A simple activity every day seems to provide significant support for the brain throughout childhood and into old age. In a review of the literature from the University of Cambridge, researchers have identified that reading for enjoyment consistently relates to improved cognitive function, greater psychological well being, and lowered probability of decline in old age. The review (which was published in Psychological Medicine) synthesizes evidence from a number of extensive studies and proposes that the potential of reading extends to every period of human development and aging.
Professor Barbara Sahakian and Dr Christelle Langley, with Vicki Perrin, from The Queen’s Reading Room, analyzed data from surveys and longitudinal studies of thousands of individuals. The results were definitive: children who took up reading for pleasure at an early age showed benefits in attention and memory, the executive functions that help planning and inhibit distracting impulses. They also showed higher academic achievement, lower mental health problems, had longer sleep durations, and spent less time on screens. A study involving more than 10,000 young people found substantial differences in head size and shape, whilst early readers showed greater neural development in areas tied to language, emotion regulation and learning.
The benefits don’t end when a child grows up. Brain imaging research shows that, even in adulthood, habitual readers tend to possess higher volumes of grey matter and more robust networks linking regions of the brain involved in cognition and memory. Researchers propose that this kind of axiom might contribute to what is termed as ‘cognitive reserve’-the brain’s potential to compensate for aging and contend with the consequences of pathology and injury. That is, the mind that has spent years reading stories and discoursing through language seems to be less susceptible to decline, even when biology begins to change.
In older age the benefits become in particular clear. Several studies of people 55 and over have shown that those who read frequently were at Greatly lower risk of developing impairment to a later date. Other findings have demonstrated that regular reading of books, papers, and magazines was linked to about a one-third lower risk of Alzhemers. The Cambridge review also confirms that these effects persist after factors like health and education are taken into consideration.
Crucially the authors stress ‘it’s never too late’. The increases seemed more to do with reading for pleasure than what was actually read. Anywhere from fine wine to graffiti, war, and peace to war comics or anything in between is fine as long as there is continued exposure to a complex form of book that ingrains concentration into the reader’s mind via imagination. Here in only reading groups and book clubs can be of any relevance as any of these involves social interaction, which has also been shown to be tied to a decreased risk of dementia.
This review comes at a time when reading for enjoyments has been on the decline in many areas replacing it with shorter forms of online reading. Sahakian and colleagues reason that promoting reading as a leisure activity may be a simple cheap option to maintain public brain health. Reading with children, adults rescuing a moment of stillness and the elderly upholding the activity receive not only pleasure but benefit.
