If you don’t want to walk, consider other moderate-intensity exercises, such as swimming, stair climbing, tennis, squash, or dancing. If that seems daunting, start with a few minutes a day, and increase the amount you exercise by five or 10 minutes every week until you reach your goal. Standard recommendations advise half an hour of moderate physical activity most days of the week, or 150 minutes a week.

That’s 120 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week. How much exercise is required to improve memory? These study participants walked briskly for one hour, twice a week. “It’s likely that other forms of aerobic exercise that get your heart pumping might yield similar benefits,” says Dr. Almost all of the research has looked at walking, including the latest study. So what should you do? Start exercising! We don’t know exactly which exercise is best.

Scott McGinnis, a neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an instructor in neurology at Harvard Medical School. “Even more exciting is the finding that engaging in a program of regular exercise of moderate intensity over six months or a year is associated with an increase in the volume of selected brain regions,” says Dr. Many studies have suggested that the parts of the brain that control thinking and memory (the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal cortex) have greater volume in people who exercise versus people who don’t. Problems in these areas frequently cause or contribute to cognitive impairment. Indirectly, exercise improves mood and sleep, and reduces stress and anxiety. The benefits of exercise come directly from its ability to reduce insulin resistance, reduce inflammation, and stimulate the release of growth factors-chemicals in the brain that affect the health of brain cells, the growth of new blood vessels in the brain, and even the abundance and survival of new brain cells. Exercise and the brainĮxercise helps memory and thinking through both direct and indirect means. They estimate that by the year 2050, more than 115 million people will have dementia worldwide. Researchers say one new case of dementia is detected every four seconds globally. Resistance training, balance and muscle toning exercises did not have the same results. In a study done at the University of British Columbia, researchers found that regular aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart and your sweat glands pumping, appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning.

Here’s another one, which especially applies to those of us (including me) experiencing the brain fog that comes with age: exercise changes the brain in ways that protect memory and thinking skills. Maybe you want to lose weight, lower your blood pressure, prevent depression, or just look better. Big ones include reducing the odds of developing heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. There are plenty of good reasons to be physically active. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

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List of brain gym exercises