Health Benefits from Caring for Grandchildren

source:  depositphotos.com

Science Daily (Jan. 29) reports:  “Helping care for grandchildren may offer an unexpected boost to brain health later in life. Researchers found that grandparents who provided childcare scored higher on memory and verbal skills than those who did not. The effect did not depend on how often they helped or the type of care they provided. Being involved as a caregiver itself appeared to matter most.”

The study was published in the journal Psychology and Aging. The lead author was Flavia Chereches.

“Chereches and her colleagues analyzed data from 2,887 grandparents who took part in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. All participants were over age 50, with a mean age of 67. Each person completed surveys and cognitive assessments on three occasions between 2016 and 2022.   Participants were asked whether they had cared for a grandchild at any point during the previous year. The survey also collected detailed information about how often grandparents provided care and the types of activities involved.”

Common sense tells us —  older persons who have social contacts and social involvement,  engage in activities that use many parts of their brains.  As I have written so often, to excess – our brains are muscles, use ‘em or lose ‘em, and exercise is as important for our prefrontal cortex as it is for our biceps or gluteus maxima.

If you don’t have grandkids yet —  maybe, borrow some from friends?