Brain Workouts
Playing the guitar or a card game, getting together with friends—they're all good medicine for your noggin.
By: Phil Scott | Source: NRTA Live & Learn | February 17, 2006
TO LEXICOGRAPHERS, "ablaut" means "a vowel change, characteristic of Indo-European languages, that accompanies a change in grammatical function; for example, i, a, u in sing, sang, sung." To Scrabble players, it's a word that eats up six low-point-score tiles (including two a's) that you probably need to get rid of. And adults who know its definition, or its use in Scrabble, or both, may just be warding off the onset of dementia, including Alzheimer's.
Researchers are learning that such activities as board games or cards, playing a musical instrument, reading, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, and even ordinary social interaction increase mental function. A 21-year study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003 found that performing one such activity—playing Risk or Scrabble, for example—just once a week is associated with a 7 percent reduced risk of dementia, including Alzheimer's. Performing more activities more frequently may cut risk as much as 63 percent.
How Does Playing Games Help Your Brain? It comes down to using your noggin. Good Risk players must plan strategies and plot moves to achieve world domination. Scrabble players must memorize lists of words. Crossword puzzle enthusiasts must recall definitions of often-obscure words. And good musicians must not only memorize or sight-read the piece they're playing, but also coordinate their fingers to play the notes. Researchers suggest that this kind of mental effort may increase one's "cognitive reserve," thus giving your brain resources that buffer against damage caused by disease. Or it may promote brain plasticity—the ability of the brain to adapt and be flexible when faced by an obstacle.
Most people don't believe their memory is that great, and they think it declines as they grow older. (Hence the "senior moment" jokes.) But according to K. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University, people with exceptional memories are made, not born. Like getting to Carnegie Hall, all it takes is practice, practice, practice. Ericsson recommends that you keep challenging yourself by memorizing new words for Scrabble and taking on new and more complex musical pieces.
"Getting good at something is hard," says Ericsson. "If you can't do something it's not because you're old, but because you're not willing to put the time in on it." He cites one recent study in which researchers read off a series of numbers, one per second, to seven college students. When they began the experiment, the best students could repeat up to 25 numbers; at its conclusion they could repeat 80 or more digits. One could remember more than 100 digits. Think age is a factor? In July 2005, 59-year-old Akira Haraguchi recited pi to 83,431 decimal places, a new world's record.
Don't Neglect Your Social Life. Some researchers maintain that interacting with other human beings may be even more important than the quantity of information you process. According to a 2004 article in the Journals of Gerontology, interaction in larger social networks lessened intellectual decline in a study of 354 adults aged 50 and older. That means you may not have to be all that smart to stave off dementia.
"Even if it's a bunch of illiterate people sharing stories, social interactions are more complicated than solitary activities," says David Bennett, MD, director of Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago. "Social interaction is probably among the most complex things we do—working a room at a party is a lot more complicated than doing a problem." What it all comes down to, he says, is simple. "If you go beyond the data and ask if it matters whether you're reading a book, doing a crossword puzzle, working a room, or solving an Einsteinian physics problem, in all those instances you're using your thinking ability," he says.
"Even watching television is a form of interaction," Bennett continues. "People with moderate Alzheimer's disease can't do it." But, he adds, if watching Desperate Housewives alone once a week is your only activity, then it won't do you much good. So get together with friends and break out that Scrabble board. Or join the worldwide phenomenon and try a Sudoku puzzle.
Phil Scott has written for Scientific American and New Scientist. He is a regular contributor to NRTA Live & Learn. This article was published in NRTA Live & Learn, Winter 2006.
Watch for new stories every Thursday in Live & Learn, NRTA's publication for the AARP educator community: Celebrating learning as a creative lifestyle.
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