The track team practices at Thompson Arena on January 11. The zamboni door for the hockey rink can be seen in the background.
Coffee may be more popular, but it’s exercise that could be a better help in studying.
A new study conducted by Western University researchers found that exercise is as effective as caffeine when it comes to improving memory.
Harry Prapavessis, director of Western’s Exercise and Health Psychology Laboratory, first-year PhD student Anisa Morava, and current University of British Columbia student Matthew Fagan, assessed the effect of caffeine and exercise on memory.
Their study shows that coupling the two can help students to study as efficiently as possible.
The data gathered shows that exercise and caffeine enhanced the precision of working memory on everyone — but overall, exercise was better between the two.
Caffeine consumption is prevalent among students, Morava noted.
“I think there’s definitely a coffee culture where if [a student] want[s] to take a break, [they] say ‘Let’s go grab a coffee’, or even professors often come into lectures with a cup of coffee,” Morava said.
Cutting back on caffeine and using exercise as an aid would be recommended when it comes to students’ overall health and improvement of cognitive functions.
Morava proposes a new mindset.
“It’s doing both: having a coffee and exercising,” Morava says. “What you can do is if you’re feeling low energy or your alertness is down, go for a brisk 20-minute walk around campus.”
The research examined the effects of a brisk 20-minute treadmill walk compared to a single cup of coffee for enhancing working memory.
The participants’ level of working memory was determined using the “n-back task” which is often used to measure working memory through stimuli cognition.
“The n-back task measures working memory, a cognitive system that allows you to temporarily store information and use it in the moment,” Morava explains. “[N-back is a] task where letters and numbers are being presented on the screen quickly and then the task will ask you what was the number three back? and it goes harder as you go along.”
The study also found that exercise can also help with caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Though 12-hour caffeine deprivation had no negative consequences on working memory, exercise helped with withdrawal symptoms like fatigue, headaches and crankiness.
Morava was happy that her study was being spread to other students.
“I was very excited to hear that the school paper is picking it up because all the participants of the study were students so it’s very relevant,” Morava said.