Want a younger brain? Stay in school -- and take the stairs

Public Release: 9-Mar-2016
Want a younger brain? Stay in school -- and take the stairs
A Concordia University study shows that education and physical activity can significantly slow down grey-matter aging
Concordia University

Taking the stairs is normally associated with keeping your body strong and healthy. But new research shows that it improves your brain's health too -- and that education also has a positive effect.

In a study recently published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, researchers led by Jason Steffener, a scientist at Concordia University's Montreal-based PERFORM Centre, show that the more flights of stairs a person climbs, and the more years of school a person completes, the "younger" their brain physically appears.

The researchers found that brain age decreases by 0.95 years for each year of education, and by 0.58 years for every daily flight of stairs climbed -- i.e., the stairs between two consecutive floors in a building.

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