progress of a task. The phrase goes back to oxen, who used to pull the plow into their harness with the yoke of their forehead. But no one knows this now.

In sports – if you want to count physical exercise as part of the work – it gets complicated. Depending on the sport, it depends on the arms, legs and/or heads. In boxing, everything happens in the game at once, with the head primarily serving as the target. Soccer players are also brain workers; That’s exactly their undoing – like boxers, football players, ice hockey or rugby players: the countless vibrations from collisions and headballs damage the brain. A Scottish study shows that professional footballers have a 3.5 times higher risk than the general population of developing a neurodegenerative disease in later life, reports the German Society for Neurology. Defenders will also have a five-fold increased risk. Repeated head injuries are believed to be the cause.

The good news: You can protect yourself. At least during training, a shock protection helmet should be worn, the study advises. Other brain workers need someone like this too, because in the end they have to turn their heads for everything they come up with.