What You Do Now Can Affect Your Brain for 2 Weeks

The effects of daily physical activity, sleep, heart rate changes, and mood can linger for as long as two weeks.
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New research shows that our daily exercise and sleep habits can affect brain function for as long as two weeks.

Our brains do not react to things in quick, isolated surges; instead, brain activity evolves over more extended periods.
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“This suggests that even a workout or a restless night from last week could still affect your brain—and therefore your attention, cognition and memory—well into next week,” according to a statement about the study.
Physical activity, sleep patterns, heart rate changes, and even subtle mood shifts can imprint on our neural networks for as long as two weeks. This revelation challenges conventional wisdom about brain function and opens new avenues for understanding cognition, memory, and mental health treatment.

Researcher Becomes the Study Subject

Ana Triana, a doctoral candidate at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland, performed double duty as the study subject, tracking her own activities while also serving as the research team leader. Brain scans, smartphones, and wearable devices recorded her daily life and brain activities.
This experiment was designed to challenge the conventional wisdom that “just a few trials are sufficient for correctly sampling an individual’s brain activity and behavior,” researchers in the study, published on Oct. 15 in PLOS Biology, wrote.

Triana emphasized the importance of continuous monitoring through wearable technology, concluding that traditional brain scans, conducted while a person rests for 30 minutes twice weekly, offer limited insights.

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“We wanted to go beyond isolated events,” Triana said in the statement.

“Our behaviour and mental states are constantly shaped by our environment and experiences. Yet, we know little about the response of brain functional connectivity ... on different timescales, from days to months.”

The researchers hope that their unique study will help improve mental health treatment, focusing on individual information on the brain and a person’s daily life.

“Our approach gives context to neuroscience and delivers very fine detail to our understanding of the brain,” Dr. Nick Hayward, a physician, neuroscientist, and study co-author, said in the statement. He added that information from daily life should be examined in a lab “to see the full picture of how our habits shape the brain.”

Physical Activity Helps Brain Connectivity

Associations between brain connectivity and both recent physical activity from three days prior and earlier physical activity from 10 days prior were found to exist.
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“These findings suggest that physical activity levels have both immediate and delayed effects on brain networks,” the researchers reported.

Sleep was also found to be a key factor in working memory, the researchers wrote. Longer sleep hours and—oddly—more sleep interruptions were associated with better assimilation of two brain functions: the network involved in planning and the network controlling self-reflection and daydreaming.

“However, the effect of sleep duration on working memory does not seem to occur immediately but is observed after a 2-week delay,” the researchers wrote, adding that the results of this one-person study could simply mean Triana was not especially affected by sleep fluctuations.

The research revealed a strong connection between heart rate variability (HRV)—the subtle fluctuations in time between heartbeats—and brain function. HRV is a key indicator of cardiovascular health and the body’s ability to adapt to stress; the higher the HRV, the more resilient and adaptable the heart is.

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The study showed that days in which the individual had higher HRV were linked to more robust brain connectivity and activity, especially during periods of rest. This suggests that a well-regulated heart plays a crucial role in how the brain organizes itself during rest.

The researchers hope that their study will help others to develop new methods for analyzing information related to brain function.

“The integration of brain connectivity, physiology data and environmental cues will propel future environmental neuroscience research and support precision healthcare,” the study authors wrote.

Huey Freeman
Huey Freeman
Author
A newspaper reporter, editor, and author, Huey Freeman recently wrote “Who Shot Nick Ivie?” a true crime book on the murder of a border patrol agent. He lives in Central Illinois with his wife Kate.