Jul 30, 2015 06:03 PM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Going to the park and climbing a tree might do your brain some good.

Researchers at the University of North Florida found that climbing a tree and balancing on a beam can dramatically improve working memory, which is linked to performance in a wide variety of contexts from grades to sports. They found memory improvements can be made in just a couple of hours of these physical exercises, Newser reported.

"Improving working memory can have a beneficial effect on so many areas in our life, and it's exciting to see that proprioceptive activities can enhance it in such a short period of time," researcher Tracy Alloway said in a statement.

For the study, researcher recruited adults between the ages of 18 and 59 years and tested their working memory. The study participants undertook dynamic activities that made them aware of their body position and orientation.

In the study, such activities included climbing trees, walking and crawling on a beam approximately 3 inches wide, moving while paying attention to posture, running barefoot, navigating over, under and around obstacles, as well as lifting and carrying awkwardly weighted objects. After two hours, participants were tested again, and researchers found that their working memory capacity had increased by 50 percent, a dramatic improvement.

The researchers assembled two control groups for the study. The first was a college class learning new information in a lecture setting to see if learning new information improved working memory. The second was a yoga class to see if static proprioceptive activities were cognitively beneficial. However, neither control group experienced working memory benefits.

"This research suggests that by doing activities that make us think, we can exercise our brains as well as our bodies," Ross Alloway, who led the study, said in a statement. "This research has wide-ranging implications for everyone from kids to adults. By taking a break to do activities that are unpredictable and require us to consciously adapt our movements, we can boost our working memory to perform better in the classroom and the boardroom."

The findings are detailed in the journal Perceptual and Motor Skills.

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