Previous research tells us that just 20 mins of moderate to intense exercise does our body a world of good.
Other studies have shown that just a single bout of 20 minutes of exercise or following a commitment of a long-term exercise program has many brain- health benefits.
But what if we took just 10 minutes to exercise intensely – Will it have the same results?
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Researchers from the Western University in London, Canada sought to examine whether such a boost achieved by 20 minutes of exercise can be achieved by a bout of 10 -minutes of exercise.
For this study, healthy young adults either performed a bout of 10 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity aerobic exercise on an exercise bike or they sat and read a magazine.
After 10 minutes the researchers examined executive control via eye tracking equipment with the help of an antisaccade task – designed to challenge areas of the brain responsible for executive functioning such as decision making and inhibition.
Antisaccades are an executive task requiring a goal-directed eye movement mirror-symmetrical to a visual stimulus. The hands- and language-free nature of antisaccades coupled with the temporal precision of eye-tracking technology make it an ideal tool for identifying executive performance changes.
The results of the study showed that those who exercised had more accurate responses and their reaction time was up to 50 milliseconds shorter than their pre-exercise timings.
This represents a 14 percent gain in cognitive performance in some instances, making this study significant for those in the early stages of dementia who may be less mobile and for those looking for a quick boost of their brain cells when they have any task to perform that is cognitively demanding.
Further research is necessary to determine how long this boost in brain power will last.
But one thing is for sure – even a brisk walk or a short bout of exercise like cycling can have an immediate effect on brain power.
Source: Neuropsychologia
