Everyday physical activity, akin to a brief walk or fidgeting with your kids, can provide short-term cognitive health advantages, reminiscent of reversing cognitive aging by 4 years. This was a vital insight for my colleagues and me our recent studywhich was published within the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
Before enrolling in a Examination of nutrition and dementia riskwe asked a various sample of 204 middle-aged adults to ascertain in via a smartphone application five times a day over a nine-day period.
At each check-in, a brief survey was administered asking participants about their mood, dietary habits, and whether or not they had exercised within the roughly three and a half hours before the survey. In addition, participants accomplished a series of short brain games—performance-based cognitive assessments that lasted a couple of minute each—to evaluate mental speed and short-term memory.
My team found that performance on our measure of cognitive processing speed during check-in improved when participants reported being physically lively within the period before the survey. While we didn't see any improvements in our measure of working memory, the time needed to finish the memory task mirrored what we saw in our measure of processing speed.
We observed these speed improvements no matter whether the activity was of sunshine or moderate-to-vigorous intensity. This led us to conclude that exercise, whether in the shape of conscious physical activity or as a part of a every day routine, was the essential think about achieving this profit.
Why it matters
Still, these guidelines and other experts recommend adults Move more and sit less.
My colleagues and I would like to know how increasing exercise can improve our cognitive health or reduce our risk of dementia as we age, when these advantages change into apparent, and what kinds of exercise are appropriate.
What shouldn’t be yet known
Our study relied on participants reporting whether or not they were physically lively within the period between each check-in. Although participants were trained to take into consideration intensity levels, it is feasible that every participant had a rather different perception of their activities.
For example, a participant may not have believed that their most up-to-date walk was actually a moderate-intensity activity. Physical activity monitors that may separate time and intensity could help future research unravel these relationships more clearly.
What's next?
It's not yet clear whether these short-term advantages will add up over time and result in long-term improvements in brain health and a discount in dementia risk. Our team is currently conducting research to higher understand these relationships over longer periods of time.
My research involves collecting data via smartphones and wearable devices to assist us higher understand how health-promoting behaviors and cognitive health interact with age. This variety of digital approach allows my team to explore questions on how on a regular basis behavior and experiences influence cognition in every day life and represents a big methodological advance in the sector of dementia risk and prevention research.
Using these tools, we aim to higher discover individuals in danger for negative cognitive outcomes and recent targets for dementia prevention.
image credit : theconversation.com