How exercise aids your learning ability

LEARNING requires more than the acquisition of unfamiliar knowledge; that new information or know-how, if it’s to be more than ephemeral, it must be consolidated and securely stored in long-term memory.

Mental repetition is one way to do that, of course. But mounting scientific evidence suggests that what we do physically also plays an important role in this process.

Sleep, for instance, reinforces memory. And recent experiments show that when mice and rats jog on running wheels after acquiring a new skill, they learn much better than sedentary rodents do.