Being Lazy Is Bad for Your Memory

A recent meta-analysis of 21 studies that collectively involved 1,455 participants over several years found that athletic people have way better memories than lazy bums who hardly move.

The meta-analysis, conducted by the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, is essentially a study of a bunch of studies. It’s taking the individual conclusions reached by dozens and dozens of researchers over several years trying to reach a larger “meta” conclusion based on an enormous amount of data centered around one subject. In this case, the effects of exercise on one’s memory.

It turns out that there is a direct correlation between athleticism and memory. The more athletic you are, the better your memory. Not only that, but the less athletic you are the worse your memory.

This is especially evident when it comes to our working memory — the ability to remember lots of little bits of information about a specific task. Essentially, the ability to work on something without losing track of what you’re doing. It’s kind of like short-term memory.

A good example is working on a project involving numbers. Working memory allows you to keep all those numbers straight in your head as you solve the problem. You’ll probably forget the numbers as soon as the problem has been resolved, and that’s fine because working memory did its job. It held onto the information for just long enough.

The meta-analysis found that athletic people had a small but consistent working memory advantage compared to people who live sedentary lifestyles. Specifically, the studies defined “athletic” as people who played sports like basketball, baseball, or fencing.

The meta-analysis couldn’t establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship between being athletic and having better working memory, but its findings are helping to contribute to a larger body of evidence linking physical activity to improve brain function.

We’re at the point where it’s getting pretty hard to deny if you’re sitting on your ass all day, your brain is likely more sluggish than that of a person who regularly works out. Of course, none of that means that the athletic person is inherently smarter or wiser or has better critical thinking skills than the lazy person. It just means the athletic person’s brain is better suited for problem-solving.