Do this every day for fun. You won’t believe what will happen to your health

Scientists have been studying how reading affects the human brain for years. Recently, the findings of researchers at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago were published in the journal Neurology. They invited a group of almost 2,000 people to the experiment. a person with an average age of 80 years. At the start of the study, the older adults recruited did not have dementia. Over the course of 8 years, they were observed how they spent their time - mainly whether they read newspapers or books, but also whether they played board games, did crossword puzzles, visited friends and wrote letters. By the end of the study, 457 participants had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease—people who didn’t spend much time in intellectual entertainment. This study showed that reading is one of the most important activities that slow down the aging of the brain and the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease - up to 5 years.

How does reading affect the brain?

Researchers at UTHealth Houston, led by Dr. Oscar Woolnow and Professor Nitin Tandon, investigated the effects of reading on the human brain. Their work, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is being discussed by neuroscientists around the world. The team showed that neural networks in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain are activated during reading. To understand the meaning of the words you read, both beats must work together. The neural network from the frontal lobe sends a signal to the neural network from the temporal lobe. It must be understood correctly so that the reader can correctly process the words read and analyze the content of whole sentences.

The study was conducted on patients with epilepsy who were implanted with neurostimulators to control epilepsy. It turned out that people who read regularly were in a much better intellectual state. The results of the study will be used for further analysis, including brain function in people with dyslexia.

Reading for pleasure develops working and episodic memory

Researchers from the Beckman Institute in Champaign also came to interesting conclusions. They presented them in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. Previously, they invited 76 people aged 60 to 79 to participate in the study, who were divided into two groups. The first were given interesting books to read, which had to be read for 5 days, 90 minutes a day. The second group solved puzzles on the iPad.

After analyzing the cognitive skills of volunteers before and after the study, it was shown that reading for pleasure, which is really addictive, helps to develop and develop memory. Also episodic, thanks to which we connect causal relationships and remember the names of the characters, what they have in common and what happened in previous chapters. Reading also strengthens working memory, which keeps us focused on the next paragraphs. Both episodic and working memory deteriorate over time. Reading, by engaging the brain, effectively strengthens it. Study author Elizabeth A. L. Stein-Morrow acknowledged that reading is the best way to keep our brains going and reduce the effects of Alzheimer’s.

Why do illiterate people forget faster?

In 2019, the medical journal Neurology published an article showing that illiterate people are three times more likely to get dementia than people who can read and write. Almost a thousand people were invited to participate in the study, the average age of which did not exceed 77 years. Their training lasted no more than 4 years. It turned out that literate people have fewer problems with concentration, they better connect current facts and events from the past.

According to study author Dr. Jennifer J. Manley of Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, the ability to read and write makes a person more independent, keeps an eye on world events, and engages in helping others.

It is also worth adding that Interesting reading can reduce stress levels by 68 percentwhich is invaluable, especially before bed. Unless you fall asleep from fatigue after reading the first paragraph.