Exercise Increases Memory

Memory is remembering the information that is stored in your mind. When we do not have memories, we will not able to recall our pasts, including the people you talked to, things you learn in class, how to do something, and etc. Memory is very important in our everyday life. Previous research, Stroth, Hille, Spitzer, & Reinharbt (2009) suggested that exercise is a great way to enhance memory, mental, and cognitive function.

In research article by Stroth, Hille, Spitzer, & Reinharbt (2009) states that in their experimental group, they took aerobic running and for the control group as vary with their daily exercises. After the study, they found that there are improvement on their memory performance. But no effect on concentration and verbal memory. They have concluded that there are benefits on exercise on memory.

In Salas, Minakata, Kelemen (2011) study to see whether aerobic exercise can improve judgments of learning or memory performance. They have college students using between-subjects factorial design. Students were to practice slides with walks. Then students were to complete their exercise and followed by free recall test. Judgments of learning had no effect, but students gain memory from ten minute walk before studying. Students who walked before had 25% increase in recall compared with who sat before encoding.

Coles and Tomoporowski (2008) studies asses how executive function, short-term, and long-term affects by brief session of moderate exercise. They had young adults to be tested set-switching, Brown-Peterson test, and a free-recall memory test with free recall test, before and after exercising. The experimental group was to complete forty minutes of moderate exercise on a stationary bike, and two no exercise control groups. This study showed that long-term memory maintained, but short-term memory had no improvement.

In China, Chan, Yim-chi, Mei-chun, Albert, Chiu, and Lam (2005) studied cross-sectional design to study the effect of mind-body and cardiovascular exercise. In this study were older participants that were 65 and above. Researchers recorded how many hours they spend on mind-body exercises, including exercise like tennis. To recall their memory after ten and thirty minute delay, researchers used Chinese characters. The authors concluded participants who exercise regularly performed better recall than those who don’t.

There were also studies using animals. One study was tested by Shimada, Hamakawa, Ishida, Tamakoshi, Nakashima, and Ishida (2013) to see if physical exercise recovers an impaired memory function in stroke rats. The animals were to middle cerebral artery occlusion for 90 min to induce stroke and were randomly assigned to four groups.