Here’s another reason to drop that doughnut and hit the treadmill: A new study suggests aerobic fitness affects long-term memory.
Michigan State University researchers tested 75 college students during a two-day period and found those who were less fit had a harder time retaining information.
“The findings show that lower-fit individuals lose more memory across time,” said Kimberly Fenn, study co-author and assistant professor of psychology.
The study, which appears online in the research journal Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, is one of the first to investigate young, supposedly healthy adults. Previous research on fitness and memory has focused largely on children, whose brains are still developing, and the elderly, whose memories are declining.
Participants studied related word pairs such as “camp” and “trail.” The next day, they were tested on the word pairs to evaluate long-term memory retention. Long-term memory is anything remembered more than about 30 seconds ago.
Aerobic fitness was gauged by oxygen consumption derived from a treadmill test and factored with the participants’ weight, percent body fat, age and sex.
The findings speak to the increasingly sedentary lifestyles found in the United States and other Western cultures. A surprising number of the college students in the study were significantly out of shape and did much worse at retaining information than those who were extremely fit, Fenn said.
Her co-authors included kinesiology researchers Matthew Pontifex and Karin Pfeiffer.
Wow!.. Somethings we overlook are so important. I totally agree with the above passage as it is so important to take care of our memory by taking care of our brain. A strong memory depends on the health and vitality your brain. Your ability to remember increases when you nurture your brain with a good diet and healthy habits. Physical exercise which we take as “time consuming” increases oxygen to your brain and reduce the risk for disorders that lead to memory loss and can also enhance effects of helpful brain chemicals and protect brain cells. So next time you think of changing your study pattern which you might see not working for you, consider checking on your diet and exercise pattern.
Take care of the minor things and have the major ones taken care of by just getting rid of that doughnut and getting on that treadmill.
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I totally agree to the statement because a healthy body equals a healthy mind.I say so because when fit and healthy one’s concentration is at a high level meaning that it is easier to absorb information as when unhealthy with the reason being the fact that when healthy, the amount oxygen entering your cerebrum is more than when unfit.
It is quite advisable to students that they should embark to exercise as it helps with distressing, health control and mental strength.More than 50% of students who are fit and healthy turn to achieve good marks in school due to their mental strength.
During exams exercise would help improve one’s participation and help boost one into reaching their goal.Exercise in an indirect manner teaches one responsibility which is one of the key tools towards success.
Exercise is good for both the mind and the body. Subjects such as Life orientation are encouraged at schools so that learners may be active, have more energy and be able to participate in school activities.
A good work-out in the evening would result in a good concentration level when you have to study. Don’t mess it up with the wrong food, and you wont regret.
Well this has been an interesting article. This article builds a connection between Memory loss and fitness, I believe this is a very hard thing to test and prove, although it is true that the level of fitness does affect all body functions including our brains I find it hard to believe that memory span can be affected by our level of fitness. The level of remembering things is different in all of us, it is an individual thing, no two people have exactly the same memory span in any given time, there are multiple factors that affect our memory span, our health, and diet are one of these factors, attempting to prove that a single factor can exponentially affect memory loss is a daunting task, nearly impossible to prove efficiently.
People should keep fit for a healthy mind and body.
I agree completely with this concept that your cognitive ability is influenced by your physical activities. It makes sense to say that people who exercise and are fit has a better chance to remember their work more effectively. If I taken myself as an example, if I go to the gym and exercise, I feel that I have more energy and I find that after a workout I learn my work better and faster, so that alone proves to me that when I have exercised my ability to memorize is faster and the work seems easier to me. So I definitely agree with this blog and I think that it is so necessary that much more people see this information because it can motivate so many children especially the children at a critical age where their weight is starting to get affected by hormonal changes and changes in their body as well. So I think that if more children (grown ups as well) see this blog, it will encourage them so much to exercise to not only maintain a healthy lifestyle but also see a drastic improvement in their academics. The percentage of healthy living people will increase as well as school’s academic performances (the student’s performances will also of course show improvement).
Physical fitness has been known to help induce greater memory skills and this is quite vital for any individual, not only to stay in good shape and remain physically fit while maintaining a good and healthy lifestyle, but also to help maintain a well-balanced cognitive ability and memory skill for greater academic functionality.
Cardiovascular fitness helps keep one’s memory sharper with age. Physical fitness helps in a great deal to improve one’s health and it may be beneficial for any individual. It also helps with improving brain health as brain blood flow is increased while exercising, meaning more blood reaches your brain and your brain receives more oxygen to help improve its functioning abilities.
Exercising prevents cognitive ability decline as you age that is also associated with Alzheimer’s Disease Fitness is a vital tool to maintain a healthy body, a healthy mind and a good memory, with age, while preventing cognitive decline.
There is no doubt that exercise has an impact on brain functioning as it does on the body. As some of the other bloggers have already stated,other external factors including a healthy diet,sleep etc. play a major role. Does exercise improve long-term memory?
It is debatable. If we approach this question on a nonscientific level,we can agree that such things obviously have different effects on different people. For me personally,having been involved in a number of sporting activities,hockey,athletics,and even rugby for 16 years running,i can say that day after day exercise did not alter any change in long neither short term memory.
There is no doubt that exercise has an impact on brain functioning as it does on the body. As some of the other bloggers have already stated,other external factors including a healthy diet,sleep etc. play a major role. Does exercise improve long-term memory?
It is debatable. If we approach this question on a nonscientific level,we can agree that such things obviously have different effects on different people. For me personally,having been involved in a number of sporting activities,hockey,athletics,and even rugby for 16 years running,i can say that day after day exercise did not alter any change in long neither short term memory.
There is no possible doubt about the theory that was just proposed. Physical fitness can affect the mentality of an individual. According to educational experts, physical fitness improve concentration level.
I also start my day with a brain gym that of a dance routine just to wake up my mind. This then makes my brain more ready to learn.
Finding also reveals that staying physically fit has been found to help people to maintain memory longer enough.As people get older ,their memory skills deteriorate and to ward-off this effect physical exercise is required.
This is an interesting topic, we all know that exercising improve your body and make you healthy and a healthy body goes with a healthy mind. Hormones release fat in the body that can cause inflammation that could affect cognition. Lots of fats in the body can restrict blood flow to the brain which will affect your memory. So having so much fat in your body can cause memory loss. Losing weight is one way of improving your memory.
I agree with the results shown by these studies, it is very important to keep your body functioning at its optimal best to have the best possible recollection power. However like u14150400 commented, memory is not solely affected by the extent of exercise, other factors such as diet and external environment also play a large role in the effectiveness of the brain’s ability to store information.
Exercise does however still add a large contribution, studies done by The Center for BrainHealth and by the New York University School of Medicine show that increased blood to the hippocampus of the brain (area of the brain used memory recollection) ,caused by Aerobic exercise,can improve the treatment Alzheimer’s disease, and increase overall long term spatial memory.
Not only does does exercising increase blood flow to important parts of the brain but it also helps maintain a healthy weight.
A healthy weight means that the body can maintain its glucose regulation levels and this furthermore aids in the improvement of a person’s memory. As patients with a greater glucose regulation develop a larger hippocampus than those compared with lower glucose regulation levels.
Furthermore many hormones are released during exercise which aid in providing a healthy environment for new brain cells to develop.
To conclude, the saying “a healthy body is a healthy mind” reigns true in more ways than one as science has helped prove this statement many times over.
I agree with the theory above. A healthy body = a healthy mind. I find that when I exercise more and eat healthy I have a lot more energy and think more clearly. My brain feels “fresh” and I remember things more. It makes retaining information easier and increases blood levels which pumps more oxygen to your brain. Everything is great for you when done in moderation, it is about getting the balance right.
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I agree with what is said in this article above. I try to exercise everyday to keep in shape and healthy, and I can honestly say the days that I cannot exercise and have to work or study I find it difficult to concentrate and I have to spend longer on some concepts. Exercising puts more oxygen in your body and therefore your brain as well and you can think more clearly and improve your long term memory.
Keeping in shape doesn’t only improve your health, but also your long term memory. So keep exercising!
There is no doubt that exercise does improve memory as exercising allows the brain to concentrate on anything other than retaining information. Additionally, it increases your heart rate and therefore more oxygen is pumped to your brain.
I’d like to comment on 14008654 FR Ntsitsi’s comment as I believe that the article does not necessarily state that exercise is the determining factor for academic success. It merely improves your long term memory. Therefore although the nerd (as mentioned by 14008654 FR Ntsitsi) does not exercise as much as the jock, the nerd will still receive better grades as the amount of exercise will not drastically alter this.
I agree with the theory up to a certain point.There is no doubt that exercise in moderate amounts is good for you .Surpassing these sufficient amounts could be harmful to your body as well as your brain.Exercise releases good endorphins which could rid you of tense feelings due to stress .Exercise could enhance your concentration levels.
However from an academical point of view -The nerd has far better memory than the jock.What is the explanation for this ? The nerd who’s exercise is walking up the school stairs definitely does not exercise as much as the jock whose training is a major priority in his life.When looking at memory one can not merely look at the exercising regimes ,you have to look beyond that.How are the people’s eating habits(there are certain foods which are said to be good for memory)?How many hours of sleep do they get in?There are many factors which lead to good memory abilities.The theory does make a great point .There is no doubt that exercise is good for you and your concentration but the influence on your memory is to be further tested.
I undoubtedly agree with this research. Physical exercise is good for our memory and health. Related studies have shown that exercise has a lot of effects on the brain and those influences include increase in neurotransmitter levels, improved oxygen and nutrient delivery. I believe exercise has important implications in our lives because it improves our academic performance, maintains our mental abilities, prevents neurological diseases it even has the potential to cure them so people “drop that doughnut and hit the treadmill”
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I don’t entirely believe that memory retention is based on a person’s increasing blood flow to the brain and oxygen intake as a result to exersice. How does one the explain how geniuses retain their memory so incredibly when most of them are not necessarily exersicing people? Keep in mind that their memory retention is of a higher level than an average person
The theory stated, I believe, is very true. Fitness and concentration go hand in hand and therefore, so does memory. I train seven days a week for at least half an hour. Some say that I spend too much time training and should rather spend that time studying, but if I don’t get my daily exercise in, I struggle to focus and find myself procrastinating often. As some of the previous comments show, studies have proven this.
The studies also prove that concentration and overall brain function is improved by exercise, making studying much more effective when combined with physical activity. Thus, with the ability to concentrate properly while studying, you are able to interpret concepts and therefore remember with a lot less effort, for long term memory is mainly based on interpretation.
Thus fitness will not only get you into good shape, but will definitely improve your long term memory too.