the active brain

Being a bookworm, jotting down your thoughts and completing other tasks that keep your brain active may help you stay sharp in your later years.

A study published on July 3, 2013 in the journal Neurology revealed that reading, writing, and doing other mentally-stimulating activities at every age helped stave off memory problems.

"Our study suggests that exercising your brain by taking part in activities such as these across a person's lifetime, from childhood through old age, is important for brain health in old age," study author Robert S. Wilson said in a press release. Wilson is senior neuropsychologist of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Study participants who reported the most reading and writing later in life were able to slow their memory decline by 32 percent compared to people with average mental activity. Those who reported the lowest mental stimulation in their later years had a 48 percent faster memory decline compared to the average.

Read more from the BBC here