SerpApi.Org
For crossword lovers, the news has never been brighter. Study after study has pointed to the value of honing your mind with a daily word puzzle, suggesting that making this a regular habit can slow brain ageing dramatically.
Take the findings of a University of Exeter-led clinical trial called Protect, which followed 19,000 people aged 50 and over for many years, and discovered that people who regularly engaged with puzzles such as crosswords or sudoku maintained a level of cognitive function that was equivalent to someone eight years younger. Another trial, carried out by neuroscientists in the US, suggested that regular puzzling could delay the onset of cognitive decline by several years.
This isn’t surprising to Prof Matthew Kiernan, chief executive and director of Neuroscience Research Australia, who likens regular puzzles to a gym for the mind.
“I’ve just hit 60 and I’m doing all these stretching exercises because my legs are sore and painful, but it makes me feel better when I do them,” he says. “I think it’s the same for crosswords, sudoku and other puzzles, you feel better afterwards.”
It also doesn’t need to be especially time-consuming. Even two minutes of puzzling per day could make a significant difference over the course of many years.
“It could be at the beginning of the day over breakfast, or lying in bed at night, it doesn’t really matter,” says Kiernan. “It’s about looking after yourself.”
So why does regular puzzling help keep your mind healthy?
It gets your neurons firing
You may have encountered the phrase “use it or lose it” when it comes to healthy ageing. Kiernan explains that stimulating the brain in an intellectual manner prompts bursts of electrical activity or “firing” between the brain’s nerve cells, known as neurons, leading to the formation of more wiring or connections between brain areas.
“Cells that fire together, wire together. So the more you get your neurons going, the better,” says Kiernan.
He points to a famous study of trainee London black cab drivers which saw them undergo brain imaging scans before and after they were required to memorise 320 routes within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross station, covering 25,000 streets and 20,000 major landmarks. It revealed that their hippocampus, the brain’s memory hub, actually increased in size following the learning.
Kiernan believes that, for exactly the same reason, lifelong learning and the continuous acquisition of knowledge can make the brain more resilient to atrophy or shrinkage in our latter decades. He suggests that puzzles can play a role in this – you may learn new information through trying to complete a crossword or develop new vocabulary through various word games.
Joe Verghese, professor of neurology at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, says that the kind of cognitive stimulation provided by short, daily puzzles can be particularly valuable in retirement.
“A lot of people do cognitively stimulating activities during work, but as they retire, they don’t have the kinds of hobbies and interests that can sustain that cognitive stimulation, and I think that’s a danger point,” he says. “You need to challenge yourself.”
You build new pathways
Davangere Devanand, professor of psychiatry and neurology at Columbia University Medical Centre, explains that one of the most important aspects of puzzles is how hard they make your mind work.
“You’re racking your brain to think of a word, and doing it over and over,” he says. “It means you’re really challenging your brain.”
This helps you build something neuroscientists call cognitive reserve – a network of different pathways that can be used to transport information from one part of the brain to another.
Having this cognitive reserve is particularly useful in later life, as our brains accumulate more toxic proteins, such as beta amyloid, which is involved in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Yet some people are known to remain cognitively healthy for decades despite the presence of significant amounts of these toxins.
Their secret is thought to be greater cognitive reserve, meaning that even if some connections are destroyed by toxic proteins, others can be used to facilitate communication across the brain.
“If one way is blocked, the brain can find another way to do it because of this reserve,” says Kiernan. “That makes the brain function better.”
Puzzles stimulate multiple parts of your brain at once
You may not realise it, but when you’re trying to solve a puzzle, your brain is actually multitasking, as the process requires many different cognitive functions to take place simultaneously.
“Whether it’s sudoku, crosswords or other puzzles, you have to be paying attention. You need working memory to be able to read the question and keep it in your mind while solving the problem,” says Kiernan. “There’s logical reasoning going on, and that’s critical for the brain, as well as pattern detection. It’s not just one part of the brain – it’s all of those parts engaging.”
Devanand says this is why, when you first start doing crosswords or other puzzles, you might struggle. However, with regular stimulation, various aspects of brain function can improve rapidly. Verghese compares it to so-called compound exercises in the gym, which engage several muscle groups at the same time.
“I think a lot of puzzles are like compound exercises [for the mind],” he says. “They stimulate so many different parts of the brain – your memory, attention, processing speed and, in the case of crosswords [and other word games], language.”
Your brain is faced with a fresh challenge
One of the advantages of online puzzles is that there’s always a new daily challenge. According to scientists, while the novelty can sometimes be frustrating, it’s also key to the benefit.
“The brain thrives on challenges and novelty,” says Kiernan. “You don’t want to do the same thing over and over again, so don’t do the same crossword or the same sudoku. You may be able to complete it more quickly if you know all the answers, but you won’t get the same benefit.”
One reason for this is that humans have evolved to become the planet’s ultimate problem-solvers. It’s what our brains are designed to do, and when you crack a puzzle, a neurotransmitter called dopamine is released.
“It’s the reward neurotransmitter, and getting that reward is absolutely critical to the benefits because you’re building positive connections and memories in your brain,” says Kiernan. “Ultimately, there are two key things – making your brain solve problems and providing it with novelty. If you tick one or both of those boxes, the brain is humming.”
It improves vocabulary
Capable of processing words at a rate of 400 to 800 per minute, the brain can store up to 2.5 million gigabytes of visual information and words over a lifetime. In particular, stimulating the brain’s language centres by encouraging it to learn and recall new words appears to be one key way of delaying cognitive decline.
New research has indicated that learning a new language can slow brain ageing by up to 13 years. Word-based puzzles may be another way of stimulating these regions.
“Engaging in [language]-stimulating activities might activate parts of the brain that provide a buffer against something like Alzheimer’s disease,” says Verghese. “One of the few things that actually improves with age is vocabulary, which is closely linked to crossword puzzles and to being exposed to more words and language over time.”
It’s an enjoyable way to keep your mind active
Finally, motivation seems to play a key role in whether a particular intellectual activity is good for your brain. This was demonstrated in the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which began in the 1930s and found that taking joy in activities is one of the key secrets to a longer, happier life.
As a result, Verghese says it’s important to find a type of puzzle you enjoy. For example, if you genuinely hate sudoku, then doing it every day is unlikely to offer your brain as much positive stimulation, and it may be worth trying an alternative.
“It’s got to be enjoyable so you do it on a regular basis,” says Verghese. “Otherwise, after two tries, you’ll give up and that’s the end of it.”
So when should you begin incorporating regular puzzling into your lifestyle? Verghese’s message is simple: the sooner, the better.
“You want to make it a part of your lifestyle,” he says. “So if you start in your 20s and 30s, that’s great. But studies have also shown that even if people start later in life, there are still benefits. I encourage some of my patients, for instance, even though they’ve been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, to do children’s puzzles. So begin at a level you can manage, then try to build up, and get the family involved as well to support you.”
