Music lessons makes you smarter.
If you want your child to be smart and intelligent then, make sure your kid learns to play musical instruments, scientists say. University of Kansas Medical Center researchers have found that practicing musical instruments as a child not only help him mastering the instrument, it also provides a boost to his brain decades later.
The researchers found that pensioners who learned piano, flute, clarinet or other lessons as a youngster, did better on intelligence tests than others, the Telegraph reported. Lead researcher Dr Brenda Hanna-Pladdy said: “Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of aging.
“Since studying an instrument requires years of practice and learning, it may create alternate connections in the brain that could compensate for cognitive declines as we get older.” While much research has been done on the cognitive benefits of musical activity by children, this is the first study to examine whether those benefits can extend across a lifetime, said Dr Hanna-Pladdy .
For the study, published in the journal Neuropsychology, the researchers recruited 70 healthy adults, aged between 60 and 83, who were divided into groups based on their levels of musical experience. The groups included individuals with no musical training ; with one to nine years of musical study; or with at least 10 years of musical training. All the musicians were amateurs who began playing an instrument at about 10 years of age.
Photo credit: Cognition and the Arts
Via Times of India