How to Improve Cognitive Performance Through Physical Activity

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As a psychologist working with both flight students and flight personnel, I’m often asked about ways to improve cognitive performance. Students generally want to perform as well as possible in training, while managing a tight schedule in the context of a highly competitive peer group. Designated personnel typically want to remain sharp while flying and effectively manage competing priorities in their careers and personal lives.

So, how can a person improve their cognitive performance?

There are a number of tried and true ways to maintain and improve cognition. These are strategies you’ve all heard of before but maybe haven’t looked at in the context of your cognition. These strategies include diet/nutrition, stress management, sleep, and physical activity. In this post we are going to look at the power of exercise and physical activity in maintaining and boosting cognition, recognizing that a combination of the aforementioned strategies yields greater results.

There is a significant literature showing that exercise/physical activity boosts cognition across the lifespan and conversely that lack of physical activity places us at risk of a number of problems, including medical conditions and mental health disorders, which have negative effects on cognition. Consequently, there is a strong argument to be made for maintaining an active lifestyle, since physical activity both boosts cognitive performance and health, and prevents problems down the road.

What kind of physical exercise or activity is recommended?

A perfect answer is not yet available, but here is some information to help guide your decisions: A large meta-analytic study published in 2020 found that one session of cardio or resistance training had immediate positive effects on attention, processing speed, and inhibition. Notably, significantly fatiguing exercise sessions did not appear to have cognitive benefits in the short term. Routine exercise programs which included a wider variety of exercises and were conducted over several days resulted in increases in processing speed, attention, cognitive flexibility, working memory, and language abilities. The bottom line is that just about any exercise appears good for cognition. These findings suggest that there is significant benefit to a routine exercise program, with strategic use of a short bout of exercise prior to events in which optimal cognitive performance is desired.

Some cognitive effects are a direct result of the exercise, but if you are engaging in routine exercise, others are a result of secondary effects. Physical activity/exercise also results in improvements in sleep, and reduced stress, depression, and anxiety. Better sleep and effective stress/mood management are two additional powerful strategies to boost cognition. These strategies feed on each other for maximum benefit to you; addressing one frequently increases the chances of successfully implementing the others.

With that said, as we all know, engaging in routine exercise can be easier said than done, especially when schedules are full, there are competing demands for our attention, and task-saturation saps our motivation and energy reserves. Interestingly, regular exercise can take the edge off of these challenges, make us more, not less, energetic, and result in us feeling more capable of mastering these challenges. This results in better time management and increased focus, which can decrease the amount of time it takes to study, complete tasks, write a report, etc. In other words, adding in some exercise can boost your cognition, making your use of time more effective and leaving space in your schedule for other activities.

To summarize, exercise boosts our cognition immediately and preserves and enhances our cognition over the long term if we are routinely active. It’s a powerful cognitive performance strategy.

Disclaimer: if you haven’t been exercising regularly, consult with your doctor before starting.