To remember something new: Exercise!

Here’s another reason to get off the couch and start working up a sweat. Time the exercise right and you could boost your ability to remember something new. That’s the finding of a new study.

But it all comes down to timing. To lock up the new information, start burning those calories roughly four hours after you took in the new information. That’s according to researchers at an institute on brain, cognition and behavior. It’s at Radboud University’s Medical Center, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Eelco van Dongen and his colleagues shared their new findings in the June 16 Current Biology.

This precisely timed memory trick comes from tests with 72 people. Each learned the location of 90 objects on a computer screen. Afterward, some of the recruits watched relaxing nature videos. Others worked up a sweat on stationary bikes, alternating between hard and easy pedaling for 35 minutes. Their workouts came either soon after the cram session or four hours later.

Two days later they were tested again.  Those who remembered the objects’ sites best were the people who had waited four hours after their learning session before pedaling away. Among those who remembered sites correctly, the four-hour delay before biking also led to more consistent activity in an area important for memory. It’s known as the hippocampus. The consistent activity here suggests that the memories had been strong, the scientists say.

Van Dongen’s team does not yet know how exercise works its memory magic. They do, however, have a guess. Aerobic exercise sparks the creation of several important chemicals in the brain. One is a protein known as BDNF. The other is dopamine (DO-puh-meen). It can help relay messages between nerve cells. These two molecules may help solidify memories by rewiring links between brain cells, the researchers suspect.