Being a Couch Potato Is Bad for Your Memory, Study Warns

Bad news for couch potatoes: New research released this week suggests that working out will not only improve your body, but keep your brain sharp as well.

Researchers in Finland looked back at earlier studies that compared the memory skills of people across different levels of physical activity. They found that athletes consistently had better working memory than others, particularly people who were sedentary. The findings are the latest to indicate that exercise is one of the best ways to boost our brain power, which is even more important as we get older.

Scientists at the University of Jyväskylä conducted the research, hoping to better understand the connection between exercise and cognitive performance. Other studies have suggested that being physically active is linked to improvements in cognition, including our working memory—the aspect of cognition that allows us to juggle small amounts of information at once to perform tasks (working memory shares some overlap but is usually considered distinct from short-term memory).

People who play sports may be particularly likely to develop better working memory, as athletes often make split-second decisions during games. But according to the researchers, there hasn’t yet been a review of the evidence comparing the working memory of athletes to non-athletes, so they decided to do it themselves.

The researchers analyzed 21 studies involving 1,455 participants, with most athletic people being those who played basketball, baseball, or fencing. They found that athletes overall had a small, but statistically significant advantage in working memory over non-athletes across different levels of activity and sports. This difference was even larger when the athletes were only compared to people who were sedentary, meaning they engaged in very little physical activity.

“Our findings indicate a consistent link between sports expertise and improved [working memory] performance, while sedentary lifestyles appear to be associated with [working memory] disadvantages,” the researchers wrote in their paper, published this month in the journal Memory.

These sorts of studies can only demonstrate a correlation between sports playing and better working memory, not a clear cause-and-effect relationship. But the studies analyzed by the researchers were judged to have a low risk of bias, which is an important indicator of a study’s quality. Plenty of research has also found that exercise in general can bolster our memory. So the authors say their findings show the value of encouraging people to play sports and stay active.

“These results suggest the cognitive benefits of sports and emphasize the importance of an active lifestyle for enhancing cognitive health,” they wrote.

Importantly, these benefits aren’t just limited to younger people already more likely to play sports or otherwise work out. Studies have found that regular exercise is tied to improvements in working memory among older people as well, while exercise also staves off the age-related declines in memory that we tend to experience as we get older.