Using This Basic Skill Every Day Could Prevent Cognitive Decline ...Saudi Arabia

The longer you read this article, the sharper your brain will become—and no, we're not exaggerating. Research says so!

According to a study published in Science Advances, regularly practicing two key stills can help prevent age-related cognitive decline. This finding is exciting, because it challenges the popular belief that mental clarity always worsens with age.

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Previous research suggested that cognitive function could start to decline as early as age 30, for example. The problem with that theory, however, is that they used data showing the cognitive differences between adults—not the changes in a person's skill over time.

Still, the belief has been so widely held that shows like The Golden Girls use it as a running gag, as one of the lead characters often forgot people’s names and would start a story before forgetting what she was talking about mid-sentence.

Related: Worrying About Aging Can Accelerate Cognitive Decline

While great for a sitcom, this new study proves that's not exactly reality. In fact, when people regularly do math or read, their skill levels do not decline.

To understand how it worked, the study authors tested the language and math skills in a German population ranging from 16 to 65 years old (average age was 41.3 years), with 37.8% having a white-collar job. After 3.5 years, a good sample of the original study participants was re-tested. People were asked how often they did activities, such as reading emails or calculating costs at work or home.

Their findings? Average reading and math skills increased when a person reaches their 40s—and then slowly declined. Math skills also fell more sharply with women than men as they aged. Thus, the research team theorized that fluid intelligence—which is the ability to think abstractly without prior knowledge—declined in early adulthood, meaning that by your 40s and 50s, it becomes much harder to switch between tasks or solve complex math problems.

There was an exception to the aforementioned drop in cognitive skills, however: The study found that age-related cognitive decline only happened to people whose reading and math skills were already below average, while participants with above-average skill levels did not show skill decline as they got older. Further, their skill levels continued to increase after their 40s before flattening out.

Translation? The more you read and do math (say, calculating how much you owe for a tip), the better protected your brain health is over time.

Related: This One Food Habit Has a Huge Impact on Cognitive Decline

Why Does This Matter?

Globally, this is reassuring for countries like the United States, whose aging population has grown in the past five decades. Older individuals still make up a good chunk of the workforce, with a 117% rise in employees 65 and older in the past 20 years (quite possibly because so many people can't afford to retire, but that's a whole other issue). Individually, the findings reinforce the value of lifelong learning and keeping your brain engaged.

“Avoidance of skill losses is not automatic and appears related to stimulation from skill usage,” the study authors wrote. “These results thus suggest that age-skill relationships of adults deserve policy attention, consistent with concerns about the necessity of lifelong learning.”

Up Next:

Related: The #1 Sign of Mild Cognitive Impairment You Should Never, Ever Ignore

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