Exercising improves memory for up to 24 hours after exercise – new research

What's good for your heart is also good for your brain. Just as physical activity helps keep your body healthy and strong as you age, it can also help maintain your cognitive function. Reduced risk of dementia.

But beyond the long-term cognitive benefits of physical activity, exercise also appears to provide short-term cognitive improvements that last from minutes to hours. Our latest research shows that this cognitive improvement can last up to 24 hours after exercise. Some cognitive abilities begin to decline as we age, so even small cognitive boosts can help you stay active and independent for longer.

Research conducted both in the lab and in the real world shows that the more physically active people are, the more physically active they are, no matter what form it takes. structured training Or they simply have more activity within themselves daily life – You perform better on cognitive tests within a few hours after exercise.

But one question researchers are still trying to answer is how long these cognitive benefits last, especially in older adults, where maintenance of cognitive function is so important. This is the purpose of our research.

in our research A study of middle-aged and older adults found that those who engaged in more moderate to vigorous physical activity (such as jogging or cycling) performed better on memory tests the next day. This suggests that the memory effects of physical activity may last longer than the few hours previously found. laboratory-based research.

Our study included 76 participants aged 50 to 83 years. Each participant wore a wrist-worn activity tracker day and night for eight days. They were instructed to carry out their daily activities as normal. These activity trackers told us how much time participants spent sitting or moving each day, and how intense their physical activity was.

The same goes for physical activity, affects sleep quality – In particular, the time spent in the deepest and most restorative sleep stage, called slow-wave sleep – We were also interested in investigating the role of sleep in cognitive performance. We extracted sleep quality features from activity trackers, including total sleep time and time spent in slow-wave sleep.

Each day, participants wore an activity tracker and also took a series of cognitive tests. Some of these cognitive tests assessed episodic memory (the ability to recall previous experiences) and working memory (the ability to temporarily store information in the mind). The types of cognitive tests given to participants were alternated each day to reduce the chance that participants would learn and remember the answers.

We wanted to reliably separate the effects of physical activity and sleep on next-day cognitive performance. Therefore, we took into account a number of demographic, socio-economic, and lifestyle characteristics that could skew the results. We also considered participants' previous cognitive scores each day to ensure a focus on daily improvements in cognitive performance.

memory boost

They found that the more time participants spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity, the better their episodic and working memory scores the next day. More sleep, especially slow-wave sleep, was also associated with improved memory scores, independent of physical activity. However, sedentary people had worse working memory scores the next day.

Although the improvement in memory was relatively gradual, none of the participants had cognitive impairment or dementia. So, realistically, there wasn't much room to improve these tests in the first place.

However, these results could be a starting point for future studies examining next-day cognitive performance in people with neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia, which could potentially show significant improvements in test scores. be. These findings also need to be replicated in larger studies to be confident.

The short-term cognitive effects of exercise are thought to occur because exercise stimulates blood flow and promotes the release of certain brain chemicals. Contributes to cognitive function. It is generally thought that these neurochemical benefits last for several hours after exercise. However, it also includes other changes induced by exercise. related to memory function — Can last 24 to 48 hours after exercise. This may underlie the results found in our study.

Our findings demonstrate the importance of maintaining an active lifestyle as we age and supporting this active lifestyle with quality sleep.