They found that the more regularly people did puzzles, the better they performed on tasks assessing attention, reasoning and memory.
Interestingly, the team calculated that people who engage in puzzles have brain function equivalent to 10 years younger than their age.
Dr Anne Corbett, of the University of Exeter Medical School, who led the research, said: “We’ve found that the more regularly people engage with puzzles such as crosswords and Sudoku, the sharper their performance is across a range of tasks assessing memory, attention and reasoning.
“The improvements are particularly clear in the speed and accuracy of their performance.
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