Go for a walk before you study

Go for a brisk walk before studying and your memory of the material is likely to benefit.  That's the finding of some new research.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2011.532207

The key finding is that those students who went for a walk before the study period recalled 25 per cent more correctly compared with students who sat still before the study period. By contrast, walking versus sitting before the attempt at recall made no difference to the students' performance.

"Overall, these results suggest that individuals can gain a memory advantage from a ten-minute walk before studying," the researchers said. "Given [these] positive results ... and [their] potentially important practical applications, we hope that researchers will continue to explore the relationship between walking, memory, and meta-memory."