Secrets To A Smarter You

Want to be bright as a button and quick as a whip? Hone your wits by harnessing the power of words, languages and mnemonics.

- Andrea Au Levitt And Brandon Specktor 

MOST OF US yearn to improve our mental acuity. As it turns out, beefing up your brain is like building a limber body: with a few simple exercises, you can be in tip-top cerebral shape. Here, some workout options.

BECOME A BOOKWORM

How many hours did you spend reading books last week? This question has been asked in thousands of homes every other year since 1992 as part of the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study (HRS). In 2016, when Yale researchers dug into the HRS data collected from more than 3,600 men and women over the age of 50, a hopeful pattern emerged: people who read books for as little as 30 minutes a day over several years were living an average of two years longer than people who didn’t read anything at all. Newspapers and magazines granted a smaller but similar advantage.

Why would a sedentary activity add years to your life? For starters, reading—especially fiction—has been shown to increase empathy and emotional intelligence. Sharpening these social tools can lead to an increase in positive human interaction, which in turn can lower stress levels—both factors that lead to health and longevity.