Optimize Exercise: Specific Links Between Exercise, Memory, and Mental Health Revealed by Fitness Trackers



Exercise can improve your cognitive and mental health, but not all types and intensities of exercise have the same effects on the brain. In actuality, a recent Dartmouth study found that the consequences of exercise are significantly more complex. It was discovered that many components of memory and mental health are related to particular intensities of exercise over a lengthy period of time. The results, which were just released in the journal Scientific Reports, shed light on how exercise may be improved.

According to the primary author, Jeremy Manning, "Mental health and memory are fundamental to practically everything we do in our everyday lives." He teaches psychology and brain sciences as an assistant professor at Dartmouth. "Our study aims to lay a groundwork for understanding how various physical exercise intensities affect many elements of mental and cognitive health."

113 Fitbit users were registered by the researchers for the study. They had to complete a battery of memory exercises, respond to inquiries on their mental health, and provide information on their fitness levels from the preceding year. Scientists anticipated that people who are more active would have higher memory and mental health, but the findings were more complex. Some memory tests were better handled by participants who tended to exercise at low intensities, whereas other memory tasks were better handled by participants who preferred to exercise at high intensities. While those who consistently exercised at lower intensities exhibited lower rates of despair and anxiety, those who were more intensely active also reported higher stress levels.

Prior studies have typically concentrated on how exercise affects memory over very short periods of time, such a few days or weeks. Dartmouth researchers intended to examine the impacts over a much larger time period, though. The information was gathered over the course of a full calendar year and includes average heart rates, daily step counts, the amount of time spent exercising in various "heart rate zones" (rest, out-of-range, fat burn, cardio, or peak) as determined by FitBit. The study's participants were acquired from Amazon's Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourced labor force, online.

The study employed four separate memory task types that were created to test participants' abilities in a variety of ways and across a range of timescales. The "episodic" memory—the same form of memory used to recall autobiographical events, such as what you did yesterday—was the subject of two sets of tests. To assess "spatial" memory—the same kind of memory needed to remember places, such where you parked your car—another set of exercises was created. The last set of exercises was designed to assess "associative" memory, or the capacity to recall relationships between ideas or past experiences.

The total memory performance of those who had been more active during the previous year tended to be better. The precise areas for improvement, however, varied depending on the activities people engaged in. The participants who frequently exercised at moderate intensities tended to do better on the tasks requiring episodic memory, while those who frequently exercised at high intensities performed better on tasks requiring spatial memory. Participants who were sedentary and inactive frequently underperformed on the spatial memory tasks.

The study's investigators also found links between participants' emotional well-being and their memory capabilities. On the spatial and associative memory tests, participants who self-reported anxiety or depression tended to do better. The episodic memory tests generally showed improved performance in those with self-reported bipolar disorder. The associative memory tasks proved to be more difficult for those who expressed higher levels of stress.

Anyone who wants to study or better understand the dataset can access all of the data and code for free on Github thanks to the research team.

"There's a really nuanced relationship at play when it comes to physical exercise, memory, and mental health that cannot be stated in single statements like "walking improves your memory" or "stress affects your memory," says Manning. Instead, certain types of exercise and certain mental health conditions appear to have a varied impact on each facet of memory.

The researchers believe that their discoveries could have some fascinating applications with further study. According to Manning, "for instance, specific exercise regimes may be devised to help improve students' cognitive performance and mental health to help them prepare for an exam or minimize their depressive symptoms."

By DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 

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