If you’ve been to college, odds are you’ve probably stayed up late studying before a big exam. It’s a risky gambit. After all, you’re trading vitally important, brain-revitalizing sleep in order to cram in a few more facts. Now a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has some good news—exercise can boost your memory just as well as a nap.
A research team led by neurologists from McGill University in Canada recruited 54 healthy adults (between the ages of 18 and 35) and supervised them while they stayed awake for 30 hours. After a sleepless night, the participants donned EEG readers and either napped for 90 minutes or exercised on a stationary bike for 20 minutes (a control group just sat on the bike without pedaling for 20 minutes). They were then shown a series of photos and tested three days later to determine how many they remembered.
Both the exercisers and the nappers performed significantly better on the memory test than the control group—but for different reasons. According to an analysis of the EEG data, napping seemed to recharge the brain, making it more conducive to new learning. Exercise after sleep loss, on the other hand, forced the brain to use its resources more efficiently, facilitating improved neural processing.
Read more: “When Sleep Deprivation Is an Antidepressant”
“Sleep loss affects nearly every aspect of how we think and function, but many people can’t simply stop what they’re doing and get more sleep,” study author Marc Roig of McGill University said in a statement. “Our findings show that even a brief bout of exercise may help preserve one of our most important cognitive abilities.”
According to the team, the study “underscores the brain’s remarkable adaptive capacity to maintain cognitive performance despite being sleep deprived.” And they say their findings could help those who often work nightshifts, long shifts, or are otherwise fatigued, like truck drivers, emergency responders, and healthcare workers.
“A nap isn’t always possible in the middle of a shift,” study author Madhura Lotlikar said. “Exercise is accessible, inexpensive, and easy to implement. That makes it a promising tool to help people stay cognitively sharp when sleep is limited.”
Still, I think we can all agree that a nap would be much better. 
Enjoying Nautilus? Subscribe to our free newsletter.
Lead Image: Simple Line / Shutterstock
