JOG YOUR MEMORY WITH EXERCISE

THERE is exciting news for those of us who want to fight against losing our mental faculties.

In a 2010 study published in the journal JAMA Neurology, researchers asked a group of people who were starting to forget things or who were regularly repeating themselves to try aerobic exercise for 45 to 60 minutes a week for six months. A control group was instructed simply to stretch.

Memory tests were performed before and after the study, and the researchers found that in the control (stretching) group, cognitive function continued to decline.

Things were very different for the exercising group, however. Their brain function didn’t only stabilise, it improved, with people answering more test answers correctly after six months than they had done before.

Subsequent studies using MRI scans have found aerobic exercise can reverse age-related shrinkage in the memory centres of the brain. No such effect was found for stretching, toning or non-aerobic strength-training control groups.

Aerobic exercise can help improve cerebral blood flow, increase memory performance and help preserve brain tissue. It’s just one of many life-lengthening reasons exercise takes such an important place among my Daily Dozen.