For some , being lose in a Christian Bible is better than watching a picture show . And although it might seem that bookworms let the globe pass   them by while their noses are stuck in a book , their love of reading will suffice them well : According to a fresh studyfrom the July issue ofNeurology , reader and other mentally active folks have boosted brainpower in former long time .

" Our study evoke that exercising your brain by train part in activities such as [ recitation , authorship , and playing with puzzle ] across a individual ’s lifetime , from childhood through onetime age , is important for brain health in old historic period , " says study co - source Robert S. Wilson , Ph.D. , older neuropsychologist at Chicago ’s Rush University Medical Center .

For six years prior to their deaths , 294 mass demand cognitive tests , which canvas their memory board and clean thought process . The subject area also recounted how frequently they exercised their brains by read a newspaper or book ( or favourite blog , ah hem ) ; write a letter ; playing a thought plot like chess or Sudoku ; or visit a museum or dramaturgy . All the subjects , part of the Rush Memory and Aging Process , donate their brains to skill so that the researchers could examine them after expiry . ( presently , the only way to definitively specify if someone suffers from Alzheimer ’s is to attend at the brain place - mortem for tangles , lesions , and plaques , hallmarks of the disease . )

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content who read , wrote , and play teaser experienced few cognitive trouble ; what ’s even more interesting is that genial activity stave in off the symptom of Alzheimer ’s disease . Even if their brains displayed memorial tablet , tangle , and lesion , multitude who drill their brains did not show behaviors of Alzheimer ’s .

“ establish on this , we should n’t underestimate the outcome of quotidian body process , such as reading and penning , on our children , ourselves , and our parents or grandparent , " Wilson says .

Not a liberal reader ? Never fear — it ’s not too former to start . The sketch finds that masses who challenge themselves subsequently in lifetime lowered cognitive deficits by 32 percent . The regretful intelligence : People who did n’t wage in genial acrobatics experienced cognitive decline 48 percent quicker .