Can’t find your keys? Forgot to attend that virtual meeting? Overwhelmed with the plethora of emails from your child’s school?

These uncertain times can translate into chronic and acute stress. Our brains suffer from the ongoing onslaught of anxiety and memory is often the first to go.

However, exercise is a quick trick that can reduce the effects of chronic stress on the memory center of the brain.

Researchers at Brigham Young University investigated the impact of stress on the connections between neurons in groups of mice who were either sedentary or who ran 5 km per day on a running wheel. The mice that ran every day did not have weakened synapses despite being subjected to stress. What does this mean for us? If exercise keeps the neuronal connections in the hippocampus intact, even when we are exposed to stress, our memory won’t suffer as much.

MBJ
By Terissa Michele Miller, MS Psy

Check out the original research:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1074742718300042