Science & Technology, UK (Commonwealth Union) – The significance of remaining active for a healthy mind and body has long been recognized by health experts. Just as the body needs to be kept active many scientists have also suggested the need to keep the mind active with various activities that stimulate the mind such as puzzles and card games.
A recent study by the University College London (UCL), has found that taking up between 6 to 7 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity (MVPA) daily can enhance cognitive performance.
The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, discovered that more intense exercise enhances working memory and mental processes, like planning and organization. Meanwhile, staying sedentary or conducting light intensity activity is linked to poorer brain power.
The research was conducted by evaluating 4481 participants between 46-47 years old, from the 1970 British Cohort Study, consisting of individuals born across England, Scotland, and Wales in 1970 whose health was monitored from childhood and adulthood.
Participants were requested to give details on health, background, and lifestyle questionnaires, and to have an activity tracker on for up to 7 days and for 10 consecutive hours per day.
A variety of cognitive tests for verbal memory as well as executive function for verbal fluency and processing speed were also conducted by the researchers.
Scores of every test were then totaled up to form an overall global score for memory together with executive function.
The evaluation of the activity tracker data demonstrated that participants clocked up an average of 51 minutes of MVPA, 5 hours 43 minutes of light intensity physical activity along with 9 hours 16 minutes of sedentary behaviors in a 24-hour period.
Unlike prior research, that assessed the association between daily MVPA and brain power, the new study further took into account time spent asleep, that researchers stated makes up the biggest component of any 24-hour period.
For the day, participants had slept an average of 8 hours 11 minutes.
Time taken up for MVPA relative to other types of behavior was positively linked with cognitive performance following adjustments for educational attainment along with workplace physical activity. However further adjustments for health issues diminished these links.
The contrasting with the sample average, had participants in the upper half of cognitive performance scores spend increased time in MVPA and sedentary behaviors and lower time sleeping, while the lowest 25 percent of scorers reached the most light intensity physical activity.
To have an improved knowledge on the link between movement and cognition, the researchers reallocated time from one component to another, minute by minute, to estimate what effects this may have on global cognitive performance scores.
This demonstrated that, in theory, scores after MVPA were much more than after other activities.
The sedentary behavior was favorable for cognition score as well; however, this was only following its substitution for 37 minutes of light intensity physical activity or 56 minutes of sleep.
Researchers however noted that, participants’ brain power began to theoretically start reducing by 1-2 percent after just 8 minutes of sedentary activities that replaced MPVA. And cognition ranking continued going down in line with greater declines in vigorous activity.
As this took place the replacing of vigorous activities with 6 minutes of light intensity physical activity or 7 minutes of sleep was associated with similar falls of 1-2% in cognition ranking.
Lead author, PhD candidate John Mitchell of the UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health says “MVPA is typically the smallest proportion of the day in real terms and the most difficult intensity to acquire. Perhaps partly for this reason, loss of any MVPA time whatsoever appeared detrimental, even within this relatively active cohort.”
He further stated “This robust method corroborates a critical role for MVPA in supporting cognition, and efforts should be made to bolster this component of daily movement.”
