--- title: Doing Physical and Mental Exercise When You’re Younger May Help Ward Off Dementia description: What you do during middle age can impact whether you develop dementia or Alzheimer’s later on, a study finds. Here's what to know. canonical: https://time.com/5533718/exercise-reduces-dementia-risk/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-02-20T21:16:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:52:56.995Z article:section: Health og:title: Doing Physical and Mental Exercise When You’re Younger May Help Ward Off Dementia og:description: According to a new study og:url: https://time.com/5533718/exercise-reduces-dementia-risk/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf62a919832d6c0d1/6988d476656a3f60fcbd0b1a/time-magazine-exercise-fitness-health-bethan-mooney-20.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: time-magazine-exercise-fitness-health-bethan-mooney-20 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Doing Physical and Mental Exercise When You’re Younger May Help Ward Off Dementia twitter:description: According to a new study twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf62a919832d6c0d1/6988d476656a3f60fcbd0b1a/time-magazine-exercise-fitness-health-bethan-mooney-20.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Doing Physical and Mental Exercise When You’re Younger May Help Ward Off Dementia > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Dance Like Your Doctor Is Watching: It's Great for Your Mind and Body [Watch (HLS stream): Dance Like Your Doctor Is Watching: It's Great for Your Mind and Body](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tW5kX4UW.m3u8) (1:34)  _Published 2019-01-02. Two new studies say that dancing may keep you healthy well into old age, potentially by reducing the risk of disability and dementia_  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Feb 20, 2019 9:16 PM UTC  Bethan Mooney for TIME  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Feb 20, 2019 9:16 PM UTC Dementia and [Alzheimer’s disease](http://time.com/5159880/please-be-the-drug/) generally strike late in life. But researchers say that what you do when you are younger — including activities like reading and gardening — can affect your risk of developing these conditions. In a new [study published in the journal _Neurology_](http://n.neurology.org/lookup/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000007021), researchers in Sweden found that mentally stimulating activities and physical [exercise](http://time.com/4549059/weight-lifting-alzheimers-prevention/) can independently lower people’s chances of developing many types of dementia, as well as Alzheimer’s disease. The study included 800 women who were on average 47 years old at the start of the study, and researchers followed them for 40 years. At the beginning of the study, the women answered questions about their mental and physical activities. Mental endeavors included everything from reading to visiting a museum, attending a concert, playing an instrument, doing needlework, being part of a club and attending church. Physical activities included walking, gardening, playing tennis, cycling, swimming or participating in competitive sports. Based on how often they did these activities, the scientists ranked them as high or low participants. Six times over the course of the study, the women took cognitive tests to assess their mental acuity, and the researchers collected information on any dementia diagnoses during this time. The women who engaged in more mental activities lowered their risk of developing any type of dementia by 34% compared to those who reported doing fewer mental activities. And women who exercised regularly at intense levels several times a week had a 57% lower risk of developing a combination of Alzheimer’s dementia and dementia compared to those who exercised less. “We hope these results give people hope,” says the study’s lead author Dr. Jenna Najar, from the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at the University of Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska Academy. “Dementia is a growing problem in the world, and there is no treatment or cure for this disease. This study shows that it seems that mental activity is as important as physical activity to preserve or increase the chances of healthy aging.” Similar studies that have looked at the link between physical or mental activity and dementia have not usually included as long an observation period as the new analysis does. Most of those studies also start with people who were much older and who were potentially already affected by different types of dementia. In her analysis, Najar adjusted for the fact that some of the women in the study might already be experiencing early signs of dementia. She also found that exercise and mental activities lowered dementia risk independently of each other. The benefit of mental activities occurred regardless of how much physical activity the women did. And the same pattern held for exercise; women who were more active experienced benefit no matter how much mental activity they did. The results support the findings of another [recent study](http://time.com/5522883/education-dementia-alzheimers/): that while attaining more education isn’t necessarily linked to a lower risk of dementia, being cognitively active in mid-life and later — when aging-related dementia processes start — could reduce risk. Najar was not able to look at whether women who were highly engaged in both mental and physical activities had an even lower risk of dementia. (It’s possible that they might, she says.) She adds that her study only asked about the women’s activities at one point in time and assumed those patterns continued for most of their lives. Still, she says, the findings should give doctors more reason to discuss both mental and physical activities with their patients who are concerned about dementia — and start discussing them by midlife, years before the first signs might appear. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5533718/exercise-reduces-dementia-risk/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5533718/exercise-reduces-dementia-risk/"},"headline":"Doing Physical and Mental Exercise When You’re Younger May Help Ward Off Dementia","datePublished":"2019-02-20T21:16:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:52:56.995Z","description":"According to a new study","url":"https://time.com/5533718/exercise-reduces-dementia-risk/","keywords":["Brain"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf62a919832d6c0d1/6988d476656a3f60fcbd0b1a/time-magazine-exercise-fitness-health-bethan-mooney-20.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf62a919832d6c0d1/6988d476656a3f60fcbd0b1a/time-magazine-exercise-fitness-health-bethan-mooney-20.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"time-magazine-exercise-fitness-health-bethan-mooney-20","caption":"","creditText":"Bethan Mooney for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/brain/","name":"Brain"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5533718/exercise-reduces-dementia-risk/","name":"Doing Physical and Mental Exercise When You’re Younger May Help Ward Off Dementia"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Dance Like Your Doctor Is Watching: It's Great for Your Mind and Body","description":"Two new studies say that dancing may keep you healthy well into old age, potentially by reducing the risk of disability and dementia","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/tW5kX4UW/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-01-02T15:19:53.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tW5kX4UW.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5533718/exercise-reduces-dementia-risk/","duration":"PT1M34S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5533718/exercise-reduces-dementia-risk/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```