• Regular exercise is good for brain health.
• Past studies show the ‘boost’ the brain receives from physical activity normally peaks within the first 10 to 20 minutes.
• Researchers from University College London have now found that the exercise-caused improvement to cognitive performance may actually last for 24 hours.
• Scientists also linked sitting less and getting 6 or more hours of sleep to better memory test scores the next day.

Previous research shows that the “boost” the brain receives from exercise typically peaks within the first 10 to 20 minutes.

Now, researchers from University College London, in the United Kingdom, have found that the exercise-related improvement to cognitive performance may actually last for 24 hours.

Scientists also linked sitting less and getting 6 or more hours of sleep — especially additional REM sleep and deep sleep — to better memory test scores the next day.

For this study, researchers recruited 76 adults between the ages of 50 and 83 that had no diagnosis of dementia or cognitive impairment.

Each participant wore a wrist accelerometer for 8 days to track their physical and sedentary behavior, as well as their sleep patterns.

“Because our cognitive function declines as we age, and having good cognitive function is important for quality of life and independence, we want to continue to understand optimal ways to modify our lifestyle to maintain good cognitive function for as long as possible,” Mikaela Bloomberg, PhD, senior research fellow in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London, and lead author of this study told Medical News Today.

“We know from laboratory-based studies that we get a cognitive boost in the minutes to hours following a bout of exercise,” Bloomberg continued. “We wanted to see whether this benefit might last longer than a couple hours, particularly in a group of older adults where maintenance of cognitive function is particularly important, and outside a laboratory setting.”

Upon analysis, Bloomberg and her team found that more moderate or vigorous exercise — compared to a person’s average — was correlated to an improved working memory (the ability to retain information while doing something else) and episodic memory (recalling everyday events) the next day.

Conversely, researchers discovered that being more sedentary led to decreased working memory the next day.

“Exercise stimulates blood flow and neurotransmitters that contribute to cognitive function,” Bloomberg explained. “[These findings mean] that the memory benefits of physical activity might last longer than previously established from laboratory-based studies.”

The researchers also found that study participants receiving 6 or more hours of sleep had better episodic memory and psychomotor speed compared to those who slept less.

They further found that every 30 additional minutes of REM sleep the previous night was associated with an increase in participants’ attention scores.

Moreover, each 30-minute increase in slow-wave sleep — also called deep sleep — was correlated to improved episodic memory score.

“Sleep and physical activity are intrinsically linked behaviors; we can’t consider physical activity without taking sleep into account which is why we also considered sleep,” Bloomberg said. “This finding reiterates what is already known about sleep and next-day memory function.”

“It will be interesting as a next step to undertake similar research in a group of adults that is less cognitively healthy than the group we studied, to see whether we see different results,” she added.

“Among older adults, maintaining cognitive function is important for good quality of life, well-being, and independence,” Andrew Steptoe, PhD, professor of psychology and epidemiology and head of the Research Department of Behavioral Science and Health at University College London and co-author of this study said in a press release. “It’s therefore helpful to identify factors that can affect cognitive health on a day-to-day basis.”

“This study provides evidence that the immediate cognitive benefits of exercise may last longer than we thought,” Steptoe continued.

“It also suggests good sleep quality separately contributes to cognitive performance. However, we can’t establish from this study whether these short-term boosts to cognitive performance contribute to longer term cognitive health and though there is plenty of evidence to suggest physical activity might slow cognitive decline and reduce dementia risk, it’s still a matter of some debate,” he cautioned.

MNT also spoke with Ryan Glatt, CPT, NBC-HWC, senior brain health coach and director of the FitBrain Program at Pacific Neuroscience Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, about this study.

“While intriguing, the study is small and limited in its generalizability,” Glatt, who was not involved in the research, told us. “The connection between physical activity, sleep, and next-day cognitive benefits warrants further exploration with a larger and more diverse sample.”

“Exercise and sleep are both modifiable lifestyle factors, which means their optimization could have significant implications for cognitive aging and public health interventions. However, more robust evidence is needed to establish these effects over longer periods. Future research should include larger sample sizes, diverse populations — including those with cognitive impairments — and longer follow-up periods to determine if short-term cognitive benefits translate into sustained improvements or reduced cognitive decline.”

– Ryan Glatt, CPT, NBC-HWC

Advertisement

Finally, MNT spoke withVernon Williams, MD, a sports neurologist, and the founding director of the Center for Sports Neurology and Pain Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles, about this study.