A MENTAL HACK FOR COGNITIVE DECLINE
An excerpt from an article in AARP
Dr. Richard Restak, a noted neurologist and neuropsychiatrist, often asks his patients about their reading habits:
“If the patient’s response includes some variation of ‘I used to read lots of fiction but not anymore,’ that’s a red flag for potential cognitive decline.
“Fiction is a challenge to your working memory, which has to follow a plot and keep track of characters. Your memory isn’t nearly as challenged by nonfiction.”
As a writer, I would add that fiction exercises our “emotional intelligence”.
For example, in the Odyssey by Homer, Penelope is waiting, (for years), for Odysseus to return. Rather than stating how she felt about it, (which is a fact), one translation wrote,
“Although there were chairs of many sizes and shapes throughout the house, there was not a one she could draw comfort from.”
Applying our emotional intelligence to this description, we know this is not about the chairs, but rather Penelope’s inner emotional state. It is this that motivates her action.
By using our emotional intelligence, we participate in the story in a way that both enriches the experience, and exercises our brains.
Viewed in this way, it becomes evident
that fiction has medicinal properties!
Who knew medicine could taste so good?
From Loy; In the forests of the mind.
“Truth propels. It is formless. It exists
between one movement and the next.
It is there that you must look.” —Donan
Todd David Gross is the author of the award-winning Loy series. A Dystopian Fantasy that leans into “Mystical Realism” to explore the nature of man.
—Do you have a comment, question or query?
The comments section is below.—
In a past life, Todd David Gross had an extensive background in music and was a veteran of such rock groups as The Burning Sensations, The Band Next Door, and The Shout! He performed primarily on bass, sometimes keys, sang, wrote songs, hauled equipment and performed in downtown NYC clubs, (usually after 2 a.m. on a work night), hauled equipment back, and sometimes saw the sun rise.
