• Question: Will 'exercising' a brain with sudoku puzzles preserve memory?

    Asked by anon-188124 to Pizza Ka Yee, Paul, Nadine, Alex on 15 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Paul Matusz

      Paul Matusz answered on 15 Nov 2018:

      Great question. Short answer – yes. Any sort of cognitive activity that is challenging your brain to work against its habits is helping keep the brain active and healthy. This can be anything – from sudoku through taking a different route to school/ work, to learning a new language.

    • Photo: Nadine Mirza

      Nadine Mirza answered on 16 Nov 2018:

      Hey again Crunchy!
      Yes- absolutely. Like Paul said, things like sudoku and puzzles keep the brain active, spurring new connections, strengthening old ones- these kinds of activities are called brain training and they improve not just memory but overall brain functioning too, for things like attention, language, calculations .etc.
      In fact, so important are activities like these that we encourage patients of dementia to keep doing these sorts of activities as long as they can manage.
      And actually studies show that doing these things do reduce risk of developing dementia!

Comments