We tend think about activities that benefit our brains and our bodies as two separate things.

It’s pretty easy to see why exercise might be good for our body. After all, we can’t exercise without moving our body, and some of the more noticeable (and for many, even desirable) changes are the visual ones that come with shifts in our body composition.

The body-related benefits are important, yes, but it’s easy to argue that maintaining our brain health is probably more important. There’s a reason dementia was the condition feared most by a sample of Australian adults aged 65+.

When it comes to sharpening our brain, most of us don’t think about exercise - instead, we picture “training our brain” by putting it to work with crosswords or puzzles, by learning a new language, using brain training apps, and so on.

But what if exercise is actually a form of “brain training” too?

And if that’s true, can you squeeze out some extra benefits by deliberately training your brain in other ways, if you’re already exercising regularly?

Putting exercise to the brain test

That’s exactly the question a new 2026 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine set out to answer.

The study was a systematic review/meta-analysis combining the data from 227 randomised controlled trials in older adults aged 60+ without dementia.

Importantly, the study wasn’t looking at whether exercise prevents dementia. Instead, it examined whether exercise improves performance on tests of different aspects of cognitive function.

The analysis allowed them to estimate the cognitive benefits from:

• Exercise only
• Exercise PLUS another lifestyle intervention
• Or control

As for what “cognitive benefits” actually means, the study focused on benefits in three key domains of cognitive function:

• Executive function: our ability to plan, make decisions, solve problems, and manage our thoughts and behaviours
• Memory: our ability to learn, store, and recall information
• Processing speed: how quickly we can take in, understand, and respond to information

This means the study compared the benefits of exercise on these cognitive domains when performed alone or when it was paired with another intervention that could influence brain function.

Now it’s important to understand the exercise programs weren’t all the same. Across the included studies, there was aerobic exercise like walking and cycling, resistance training, coordination-based activities (like tai chi and dancing), as well as programs combining several types of exercise.

On top of that, things like the frequency, intensity, and duration of exercise weren’t consistently reported in enough detail across studies, which meant the authors couldn’t cleanly report exercise dose.

The “plus” conditions weren’t necessarily “brain training” either - although cognitive training and cognitively-engaging activities were by far the most common exercise “add-ons” tested. These ranged from structured computer-based cognitive training to less formal activities like board games, book clubs, and social activities.

The study was therefore designed to answer whether exercise alone, in a variety of forms and doses, really trains the brain - and how much (if any) extra benefit comes from adding other practical things that may influence brain health.

Here’s what they found.

Exercise really does train the brain

Across the board, exercise showed positive effects on all three measures of cognitive function:

• Executive function (g = 0.25)
• Memory (g = 0.30)
• Processing speed (g = 0.26)

The “g” values are a measure of effect size, which represent the magnitude of an observed change (in this case an improvement).

While these were only reasonably small effects on cognitive outcomes with exercise alone, the positive was they appeared across multiple aspects of cognition.

This suggests you don’t necessarily have to be sitting down and deliberately “working your brain” to be improving it.

But is exercise enough on its own?

The comparison of exercise alone to exercise plus another intervention provided some insight into this question.

The short answer is doing something else with exercise did provide additional (albeit small) benefits, on top of exercise alone, for:

• Executive function (+ g = 0.18)
• Processing speed (+ g = 0.19)

But, there was no clear additional benefit for memory.

Again, it’s important to remind ourselves that not all of these extra interventions were cognitive training. Most were, and the authors of the study did suggest these may have driven the small extra benefits seen, but the study can’t establish that definitively.

This shows how “more” isn’t automatically “better”

Many things could positively impact the brain, including not just exercise and cognitive training, but diet and other healthy lifestyle behaviours too.

It’s tempting to think doing more of these things is likely to result in the best brain outcomes.

But the flipside of that is adding more and overcomplicating things requires more time, effort, and resources, which ultimately could make things a bit unsustainable - leading to inaction.

One of the more interesting findings of this study was extra cognitive benefit from adding something else to exercise wasn’t enormous, and it wasn’t consistent across all brain measures either.

This led the authors themselves to question whether the small added benefits justify the additional burden. I think this is especially pertinent when we consider the extremely wide-ranging benefits of exercise as a true whole-body intervention - not only for long-term outcomes, but those more immediate “feel good” benefits exercise can deliver.

My takeaway: train your body first, then your brain if you can

If you currently exercise to benefit your brain health, this should be pretty reassuring.

It’s now pretty clear that moving your body does more than improve things from the neck down. As this new evidence highlights, it appears to benefit several aspects of cognitive function too.

This data also suggests that adding mentally-challenging activities to exercise might give your brain health an extra small boost. But given exercise alone showed consistent benefits across all three domains, I wouldn’t see separate brain training activities as something you MUST add to an already extensive list of things you need to do for your health.

If you enjoy doing puzzles, crosswords, or any other tasks that challenge your brain, that’s great. I’d just see them as potentially complementary to - rather than a substitute for - a physically active lifestyle.

Because if you’re looking for one habit that benefits your body and your brain - exercise is pretty darn hard to beat.

Thanks for reading!

Until next week,

Jackson

PS: I get a little kick every time one of my readers replies to one of my emails. If something I write has an impact on you (good or bad) - I’d LOVE to hear it! Hit reply and let me know.

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IMPORTANT:

The information contained herein is of general nature only and does not constitute personal advice. You should not act on any information without considering your personal needs, circumstances, and objectives. Any exercise program may result in injury. We recommend you obtain advice specific to your circumstances from an appropriate health professional before starting any exercise program.