Can’t find your keys? Try yoga: Just 10 minutes of light exercise a day instantly boosts memory organization
- We already knew exercise boosts the brain by triggering new brain cells
- But this study by Californian and Japanese scientists shows a quicker effect
- They found even light exercise is enough to strengthen connections in the brain
Just 10 minutes of exercise a day could help your brain to better organize your memories.
Over time, connections between parts of the brain weaken, making it harder to distinguish between similar events in your mind.
When you’ve lost your keys, for example, it can become increasingly difficult to decipher whether it was this morning or last week that you left them in your pocket.
However, new research from the University of California, Irvine and Japan’s University of Tsukaba found that even light exercises like tai chi or yoga can have a transformative impact on the part of the brain responsible for storing and organizing memories.
While it has long been known that exercise is good for the brain, this study shows the very immediate benefits.
Previously, it was not clear that exercise could affect the brain so quickly
The small study involved 36 healthy adults in their early 20s.
In the first part of the study, they were each prescribed 10 minutes of exercise, after which they would be monitored with MRI scans.
In the second part, they repeated the test but without exercise.
According to the study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found a clear improvement in the connections in the regions that control detailed memory processing, the hippocampal dentate gyrus and cortical areas.
In turn, that boost in connectivity made them more likely to remember certain things from the day before.
‘The hippocampus is critical for the creation of new memories; it’s one of the first regions of the brain to deteriorate as we get older – and much more severely in Alzheimer’s disease,’ said project co-leader Michael Yassa, UCI professor and Chancellor’s Fellow of neurobiology & behavior.
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‘Improving the function of the hippocampus holds much promise for improving memory in everyday settings.’
Previously, it was not clear that exercise could affect the brain so quickly.
We knew that exercise boosted the production of new brain cells, but that takes time.
According to Dr Yassa, director of UCI’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and the recently launched UCI Brain Initiative, this study doesn’t disprove what we already knew: they are likely separates processes.
‘We don’t discount the possibility that new cells are being born, but that’s a process that takes a bit longer to unfold,’ he said.
‘What we observed is that these 10-minute periods of exercise showed results immediately afterward.’
‘It’s encouraging to see more people keeping track of their exercise habits – by monitoring the number of steps they’re taking, for example,’ he said.
‘Even short walking breaks throughout the day may have considerable effects on improving memory and cognition.’
Next, Dr Yassa and his colleagues intend to examine older adults who are at greater risk of age-related mental impairment with long-term interventions to determine what amount of exercise, and how regular, has the strongest impact on the brain.
‘Clearly, there is tremendous value to understanding the exercise prescription that best works in the elderly so that we can make recommendations for staving off cognitive decline,’ he said.
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