Physical activity can lead to a temporary memory boost
The findings point to the importance of maintaining active lifestyles as we age – and supporting this active lifestyle with good sleep.
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What’s good for your heart is good for your brain. Just as physical activity helps keep our bodies fit and strong as we age, it also helps maintain our cognitive function – and is even linked with lower dementia risk.
Yet beyond the longer term cognitive benefits of physical activity, exercise also seems to give a short-term boost to cognitive performance lasting from minutes to hours. According to our latest study, this cognitive boost may last up to 24-hours after exercising. Because some cognitive abilities start to decline as we get older, even small boosts to cognitive function can help keep us active and independent for longer.
Studies conducted both in the lab and real-world settings have shown that people who are more physically active – whether that’s in the form of structured workouts or they just do more activity in their day-to-day lives – perform better on cognitive tests in the hours after exercising.
But one question researchers are still trying to answer is how long these cognitive benefits last – particularly in older adults, where maintaining cognitive function is very important. This is what our research aimed to do.
In our study of middle-aged and older adults, we found that people who did more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (such as jogging or cycling) performed...
