Referring to a recent study conducted by the researchers from Medical Research Council doctoral training student at the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health at University College London, CNN Fitness column author Sandee LaMotte writes “People who spent ‘even small amounts of time in more vigorous activities — as little as 6 to 9 minutes — compared to sitting, sleeping or gentle activities had higher cognition scores’.”

The study published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, found that “doing just under 10 minutes of moderate to vigorous exertion each day improved study participants’ working memory but had its biggest impact on executive processes such as planning and organization”.

Lead author of the study, John Mitchell told CNN “Given we don’t monitor participants’ cognition over many years, this may be simply that those individuals who move more tend to have higher cognition on average. However, yes, it could also imply that even minimal changes to our daily lives can have downstream consequences for our cognition.”

Steven Malin, an associate professor in the department of kinesiology and health at Rutgers University in New Jersey, who was reportedly not involved in the study, told CNN “Understanding the interaction of sleep and various physical activities is often not examined.”

John Mitchell added “The evidence on the importance of sleep for cognitive performance is strong, yet there are two major caveats. First, over-sleeping can be linked to poorer cognitive performance. Secondly, sleep quality may be even more important than duration. Our accelerometer devices can estimate how long people slept for, but cannot tell us how well they slept.”