To Mind Your Brain Health As You Age, Study Says Try This Exercise

For this study, researchers gathered 180 older adults who were considered healthy but inactive. They were separated into three groups, with one group focused on walking, one focused on dance, and one control group that did balancing and stretching exercises.

The groups met three times per week for six months. For the dancing group, their dance classes got progressively harder throughout the course of the study.

For the people in the walking and dancing groups, the researchers observed increased white matter following the study, particularly in areas that play a role in memory and executive function. The group who walked even had improved memory after the study and were better able to recall memories from their lives.

The bottom line is, after just six months of working out three times per week, the participants doing aerobic exercise achieved noticeable improvements in their brain health and memory. It's never too late to improve your brain health, which is certainly good news for anyone looking to get in better shape.

As graduate student and first author on the study Andrea Mendez Colmenares notes in a news release, she hopes their research offers a better understanding of white matter aging, and people will consider lifestyle interventions to help themselves (and their brains) as they age, "so they can live independently for longer and with better cognition."