RESEARCH SAYSTREE CLIMBING

IMPROVES YOUR MEMORY

A recent study from the University of North Florida found that tree climbing can improve your cognitive skills

This fact was discovered when researchers were testing the link between proprioceptively demanding training & working memory.

Proprioception is your awareness of your body orientation & positioning.

Proprioception is how you are able to type on a keyboard without looking at your hands or grab your cup of coffee

without taking your eyes off the road

Your working memory is your short term memory that you use to make connections and manage multiple streams of information in the moment during an activity.

The classic example of working memory is doing a math problem in your head without using a pen and paper.

The study found that activities which focused on body orientation & at least one other variable

such as locomotion or navigation

improved working memory by 50%

You may be asking, “What does climbing trees have to do with it?”

Tree climbing includes all of these essential elements. When you climb a tree you are choosing which branch to grab, you are physically moving from one location to another and you are using proprioception to make sure that you don’t fall out of the

tree or bump your head.

This combinThis combination of multitasking and real-time problem solving makes tree climbing a perfect training regimen for your working memory.

Past studies have already established that working memory is crucial to sports performance

This is because athletic performance relies on your ability to judge distance, appropriate force & joint alignment.

Working memory is crucial for managing these variables. Working memory also affects reading, multitasking, learning, reasoning & mental health.

While it is clear thWhile it is clear that working memory supports performance in proprioceptively demanding activities like tree climbing it was not clear whether these activities had an

effect on working memory. Now we know it’s a two way street.

Like any good study the researchers used control groups to isolate variables that would potentially affect working memory

Neither of the control groups climbed trees at any point during the study.

The first group was a classroom of students that they tested before and after a lecture. This was done to see if the act of learning or engaging in mentally demanding

activities would increase working memory.

The class did not significantly improve their working memory.

Researchers also wanted to determine if solely focusing on body orientation & positioning would increase working memory

The second control group was a yoga class. They chose yoga because, it is a proprioceptive activity and because, other scientific studies have established that yoga has many benefits beyond increasing flexibility and strength. Research has found that

yoga can improve your attention and prevent injury.

Despite those other benefits Despite those other benefits the control group did not find significant improvements in working memory after doing yoga.

The lack of improvement in the control groups demonstrates that you cannot separate these factors

& still gain the benefits in working memory

You won’t improve your working memory only by working out your brain and you also won’t improve your working memory by only focusing on body awareness.

Even though this study provided a bounty of insights there are still a lot of unanswered questions

It’s still unclear whether climbing trees for different lengths of time affects the degree of improvement in your working memory.

It’s also unclear whether tree climbing affects different types of memory such as spatial, verbal or visual memory.

Now that you know tree climbing can help you remember where you left your keys, how can you take advantage of this knowledge

without the risk of breaking your neck?

If the tree in your backyard doesn’t have enough branches you can buy an

Arboreal Tree Climbing System and outfit your back yard with environmentally friendly climbing holds.

YYou can even buy a Universal Mount so you can set up a top rope and safely belay your family up and down your new route.