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.
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This is a very interesting and understandable study, and it is applicable to every individual. It is vital to stay fit, because our memory system affects how we live. Memory controls learning, association and inference. It is not situated in one part of the brain, but rather a brain-wide process in which several different areas of the brain act in conjunction with one another. Exercise stimulates the brain areas that are involved in memory function to release a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which improves memory circuits. Fortunately exercise has other advantages, such as increasing energy levels and reducing the risk of diseases, therefore every person should make exercise a regular part of their lifestyle.
I agree that aerobic activity ie. running in the treadmill improves an individual’s long term memory. However the aerobic system is used over a prolonged period of time, therefore resulting in stress on an individual’s mental capacity, as this system is from greater than 2 minutes to a few hours. There have been hypotheses inferred that anaerobic activity also results in an improvement in an individual’s long-term memory. As a student, would it be of greater benefit if aerobic and anaerobic activity is used in conjunction with each other, to lead to an overall improvement in our long-term memory?
In 2011, me and my friend started a strategy of going to gym at least two times a week if not once. As students it helped a lot in our studies, going to gym also helped us to have a better time management skill. This article is really related to what happened to me and my friend. By the end of the year 2012, I started realizing that I’m living a better life, my fitness, my grade 12 results were even better than I expected.
Working out can also help fade some of the dangerous diseases away, Hearts problems, high blood and some other dangerous diseases can be caused by obesity. Exercising helps, I am a witness.
I agree to the claim made. I too, realized that. In my 13 years of studying, exercise helped me tremendously. To add on, exercise increases the heart beat which leads to increased breathing. This helps with more oxygen molecules for the brain. Thus, the brain gets one of its most important resources. It is known that the brain is the most ‘selfish’ organ in the body. It demands a lot of nutrients. Exercise, amongst other things, helps the brain achieve this.
Exercise is really for the brain, not the body. It affects mood, vitality, alertness, and feelings of well-being. I found studies of children, who ran around for 15 to 45 minutes before class and cut their ants-in-the-pants behavior by half when they got to class, and also preliminary animal research that suggests that exercise can cause new stem cells to grow, refreshing the brain and other body parts. Physical activity affects the number of new brain cells and impacts its ability to remember things.
This finding could also prove significant for potentially using exercise as an intervention for mental illness. Experiments in laboratory rats with ADHD-like behavior revealed that exercise was able to reduce the extent of these behaviors. You can also observe that in the same way as exercise affects male and female children with ADHD differently, exercise also proves more beneficial for female rats than males. Thus making the factors differ from your gender.
Dynamics of how exercise appears to improve learning and memory, the ‘brain derived neurotrophic factor’ (BDNF), which plays a role in the developing brains’ grow. There are discoveries that BDNF expression in exercising rats was positively connected with improved memory; and observed that the effects of exercising as an adolescent were longer lasting compared with adults who exercised for the same duration. (Medical News Today)
Daily exercising have so much more benefits in it for us. Not only are we able to look good, and feel good about ourselves – it relieves stress and also is a great “exercise” for our brain.
This is really interesting how physical fitness and mental fitness are linked ,living to the saying a healthy mind a healthy body , since the study included college students and measured they brain capacity , and the study concluded that physical fitness and mental fitness are directly proportion so why is that college students mostly have the worst diet in their age group and are not physically active as much as they should and further most become obese during they studies but still maintain they average even do their work gets harder and grows in proportion. This situation is highly contradictive to the article or is the exception the idea.
This is really interesting how physical fitness and mental fitness are linked ,living to the saying a healthy mind a healthy body , since the study included college students and measured they brain capacity , and the study concluded that physical fitness and mental fitness are directly proportion so why is that college students mostly have the worst diet in their age group and are not physically active as much as they should and further most become obese during they studies but still maintain they average even do their work gets harder and grows in proportion. This situation is highly contradictive to the article or is the an exception.
In 2011, me and my friend started a strategy of going to gym at least two times a week if not once. As students it helped a lot in our studies, going to gym also helped us to have a better time management skill. This article is really related to what happened to me and my friend. By the end of the year 2012, I started realizing that I’m living a better life, my fitness, my grade 12 results were even better than I expected.
Working out can also help fade some of the dangerous diseases away, Hearts problems, high blood and some other dangerous diseases can be caused by obesity. Exercising helps, I am a witness.
This makes sense as when you do Cardio you tend to be thinner and healthier (no offense to overweight people) thus are more awake and focused.
Now it sort of makes sense to me, when I was in Secondary school I used to exercise daily, pumping weights and running 2kms every day. This had a tremendous boost in my energy levels and thus my focus and attention span at school work. I remember that yes most definitely I was more diligent and my memory was much more better, but as you know one gets caught up in work and life so one becomes lazy to commit to such activity so as a consequence my ability to remember things did decrease. This only proves to me that I should definitely take time out to train daily.
This is very true, I exercise every day and I do just simple exercises and this really has improved my memory and concentration. What makes this amazing is simple exercise like taking the stairs and walking to the mall to do grocery shopping has the same effect and less time consuming. I started exercising while I was in matric at the end of last year and my marks improved in the last quarter. I used to study the whole day and I would forget all the things I studied at the beginning of the book due to not exercising at all and this wasted my time as I had to go back and reread. Therefore I advise everyone to try and fit in the exercise in their schedule and they will love the results. Being in good shape and achieving good marks it is a great feeling
I have found that excessive physically exhaustion can also lead to less satisfactory cognitive function. I’v made this assumption through my personal experience as someone who is physically active. I believe a healthy diet would be something to help as a positive reinforcement to study. So i believe that you should have a healthy diet and lifestyle to help with brain functionality and that weight doesn’t determent your cognitive functionality.
I can relate to the information published in this study and agree that excercise boosts memory. It makes logical sense that individuals who are more physically active will have better information retention in that when you ecxercise it improves bloodflow and oxgyen-flow to all parts of the body- including the brain. Excercise is also known to relieve stress and tension which inhibit clear thought and information recall, which leads to ‘blanking-out’ in a test. This used to happen to me regularly throughout my final year at high school, as I had cut-out most physical activity to devote more time to my academic work. The result that came about was the opposite to what I was trying to achieve and my marks decreased. I started to take up sports at a social level and not only did my marks increase but I felt better overall. Excerise is always a good solution and a allows for a good break from work and can be done as a social activity with friends. Great article
I believe that this theory requires more specific testing.
Possible methods to increase legitimateness of this statement include:
1) Wider population spectrum
2) These tests were conducted in the US, why not make it international and involve other backgrounds?
In addition, this statement, as i believe , raises certain questions like: What specific weight does a person must achieve, in relation to his age group, for his memory to suffer?
Is it the same for both sexes? (i believe, even though this is stated in the description above, it is not properly explained.)
Is it the same for all ethnic backgrounds?
Until these factors are achieved, this statement will remain, at least in my point of view, as a mere theory.
I have recently been told that I’m gaining weight every week so now I have the perfect excuse to start jogging and exercising as examinations are approaching.
During my Matric year; whenever I had to learn for a test I started by: taking a jog around the block, drank lots of water in the process to increase oxygen circulation in the blood and I ate fruit and vegetables, thus my brain would remain active for a longer period and increased my memory span.
I believe that fat people are lazy and do not want to push themselves and their brain’s memory span to remember what they have been taught; they lack oxygen in their blood and do not eat the right food ie. veggies, fruit and water whilst studying and that’s why they would suffer memory loss
I can really relate to this. I remember when I was busy with my finals in my matric year , I made it a priority to get atleast an hour’s exercise in daily, and this really boosted my focusing and study skills , and I was able to understand and remember my work a lot easier.
Exercising can also help with depression and this can be linked with being able to study and boosting your memory. Aerobic fitness is especially important as it allows your heart to pump a good supply of blood to the brain.
Exercising can only be beneficial to you .I feel that everyone should atleast try some form of exercise, even if it’s just walking around the block.
I believe that this theory requires more specific testing.
Possible methods to increase legitimateness of this statement include:
1) Wider population spectrum
2) These tests were conducted in the US, why not make it international and involve other backgrounds?
In addition, this statement, as i believe , raises certain questions like: What specific wieght does a person must achieve, in realtion to his age group, for his memory to suffer?
Is it the same for both sexes? (i believe, even though this is stated in the description above, it is not properly explained.)
Is it the same for all ethnic backgounds?
This study that was made is very important especially for students , we did the same study when I was in high school about the age of 14 , I’m addicted to sport and training if you can call it that and during my primary school days and high school days I never had trouble with concentration , because I was in the pool training for about 4 hours a day . At the age of 14 I had a terrible accident and couldn’t train for 3 months , my concentration levels dropped rapidly in that time.
If you don’t do sport and also don’t train you think you have all the time to study , but having all that time is bad , because then you never really make time to study where as when you do sport you plan your time and you know you only have a certain amount of time to study and in that time your brain concentrates more , because it knows it only has a certain amount of time to study and then your brain is also full of oxygen making you concentration levels higher.
From a young age it’s very important to do as much sport as possible , then rather just sitting around at home after school and thinking that you’re going to study.
I can relate to this. I’m a college student and I started exercising at the beginning of the second quarter of this semester and my current marks are better than my first quarter marks. Exercising does really help guys. You should really try it. You get in shape and help your memory. Killing two birds with one stone.
Every time I read about how exercise can boost your memory capabilities, I am always amazed!
According to a study done by the Department of Exercise Science at the University of Georgia, exercising briefly, for approximately 20 minutes gives rise to information processing and memory functions. Moreover, another study conducted from UCLA shows that aerobic exercise increase growth factors in the brain making it possible for it to grow new neuronal connections.
Therefore, here is a great reason why young adults should stay in shape and keep the blood flowing all the way to the brain; an increase in grades is guaranteed if diligent enough to put the necessary effort in!
It makes sense that individuals who are fitter and have lower body fat percentages will have better long term memory on average, when we take into consideration that fitter individuals have stronger hearts and are thus able to circulate more blood around their bodies with less beats. Fitter individuals are also better at using the oxygen that they breath, taking fewer breaths per minute on average than less fit and overweight individuals. Taking all this into account, the heart of fit individuals will be able to get more oxygen to the brain per beat and thus, this will allow the brain to function better. Another thing to remember is that people who are fit are generally exercising daily or at least 3 to 4 times a week, and studies have shown that people who exercise regularly have less stress. This in turn can account for better long term memory as stress leads to memory loss. (http://www.webmd.com/brain/memory-loss) Is a good article to read regarding this topic. Thus I would say stay fit and eat healthy for better memory retention.