As we continue to enjoy the warm weather and the summer break, it’s great to take this time to jump into the water, especially to cool off. In addition to it being a great summer activity, new reports show that swimming also has some cognitive benefits, boosting your brain’s health.
With previous research done on aerobic exercise, it’s shown that this workout helps the creation of neural connections, increasing the brain-derived neurotrophic factor protein, and improving brain plasticity and cognitive function. However, researchers deep-dived into analyzing the benefits of swimming, and it appears swimming offers a rise of these benefits.
Based on one research project, researchers found that elderly individuals who swam regularly had improved both memory and cognitive function compared to those who didn’t.
Another research analyzed the benefits in children’s experience and found that they successfully learned new vocabulary words after three different exercises – swimming, Crossfit, and coloring. In fact, vocabulary retention was higher after swimming than other activities.
With given results based on the research conducted, it shows swimming, or simply getting into the water and moving around seems to be a great method to improve mental health, memory, and cognitive function.
