Not black and white: are crossword puzzles really good for your brain?

TThe first crossword puzzle – or “word cross puzzle,” as it was called at the time – was a diamond-shaped grid designed by Arthur Wynne and published in the New York World newspaper in December 1913. The clues ranged from simple (three-letter word for “the plural” from is”) to niche (three letter word for “the fiber of the gomuti palm”). To help the participants get started, the word FUN was written at the top of the puzzle.

Puzzlers and scientists ever since to have speculated about whether the mental gymnastics required to solve a crossword count as exercise for our brains. We spoke to experts about whether doing crossword puzzles actually helps brain function, and what else you can do to keep your mind in shape.

Do crosswords improve brain function?

Just over a year ago, media sockets excited reported in an article published in the scientific journal NEJM evidence which looked at older adults with mild cognitive impairment – ​​patients who experience some forgetfulness but still function in their daily lives – and found that those who did online crossword puzzles maintained better cognitive function than those who played online cognitive exercise games.

Does this mean that, in the interests of brain health, we should all download crossword apps and rack our brains for Europe’s second longest river?

“It’s too early to tell,” said Dr. Davangere P. Devanand, author of the NEJM Evidence study, professor of psychiatry and neurology and director of brain aging and mental health at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

The study measured participants’ cognitive function using the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale – Cognitive Subscale (Adas-Cog) test, and Devanand noted that those who did crossword puzzles maintained or slightly improved their scores on some measures, while those those who did the brain games generally saw their scores drop.

What was especially promising, Devanand says, is that those who did crossword puzzles also saw some improvement in what researchers call “instrumental activities of daily living” — activities that are more common in daily life than hyperactivity. -specific medical tests, such as managing finances and remembering to take medications.

“If your cognitive performance improves on a test, but other things don’t improve, that (treatment) may not have much practical value,” he says. “But it’s all quite preliminary. We need to investigate it more carefully in a larger study.”

This is not the only thing study to suggest that crossword puzzles can help brain function. In a 2011 study of people in preclinical stages of dementia, Dr. Jagan Pillai, a staff neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, found that doing crossword puzzles delayed the onset of accelerated memory decline by 2.54 years. Still, he added that while some studies have found a “link” between crossword puzzles and cognitive function, the sample size was small and larger clinical intervention studies are needed for more conclusive findings.

What happens in our brains when we do a crossword puzzle?

One reason experts suspect that crossword puzzles can help preserve brain function is that they require complex thinking.

“When we do a crossword puzzle, it is a test of memory, knowledge and verbal skills,” says Devanand.

In addition, Pillai says, “There is a hypothesis that (doing crossword puzzles) improves working memory, or a person’s ability to hold multiple things in mind at the same time.” This enhanced memory reserve, the idea goes, could compensate for some of the losses in cognitive function caused by the onset of dementia.

But it’s hard to say for sure whether crosswords “strengthen” the brain, because the brain is not a muscle and its function does not improve in the same way as muscle function. Doing dumbbell curls strengthens the biceps and the muscles around them, but in the brain, “everything is constantly working in conjunction with everything else,” Devanand explains. For example, our memory functions and verbal functions always interact with each other. “When we focus on one cognitive function, it is almost impossible to focus on that function alone,” he says. In other words, one repeated, isolated exercise – like crossword puzzles – is not enough to make our memory bulging and strong.

What if you hate crossword puzzles?

However, if you hate crosswords, they won’t help you much anyway.

“If you don’t really enjoy doing crossword puzzles, you won’t get as much benefit from them,” says Dr. Lori Cook, director of clinical research at the Center for BrainHealth in Dallas. “Your brain needs to be actively motivated and engaged to get the most out of it.”

Fortunately, there are other things you can do to keep your brain in shape.

What can you do to keep your brain healthy?

Cook notes that the human brain is not only infinitely complex, but also unique and dynamic, meaning that no two people’s brains are the same, and a person’s brain does not remain the same throughout their life. Therefore, she says, “there is no one-size-fits-all approach to preventing decline as we age.”

In general, it is helpful to do different activities that stimulate the brain in different ways. Pillai suggests reading, playing board games, playing musical instruments and dancing.

Experts add that caring for our brains also means caring for our bodies. “What’s good for the heart is good for the brain,” says Devanand. Cook encourages a holistic approach to brain health, integrating “quality sleep, nutrition and physical activity” as well as “maintaining emotional balance into our daily needs.”

They also emphasized the importance of community and social interactions. Devavand noted that people who are more isolated and have fewer social connections tend to have poorer cognitive functioning as they age. Social interactions are important not only for our sense of belonging, he points out, but also because they are complex situations that the brain has to navigate. “When we socialize, a lot of things happen in terms of communication, brain function and just general awareness of the world around you. You learn things,” he says.

And if you want to socialize over a crossword puzzle, all the better.