Exercise doesn’t just help you prevent dementia and ensure bone health. Carried out by the University of New South Wales (UNSW), the team recruited 265 participants across four experiments and asked them to perform either five minutes of low-impact step aerobics after learning or no exercise after learning. In three out of four of the experiments, the participants learned which male names paired with male faces.

Although the strength of the effect of exercise varied between experiments, the team found that the women who did step exercise after learning remembered the material better than those who did no exercise. However, the study’s first author Dr. Steven Most  surprised to find that the exercise only affected the learning of the female participants.

“Mysteriously, this effect did not emerge among men in any of the experiments,” commented Dr. Most, “It’s unclear whether this is a true sex difference or whether there was something about the experiment conditions that allowed the effect to emerge among women and not men.” Dr Most added that results might have  different if more of the faces shown to the participants were women’s.

physical activity

The findings suggest that schools, and potentially even nursing homes for seniors, could use exercise to boost memory and recalling information, with Dr Most commenting that, “The effect came into play only after participants had studied the material, meaning that it retroactively boosted learning of the material.”

“Some schools are under pressure to cut back on recess in order to increase time in the classroom, but it may be that encouraging physical activity breaks at several points during the day can actually help with the retention of classroom learning.”

There is also scope for further study to understand how much exercise is optimal, how long before or after learning is most effective, and who benefits most.” The findings can be found published online in the journal Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications.