Outdoor physical activity more beneficial for classroom than indoor, study suggests

Sports scientists at Nottingham Trent University wanted to understand the potential impact on cognitive function of combining exercise with being outside.

They investigated the cognitive performance of pupils, aged 11-13, following identical indoor and outdoor 30-minute basketball sessions.

Pupils were challenged to a series of cognitive tests measuring executive function including inhibitory control, working memory, and attention before, immediately after, and 45 minutes after physical activity.

The researchers observed improvements in response times and accuracy following outdoor physical activity, when compared to indoor activity.

In one challenge, which uses conflicting stimuli requiring participants to inhibit an automatic response, response time was 94 milliseconds faster following outdoor activity and 20 milliseconds faster following indoor. Accuracy, meanwhile, improved by two percent 45 minutes after outdoor exercise, and 0.1% after indoor.

Short term memory, tested by challenging pupils to recall a series of random letters, improved response time by 34 milliseconds immediately following outdoor activity, and by 69 milliseconds 45-minutes after outdoor physical activity, compared to a slowing in response time at both time points after indoor physical activity.

And attention, which was measured by asking pupils to identify the direction of a central arrow facing in either the same, or a different direction to those either side of it, improved response time by 44 milliseconds 45-minutes after physical activity outdoors, compared to only a 14 millisecond improvement after indoor physical activity.

Previous studies have shown that being outside in nature can help to recover mental resources and increase attentional capacity, which is crucial when performing cognitive tasks.

"We saw superior improvements across all the cognitive domains we assessed, when physical activity was performed outdoors," said senior author Simon Cooper, Professor of Physical Activity and Health in Nottingham Trent University's School of Science and Technology.

He said: "While cognitive benefits of nature and physical activity have been studied independently, this is the first time such improvements have looked at the effects of the two together and when compared to indoor physical activity."

Grace Walters, a postdoctoral research fellow at Nottingham Trent University, who led the study, said: "Our research suggests a combined benefit of physical activity and an outdoor environment. The findings support the idea that school-based physical activity should be performed outdoors, where possible. "

A 2023 study at Nottingham Trent University revealed how fittest pupils performed best at cognitive studies.

The latest research is reported in the journal Physiology & Behaviour.