Exercise has indeed been shown to improve brain health and cognition and reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia in the long term. But what about everyday activities? This research shows that practicing daily physical activity also has immediate benefits for brain health: for example, a walk in the middle of the day or doing household chores can also improve the speed of cognitive processing and “gain up to at 4 years of cognitive age”.
Lead author Dr. Jonathan Hakun, professor of neurology and psychology at Penn State, adds: “We slow down as we age, both physically and cognitively. The idea here is that we can momentarily counteract this through movement. Our results are really convincing: a brief walk or a little extra exercise can give a real boost ».
Previous research has examined the relationship between physical activity and cognitive health, but in the long term, this study focuses instead on the possible short-term impact.
Counteract age-related slowdown with movement
The study leverages smartphone technology to interact with 204 participants multiple times during their typical daily lives. For 9 days, participants indicated 6 times per day, or approximately every 3.5 hours, whether they had been physically active since their last check-up. If they were active, they were asked to rate the intensity of their activity – light, moderate or vigorous. Then they were also asked to play 2 “brain games,” one designed to assess cognitive processing speed and the other to assess working memory, a good indicator of executive function.
The analysis finds that middle-aged people who perform activities either movements Daily activities benefit from an improvement in cognitive processing speed equivalent to that of 4 years of cognitive age, even if the activity in question is low intensity.
“Every movement is important. Daily movement counts as physical activity associated with a healthy lifestyle and can also have a direct impact on cognitive health.
Precisely,
- participants who had been physically active in the previous 3.5 hours showed improvements in processing speed equivalent to 4 years younger;
- if no improvement is observed in working memory, the response time during the working memory task validates the improvements observed in processing speed;
- Finally, participants who reported being active more often perceived greater short-term benefits than those practicing less physical activity in general.
We slow down as we age, both physically and cognitively. The idea here is that
we can momentarily counteract this through movement.
It is therefore possible that a simple daily activity can change the situation.
Health
