Ever find yourself struggling to remember what you ate for breakfast?  Or whether you locked the front door before you left?  Or maybe found some important information that your boss told you yesterday to follow up on has now slipped your mind?

In our plugged-in paradigm, when we often have three or more activities on the go at once,  it’s very easy for our minds to wander and forget to retain vital information.  But there is good news.  Researchers have recently discovered a protein released by our muscles during exercise that stimulates nerve growth in the brain which is related to memory.

The study, published in Cell Metabolism, found that movement is an important trigger for memory processes.  Lead author Professor Emrah Duzel has revealed that “whenever we change our location, our brain expects new information, so there is a hard-wired relationship between bodily movement and cognition”.

So what does this study mean to you?  If you want to improve your memory recall you need to get that body moving!  Arianna Huffington suggested the idea of ‘walking meetings’.  She said “When the body is still the mind will wander.  So when I move my body, my mind is focused.”

Could walking meetings be something that you implement?  Maybe when you have a scheduled conference call you can get outside the office and go for a walk around the block.  Or a coffee hookup could instead be a walking brainstorm.  Getting the body moving and stimulated throughout the day not only has benefits for your health, but now there is the scientific proof that it also improves your memory and your performance.  So get moving!