Which types of exercise can help keep the brain healthy?
Almost any type of exercise can help improve cognitive performance, a review of 98 studies finds.
From yoga and tai chi to walking, running, cycling and weight lifting, all help maintain a sharp mind over the years.
Individuals who did at least 52 hours of these exercises across six months saw the greatest benefits, the review of thousands of separate studies found.
That works out to 2 hours a week.
The exercise was beneficial to both healthy older adults and those with mild cognitive impairment.
Dr Joyce Gomes-Osman
“While there is solid evidence to suggest that maintaining a regular exercise regimen can improve brain health we were most interested in how we could practically apply these scientific findings to the lives of our patients, their family members and even to ourselves.
For other forms of treatments such as prescription drugs, patients are prescribed a specific amount.
Our study highlights the need to get this specific with exercise, too.”
The conclusions come from a review of 4,600 different studies, from which 98 high quality trials were analysed.
The results suggested that consistent exercise over a long period was the key to maintaining healthy cognitive function.
Professor Alvaro Pascual-Leone, study co-author, said:
“It’s very encouraging that the evidence supports all sorts of different exercise interventions, not just aerobic, to improve thinking abilities.
The most stable improvements in thinking abilities were found in processing speed, both in healthy older adults and individuals with mild cognitive impairment.”
Strength training, aerobic workouts and mind-body exercises or any combination thereof, were found to be helpful.
Dr Gomes-Osman said:
“We are still learning about all the ways in which exercise changes our brain, and we are also all different, so identifying an ideal exercise dose remains a challenge.
We have many more questions about exercise dose, and we will design further studies to follow up.”
The study was published in the journal Neurology: Clinical Practice (Gomes-Osman et al., 2018).
