Is motorbike riding good for your brain?

Dr Ryuta Kawashima, famous for his popular Nintendo DS software “Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?”, reported the outcome of his study of “The relationship between motorcycle riding and our brain”.

He started this study when Yamaha Motors heard people saying that “You look younger if you ride a motorbike” or “I feel like motorbike riding took a few years off my age”, asked him if he could scientifically prove these statements.

His experiments involved 11 current riders who had medium & large motorcycle licences (average age of 45.4) and 10 ex-riders who held licences but had not taken a ride for 10 years or more (average age of 46.2). The first experiment was done by asking them to ride a motorcycle on courses in different conditions and recorded their brain activities using a machine. The eight courses consisted of ones with curves after curves, bad conditions, steep hills, hair-pin curves, etc.

Analysing the data, it lead to an interesting finding that the current riders and ex-riders use their brain in different ways.

When the current riders rode motorcycles, their brains (right hemisphere prefrontal area) became activated and they had a higher level of concentration. You would think that ex-riders might concentrate more because they had a gap between rides but riders who always ride paid more attention on their riding by activating their brains.

The next experiment was on “How the life habit of riding a motorcycle affects our brains”. This time the trial subject was healthy people who had licences but had not ridden for 10 years or more. For a couple of months, they had to use a motorbike to get to work and in other everyday situations and Dr Kawashima and the team studied how their brains and mental health have changed.

The result was that, if we use motorcycles in everyday life, it improves our cognitive faculties, especially our memory and spatial reasoning capacity. On the mental health side, the participants said on their questionnaire that their stress level had been reduced and their mental state changed for the better. Thanks to this experiment, participants who used a motorbike for 2 months, said that their health had got better, they had made less mistakes at work and they appreciated things more.

To the question of “Why motorcycles? Driving a car should have the same effect”, Dr Kawashima says “There were many studies done on driving cars in the past. A car is a comfortable machine which does not activate our brains. It only happens when going across a railway crossing or when a person jumps in front of us”. It is not the same as when riding a motorbike. He also says “By using motorcycles more in our life, we can have positive effects on our brains and minds”.

Recently, motorbikes generally have the impression of “noisy”, “dangerous” and “annoying” vehicles but according to these outcomes, it is proved to be the effective thing for “Smart-aging” (making your life better as you age). To me, who loves motorbikes, it looks cool when you ride a motorbike and get old. What do you think? We can export scooters and motorbikes, etc., whatever you want! Please ask us!



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