Parents have taken drastic measures over the past twenty years when it comes to protecting their kiddos’ brains from concussions.

We wear helmets on bikes and scooters, trampolines have covers and nets, and more and more families are opting out of letting their children into sports like tackle football. The science doesn’t lie, and we know that repeated blows to the head can have serious and long-lasting consequences.

According to this study, though, concussions can also have a positive impact on kids’ cognitive performance.

The University of South Wales issued a press release, detailing that the compiled data came from 15,000 subjects who had suffered a sports-related concussion. They found those students had better cognitive outcomes than students who did not sustain a head injury.

The researchers concluded that suffering a concussion could even be considered protective in some cases, according to lead study author Matt Lennon.

“Our findings suggest that there is something about playing sports, even though a person may experience concussion, that may be beneficial for long-term cognitive outcomes.”

39.5% of the participants had at least one concussion – so around 6,000 people.  They then broke them into groups based on how that concussion was sustained; one group for sports-related and the other for accidents. Kids who got concussions playing sports had a 4.5% increase in working memory, and a 7.9% increase in reasoning capacity over those who sustained concussions from accidentes.

Researchers are still trying to discern why these statistics are falling out how they are, but they do admit that money could play a role. As in, kids whose parents can afford to put them in competitive sports when they’re small are more likely to be able to afford higher education.

They did, however, try to control for those factors and so they believe something weirder is at work here.

It could contradict assumptions that the issues seen in professional athletes would transfer to kids playing amateur sports.

“This finding should not be overstated – the beneficial effects were small and in people who had two or more sports-related concussions there was no longer any benefit to concussion. Additionally, this study does not apply to concussions in professional athletes whose head injuries tend to be more frequent, debilitating, and severe.”

The authors do warn that more information is needed before the medical community would weigh in on the actual dangers of a mild concussion here and there.

“Concussions that occur during sport do not lead to brain health concerns whereas other concussion types do, especially when people experience multiple concussions. In fact, people who take part in sport seem to have better brain health regardless of whether they have had a concussion whilst taking part or not.”

This could be a game changer for parental anxiety.

Although I’m sure there’s still plenty to keep us up at night.

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