The Right Kind Of Exercise Can Help Improve Your Memory, Research Shows
According to new research, doing aerobic and/or cardio exercise is an easy way for someone to help give their memory an instant boost when trying to learn new information.
It’s been known for a while that exercise boosts cognition in general. Physical activity helps improve how well we perform tasks while simultaneously strengthening our brain areas that are vulnerable to aging. It’s also been shown that exercise helps slow down cognitive decline.
Physical activity and exercise can help strengthen the hippocampus, which is the area of the brain most important for memory. Moderate exercise a few times a week has been found to increase the size of the hippocampus.
Other studies, according to BBC, have shown that the timing of the exercise can make a difference in memory retention as well. One example showed that going on a walk for four hours directly after learning something new can help you remember the information better. Stretching exercises, however, did not show any relation to an improvement in memory.
Neuroscientists recently published their research in Oxford Academic, which followed 14 people’s brain activity immediately after exercise. They found that their brains had tiny bursts of electrical activity between neurons, which are important for storing memories.
Known as “brain ripples,” these bursts are a phenomenon where many neurons activate together, according to Michelle Voss, a neuroscientist at the University of Iowa who led the study.
She explained that the neurons “play a key role in how the brain packages and stores memories during sleep and periods of quiet rest,” BBC reported.
The team of researchers monitored the brains of participants to see what would happen after a brief burst of activity. They found that after exercise there was a spike in ripples in the hippocampus and the surrounding areas attached to it.
“These pulses were also more finely synchronised with neural activity in the rest of the brain,” Voss said.
Voss and her team collaborated with neurosurgeons who monitor electrical activity in patients who were going through evaluation for epilepsy surgery. The patients temporarily had electrodes implanted in their brains so the teams could observe activity before and after exercising.
“That presents us with a unique opportunity to understand how the human brain works with direct measurements of electrical signalling, which is the primary currency of how the brain works,” Voss stated.
Voss is hoping that overall this research will further fuel the reframing of public health messaging regarding physical activity, aging, and memory retention. She also hopes that it will inspire more research that can help protect our brains from cognitive decline.
Another study found that the more we exercise, the more our brains benefit, even after a single workout.
“There’s a reason to stay active because you will benefit more every time,” says Flaminia Ronca, an exercise physiology researcher at University College London in the UK, who led the study.
“If you stick with exercise for six weeks, you will reap bigger benefits from any further sessions.”
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
