Exercise can boost your memory â and a new study says the short-term cognitive benefits can last for 24 hours
Decades of research has found that exercise is helpful for overall health and fitness, doing everything from lowering your risk of heart disease to helping you sleep better. According to a new study, working out could also help boost your memory — and the results may stick around for up to a day after your sweat session.
The small study, published today in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, analyzed data from 76 people aged 50 to 83 who wore activity trackers for eight days and took cognitive tests daily. The researchers discovered that people who did more moderate to vigorous physical activity than usual on any given day ended up performing better in memory tests the next day.
Being active in general also seemed to help. People who spent less time than usual sitting and logged six hours more of sleep also had better scores on memory tests.
The findings could have big implications for everyone, including older adults “where it’s very important to understand factors that could maintain daily cognitive function,” Mikaela Bloomberg, lead study author and senior research fellow at University College London, tells Yahoo Life.
But what’s behind this link, and how much exercise do you need to do to get the benefits? Doctors explain.
Why might exercise boost your brain?
It’s important to point out that this isn’t the first study to link exercise with better memory. Previous research has found that people performed better on memory tests in the hours after they exercised, but many studies haven’t pinned down how long those perks last.
Doctors say there are a few different things that could be behind the memory boost from exercise. “Exercise leads to increased blood flow and stimulation of neurotransmitters thought to contribute to improvements in cognitive function,” Bloomberg says. (Neurotransmitters help to move messages from one nerve cell to the next and help with memory and thinking.)
