I used to think I was just stupid and had poor memory, but if what a recent Canadian study is saying is true then I think I know the REAL reason for my trashy thinking skills.
Being a lazy arse could very well have links to bad memory, apparently. It’s actually not at all that surprising when you think about it since exercising is what gets our blood pumping around the body.
According to this study, a few months of aerobics exercise has helped middle-aged and older adults improve their memory and thinking skills, but the same effect is likely to apply to anybody. An improved blood flow to the brain from these exercises helps particularly with areas associated with mental agility and memory.
If you’re interested as to how the study was carried out – basically, 206 middle aged and older adults between the ages of 50 and 83 were instructed to follow an aerobic exercise program for six months. This involved supervised workouts for three days a week and their own work out once a week.
So I was looking for a picture of someone doing aerobics and this came up… I guess it will do. Enjoy.
Over the course of this six month period, the length of each workout was increased from an average of 20 minutes to eventually around 40 minutes. Not as long as you’d expect, which is good news for any couched potatoes that are worried about losing their precious TV or gaming time!
After the six months of this regular aerobic activity was over, each participant was tested in their cardiovascular health as well as their cognitive abilities. Tests relating to their memory showed as much as a 5% improvement compared to their scores from before the study was carried out. In addition to this, some ultrasounds showed that there was an average peak blood flow increase to the brain of almost 3%.
These increases sound pretty small, but they’re enough to make a difference.
There you have it then, if your memory is pretty poor at a relatively young age then you probably just need to exercise more. At the time of writing we’re in lock-down but exercising is 100% allowed as much as you want, so what are you waiting for?!