The 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 newspaper New York World in December 1913. Its clues ranged from simple (three-letter word for “the plural of is”) to niche (three-letter word for “the fibre of the gomuti palm”). At the top of the puzzle, to help participants along, was the word FUN.
Ever since, puzzlers and scientists have speculated about whether the mental gymnastics that go into solving a crossword puzzle count as exercise for our brains. We talked 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?
A little over a year ago, media outlets excitedly reported on a paper published in the scientific journal NEJM Evidence that looked at older adults with mild cognitive impairment – patients who experience some forgetfulness but are still functioning in their day-to-day 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 interest of brain health, we should all be downloading crossword apps and start racking our brains for the second-longest river in Europe?
“It’s too soon to say that,” says Dr Davangere P Devanand, the author of the NEJM Evidence study, and professor of psychiatry and neurology and director of brain ageing 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 their scores or improved slightly on some measurements, while those who did the brain games generally saw their scores decline.
What was especially promising, though, Devanand says, is that those who did crossword puzzles also saw some improvement in what researchers call “instrumental activities of daily living” – activities that tend to come up more in one’s day-to-day life than hyper-specific medical tests, such as managing finances and remembering to take medication.
“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 examine it more carefully in a bigger study.”
This is not the only study to suggest crossword puzzles can help brain function. In a 2011 study of people in preclinical stages of dementia, Dr Jagan Pillai, 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 an “association” between crossword puzzling and cognitive function, the sample sizes were small, and larger clinical intervention trials are needed for more conclusive findings.
What happens in our brain when we do a crossword puzzle?
One reason experts suspect that crosswords might help maintain brain function is that they require complex thinking.
“When we do a crossword puzzle, it’s a test of memory, knowledge and verbal ability,” says Devanand.
Beyond that, Pillai says, “there is a hypothesis that [doing crossword puzzles] improves working memory or one’s ability to keep multiple things in mind at the same time.” This improved memory reserve, the thinking 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 isn’t a muscle and its function doesn’t improve in the same way muscle function does. Doing dumbbell curls will strengthen biceps and the muscles around them, but in the brain, “everything interacts with everything all the time,” Devanand explains. Our memory functions and verbal functions, for example, are always interacting. “Whenever we target one cognitive function, it’s almost impossible to target only that function,” he says. In other words, one repeated, isolated exercise – such as crossword puzzling – isn’t enough to make our memory bulging and strong.
What if you hate crossword puzzles?
If you hate crosswords, though, they won’t be much help to you in any case.
“If you don’t really enjoy doing crossword puzzles, then you’re less likely to benefit at all,” 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.”
Luckily, 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 in addition to being infinitely complex, the human brain is also unique and dynamic, meaning that no two people’s brains are the same, and a person’s brain doesn’t stay the same throughout their life. As such, she says, “there is no one-size-fits-all approach to preventing decline as we age.”
Generally speaking, engaging in a variety of activities that stimulate the brain in different ways is helpful. Pillai suggests reading, playing board games, playing musical instruments and dancing.
Experts add that caring for our brain involves caring for our body. “What is good for the heart is good for the brain,” says Devanand. Cook encourages a holistic approach to brain health that incorporates “quality sleep, nutrition and physical activity”, as well as “maintaining emotional balance in our daily demands”.
They also underscored the importance of community and social interactions. Devavand noted that people who are more isolated and have fewer social connections tend to have worse cognitive functioning as they age. Social interactions are not just important for our sense of belonging, he points out, but because they are complex situations for the brain to navigate. “When we socialize, many things are happening 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.
