Exercise has been shown to improve brain health and reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia over the long-term. But engaging in everyday physical activity has immediate benefits for brain health, according to a new study from researchers in the Penn State College of Medicine. The team found that middle-aged people who participated in everyday movement showed improvement in cognitive processing speed equivalent to being four years younger, regardless of whether the activity was lower intensity, like walking the dog or doing household chores, or higher intensity, like jogging.
The findings were published in the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine . "You don't have to go to the gym to experience all the potential benefits of physical activity ," said Jonathan Hakun, assistant professor of neurology and psychology at Penn State and the Penn State College of Medicine. "All movement is important.
Everyday movement counts as a source of accumulated physical activity that could be credited toward a healthy lifestyle and may have some direct impact on cognitive health." Previous research that has examined the relationship between physical activity and cognitive health typically looked at the long-term relationship, for example, over the course of decades for a retrospective study or months to a year for intervention studies. Hakun said that he was interested in connecting the dots sooner to understand the potential short-term impact of physical activity on cognitive health.