Games stave off mental aging? Not as well as aerobics.

by Vladimir Cole { Nov 18th 2006 at 1:46AM }

Bad news for couch potatoes that thought they were going to game themselves into brilliance (or at least game into old age, safe from senility). Researchers now say that crosswords (and other brain games) and all that are fine, but nothing works quite as well as three hours a week of aerobic excercise, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"As little as three hours a week of aerobic exercise increased the brain's volume of gray matter (actual neurons) and white matter (connections between neurons), they report in the November issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences. "After only three months," says Prof. Kramer, "the people who exercised had the brain volumes of people three years younger."

In other words, don't count on Dr. Kawashima to keep your wetware healthy. You'll have to get off your toucas and move more than just your thumbs. Of course, there's no reason why you can't whip out a DS while on the stairmaster and enjoy compound benefits (see World of Warcraft + exercise bike setup above).

Tags: brain age, ds lite, exercise

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Brian @ Nov 18th 2006 2:03AM

As a student who knows Dr. Kramer personally, I've seen a lot of these studies and a lot of this data. Games aren't going to make you worse at anything (there is some benefit to your useful field of view, or UFOV), but exercise does seem to be the best way to hold off aging. Never underestimate the benefit of increasing blood-flow, guys.

Honestly, I want you all alive and well when I'm old and retired... nothing makes me happier than the idea of playing counterstrike with a bunch of old farts in a retirement community ;)

Leto @ Nov 18th 2006 2:17AM

DDR with those dancepads is the best game ever for those who care about fitness.

Leto @ Nov 18th 2006 2:22AM

DDR has a fitness mode where you can pick out the songs and put them in whatever order you want, I usually start out with a couple of B's and the rest A's, all you need is 1hr workout three times a week and you'll lose fat quick. The thing that makes DDR so great for fitness is that the hour goes by quick because you're so focused on getting perfects on every song.

blank @ Nov 18th 2006 3:04AM

So true. I have my road bicycle setup on a resistance trainer (what cyclists use to train indoors during the winter) so I can bike and play my xbox 360. I also get out and ride about 60 miles a week, so I do get some sunlight.

One thing I have to say about DDR, if you get too into it, it can start to harm you. I used to play it alot at home with a metal pad. It reached a point where I would push myself so hard that I began to have back and neck aches. Also, if you don't stretch properly beforehand you can easily cramp up.

Pat @ Nov 18th 2006 4:16AM

Isn't the whole slowed aging process kinda pointless when countless hours of our youth are wasted actually PLAYING the games.

ill trooper @ Nov 18th 2006 4:39AM

How about jogging in place while you wait in line several hours this week FOR video games? Any benefit to that? TWO big workouts this week!

otakucode @ Nov 18th 2006 5:43AM

Pat: I think you'll find that your standard of what is 'waste' and not in life is not necessarily agreed upon by other people. It's certainly an age-old and thick philosophical discussion going straight to the core of what is mans purpose in the universe, but be assured not everyone would view games as a waste.

Micerider @ Nov 19th 2006 7:27AM

Honestly, that assumptions is ridiculous.

The way aerobic increases grey mater has nothing to do with every type of intelligence. Aerobic makes your psychomotrocity evolve. Thus, your brain can control the body better. And that's about it, you won't more clever exercising like that.

On the other hand, games are optimising your neuronals connections, it doesn't increase your mass of brain (like we didn't have more than we could do with...)cell, it justs makes it works better.

olhado @ Nov 18th 2006 9:49AM

This was posted like a week ago on another Weblogs blog... Way to go, VC.

Brian @ Nov 18th 2006 11:54AM

@olhado... To be fair to VC, this research was in newsweek about a year ago, and it's been in scientific journals for far longer... the fact that Mr. Cole brings it up now is probably to relate it to the Wii, which in theory helps us a bit right? ;)

Seriously though, this is old as dirt. The fact that your favorite blog was only "most of a year" behind the curve doesn't make it all that much worse in this case.