Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Our brain can adapt, master new skills, store memories and information, and even recover after a traumatic brain injury. This is called neuroplasticity. The lifelong capacity of the brain to change and rewrite itself in response to the stimulation of learning and experience. One of the skills that contributes to brain’s neuroplasticity is reading. It allows our brain to grow, expand, learn, and relearn. 

Some older individuals in their eighties or nineties, even if they were avid readers when younger, lose their ability to recall. A short story may be easier to comprehend but reading a novel and remembering all they read until the end eludes them.

“Research shows that along with diet and exercise, reading can stave off signs of dementia. Reading, journaling, meditation and other mentally stimulating activities, no matter the age, can help to keep memory and thinking skills intact,” writes psychotherapist Karen Fatica Geiger. “(Continuing to read later in life) sparks imagination, improves empathy, and stimulates the amygdala, which in turn creates memory association.”

In one study noted in Psychology Today, participants who read consistently had a 30 percent decrease in memory loss. The study also revealed, via post-mortem examination, that patients who reported reading as an important habit, did not exhibit neural lesions or plaques commonly associated with cognitive decline.”

What a wonderful reason to make daily reading a habit!