Boost your memory with exercise

NEW Australian research has found that exercise could help us remember information, adding to the growing body of evidence that working out could be a useful tool for learning.

Carried out by the University of New South Wales (UNSW), the team recruited 265 participants across four experiments, and asked them to perform either five minutes of low-impact step aerobics after learning, or no exercise after learning.

In three out of four of the experiments, the participants learned which male names paired with male faces.

The participants were then tested on what they had been shown, and were asked to try and remember which name paired with which face.

Although the strength of the effect of exercise varied between experiments, the team found that the women who did step exercise after learning remembered the material better than those who did no exercise.

However, the study’s first author Dr Steven Most was surprised to find that the exercise only affected the learning skills of the female participants.

“Mysteriously, this effect did not emerge among men in any of the experiments,” commented Dr Most.

“It’s unclear whether this is a true sex difference, or whether there was something about the experiment conditions (such as the fact that the experiment involved remembering male names) that allowed the effect to emerge among women, and not men.”

Most added that results might have been different if more of the faces shown to the participants were women’s.

The findings suggest that schools, and potentially even nursing homes for seniors, could use exercise to boost memory and recalling information.

Most commented: “Some schools are under pressure to cut back on recess in order to increase time in the classroom, but it may be that encouraging physical activity breaks at several points during the day can actually help with the retention of classroom learning.” – AFP-Relaxnews