people worried about the stress of changing jobs homes and cities simultaneously should relax a new research shows that people can make multiple and simultaneous changes in lifeconducted by the university of california at santa barbara the study tested participants on a variety of factors including physical fitness cholesterol and triglyceride levels working memory capacity reading comprehension among others and the results of the study which were published in frontiers in human neuroscience last week suggests that people seriously underestimated their ability to change their lives for the betterthe studys lead author michael mrazek said his sixweek study demonstrates that simultaneous significant improvement across a broad range of mental and physical functions is possible participants in the intervention showed dramatic improvements in more than a dozen different outcomes including strength endurance flexibility working memory standardized test performance focus mood selfesteem mindfulness and life satisfaction said a press release put out by the universityin the study 31 college students were recruited for an intensive lifestyle change program 15 participated in the intervention and 16 were in the waitlist control group those in the intervention put in five hours a day each weekday for six weeks they did 25 hours of physical exercise including yoga and pilates one hour of mindfulness practice and 15 hours of lecture or discussion on topics such as sleep nutrition exercise mindfulness compassion relationships or well being they were advised to limit alcohol consumption to one drink a day eat a diet of mostly whole foods and sleep 810 hours a daythroughout the study the participants were tested on a variety of factors including physical fitness cholesterol and triglyceride levels working memory capacity reading comprehension and more they also underwent magnetic resonance imaging mri of their brains to examine areas known to be associated with a range of cognitive functions the release said six weeks after the intervention the participants continued to show improvement in all areas we predicted that the intervention would lead to substantial improvements in health cognitive abilities and wellbeing but we didnt know how long they would last it seemed possible that some of the benefits wouldnt extend beyond the training so i was surprised that even without any contact and support participants maintained significant improvements at the sixweek follow up added mrazek