Sports Fans Get a Great Brain Workout

If you or your significant other plans to sit around and watch college football at every opportunity these next few weeks, it may be that what looks like laziness actually can be called an exercise in self-improvement. According to a new study, watching sports is not just fun and relaxing, it’s also a good brain workout. Researchers at the University of Chicago have found that fans improve their mental function by stimulating the brain’s ability to understand the sometimes arcane language of sports.

GAME ON

In the study, associate professor of psychology Sian L. Beilock, PhD, and her colleagues asked a group that consisted of 12 hockey players, eight fans and nine individuals who don’t watch games at all to listen to phrases that included specific hockey jargon — for example, finish that shot. Next they listened to sentences about everyday actions, such as ringing a doorbell or pushing a shopping cart. As participants listened, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to map brain activity to see which areas of the brain were most active, then participants took simple tests to measure how well they had understood the sentences.

Everyone had approximately equal understanding of the ordinary action sentences, Dr. Beilock reports, while (no surprise here) the hockey players and fans better understood the hockey-related language. The unexpected finding was that the motor areas of the brain associated with planning, controlling and performing actions — not just those involved with language — were activated in fans when they listened to the sports-related sentences, even though they had no intention to, say, make a slapshot. This shows that neural networks normally geared to producing action were activated even in people (the fans, in this case) who hadn’t spent time on the ice. Said another way, both players and fans worked multiple areas of their brains, rather than just a single area.

This study adds to an increasing body of evidence suggesting that the adult brain remains flexible and dynamic and is able to absorb and use new information and language. Dr. Beilock notes that it also indicates that when we watch sports, the brain areas associated with language interact with those normally focused on physical action. It’s mental multi-tasking. Results of the study were published in the September 9, 2008, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

THE BEST DEFENSE

No doubt there will be nay-sayers who contend there are better ways to sharpen mental skills — crossword puzzles, chess, book groups, learning a foreign language or playing a new instrument, to name a few. But for a simple boost in brain fitness and maybe even better brain flexibility and language skills, you can just settle yourself on the couch and watch a football game. Take a pass on the beer and chips, though — this workout burns very few calories.

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