If you’re trying to exercise more in the new year, you may need to remind yourself to make time to exercise in the first few weeks before it becomes a habit, but according to new research, exercise may also help you remember daily tasks later in life.

According to research out of Norway, experts say that exercise and being physically fit may help sharpen our memory and reduce our dementia risk, even if we don’t really start exercising until later in life. There have been numerous studies on the link between being physically fit and staving off dementia risk, but no study has tackled the topic of when the participant begins their exercise regimen. For this study, researchers focused on whether getting physically fit at midlife or retirement age was too late to see any improvements.

Researchers used medical records of more than 30,000 individuals and tracked how their health changed over a 10-year period. They grouped individuals into three separate groups:

• Those who remained in the lowest 20 percent of aerobic fitness for the entire study.
• Those who moved into or out of that bottom 20 percent at any point during the 10-year period.
• Those who remained outside of the bottom 20 percent for the entire 10-year period.

Memory and Exercise Results

After analyzing medical records, nursing home data and specialized memory clinics to determine which participants developed dementia during a 20-year follow up, researchers came to some interesting conclusions. They found that people who were fit throughout the entire study were almost 50 percent less likely to develop dementia than the least-fit men and women. Possibly more of note, those men and women who entered middle age out of shape but gained fitness showed a similar substantial reduction in their subsequent risk for dementia.

Researchers said that the study didn’t examine which types of exercise were being performed by those who gained fitness, so it appears that any physical exercise that helps to remain fit could be beneficial for your memory, even later in life. Another study on the topic found that individuals saw similar gains when they participated in exercise that raised their heart rate and boosted fitness, so while walking may be an okay form of exercise, walking with some interval training may provide more benefits.

“I tell people to add in some hills when they go for a walk,” said Jennifer Heisz, an associate professor at McMaster University who oversaw the second study, “or pick up the pace between streetlamps.”

So if you want to increase your chance of having a strong memory later in life, find some daily exercises that boost your physical fitness! And for help with any aspect of fitness or your health, don’t hesitate to reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today.