Meryl Horne
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And they find that actually like there might be a benefit here.
The people who say that they do crosswords are less likely to get dementia or maybe they'll get it a few years later than the people who weren't doing the crossword puzzles.
Like they'll have more years of good memory.
But there are a couple of big caveats here.
One is that these studies also find a benefit for other stuff, too.
It's not just crossword puzzles like reading the newspaper, knitting, cooking, like a bunch of stuff that sort of just uses the brain has also been linked to a lower chance for dementia.
And then the other caveat is that it could just be that the people who have a better memory in the first place are doing more crosswords.
Or if it was just the people who already had a better memory were doing crossword puzzles.
Like there are some clinical trials on crosswords and brain training games in general, but those are all kind of a mess.
Like it's hard to tell from those if there is a real benefit to this kind of puzzle.
So let's talk about something that's maybe not as sexy as a crossword puzzle.
Then let's go to something much sexier than a crossword puzzle.