Improve Your Learning with a Quick Workout

Quick Win

A few minutes of exercise can support your brain’s ability to learn new things.

Try This Today

• Study while you warm up. If you have an audio recording of the information you want to learn — maybe you're using an app to learn a new language, for example — play it during your warm-up, then continue with the rest of your workout as usual.
• Incorporate flash cards. This technique works well when you have specific words or details you’re trying to remember, like sales figures for an upcoming business presentation. Write the information on flash cards and bring them to your next workout. Spend a moment reviewing them right before you do push​-​ups, squats or whatever exercise you had planned that day.
• Test yourself. The next day, test yourself on the items you studied. Do you think you recalled the items more easily than you would have if you hadn’t exercised?

Why

It’s already well-established that exercise benefits the brain in many ways. In fact, AARP’s Global Council on Brain Health produced an entire 2016 report on the subject: “The Brain-Body Connection.” Now, emerging research has found that short bouts of exercise before, during or immediately after learning something new may help you retain more information. For two studies, researchers recruited 98​​ adults between the ages of 18 and 30. In one study, those who exercised for 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after studying a ​​word list were able to recall the most words later. In the second study, 20 minutes of exercise before studying a word list was also beneficial, as reported in 2020 in the International Journal of Psychophysiology. And in a study of 74 undergraduate students published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications in 2017, those who did ​five​ minutes of low-impact exercise immediately after learning retained more than those who didn’t exercise.