Need to calm down? I know just the thing...

YOU should be very grateful that you’re reading my column today. Just keep on reading and bingo! I could put you on the road to, well not exactly eternal youth, but certainly it might knock a few years off your thinking skills.

“What is she burbling about?” I can hear you say, turning over to Martin Hesp. But the reason you need to keep reading is that studying a newspaper can give you the thinking skills of someone 13 years younger – yes, even my column might help.

A study in Nature magazine involved over 700 people with an average age of 76. Admittedly the volunteers self-reported how much physical and cognitive stimulation they had. The research set out to establish if physical and mental activities could help people’s “cognitive reserves”. Participants were asked whether, in the past 13 months they’d done three things: read newspapers, magazines or books; gone to classes, played cards games or bingo. Overall for each additional category of mental activity the researchers calculated people’s thinking speed improved by the equivalent of 12 fewer years of ageing. When the results were divided up by sex, men improved 17 years and women 10. If you’re more physically active you’ll come off better too, especially in women whose thinking speed was quicker than men. Funny that...

Another chance of living longer is if you attend religious services or describe yourself as spiritual. Harvard and a couple of other organisations in America looked at about 400 studies published in the last 22 years and examined whether there was any link between spirituality, better physical and/or mental health, particularly among patients being treated for serious illness. It seems if you’re a regular church-goer your health is likely to be better, you’re less likely to smoke, do drugs and drink less alcohol. Research found you’re 27% less likely to die early and 33% less likely to get depression. Atheists were found to smoke much more. Belonging to a religious or spiritual group was also strongly linked with improved health.

Interestingly, during lockdown those who tuned in to religious or spiritual services online had a “higher life satisfaction and happiness” and were 76% less likely to have “thoughts of self-harm”.

The result of the study recommends that doctors should not overlook spirituality for patients because according to Howard Kohl, a public health expert at Harvard, “to do so leaves patients feeling disconnected from the health care system and those caring from them.

“Integrating spirituality into care can help each person have a better chance of reaching complete wellbeing and their highest attainable standard of health”.

Is this report stressing you out? Well if so, reach for the Marmite. Yet another trial at Reading University shows that the B vitamins in Marmite can help reduce stress, particularly B6.

Lead author of the study, Dr David Field said: “The functioning of the brain relies on a delicate balance between the excitatory neurons that carry information around and inhibitory ones, which prevent runaway activity.”

Err... sorry to interrupt Doc, but what exactly is a runaway activity? Do toddlers have this? Anyway, he continues: “Recent theories have connected mood disorders and some other neuropsychiatric conditions with a disturbance of this balance often in the direction of raised levels of brain activity.”

To cut to the chase, the vitamin B6 found in Marmite has a calming effect, and eyesight seems to be helped too. If you hate Marmite, worry not. It contains a lot of B12 and not a huge amount of B6, which is the stuff you need to help you if you’re stressed. So instead tuck into chickpeas, tuna and many of the fruit and veg that contain it. You won’t necessarily get the other B vitamins that Marmite contains, which are shown to help diet and brain health, so if you’re concerned, just take a good B6 supplement.

If you want the real flavour of your food, Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, says “eat with your mouth open”. Over my dead body Prof. Nothing worse than seeing someone’s food going round like clothes in a washing machine. But apparently we’d get a fuller sensory experience. The volatile compounds contained in food reach the back of the nose if your mouth is open and heightens our eating experience. He also reckons we should use our hands to eat when possible, as our sense of touch is “vital to our perception”. Well, those concepts throw pretty much all the table manners that I’d tried to imbue into my children over the years. I think if they’d continued to do what Prof Spence recommended, their lives may have been shortened.

You may feel differently, and if you do, and want to live longer, I suggest you cover all bases. Take a newspaper to church, and while you’re there, eat a Marmite sandwich with your mouth open. You’re guaranteed to live another decade or two.

Belonging to a religious or spiritual group was also strongly linked with improved health

A trial at Reading University shows that the B vitamins in Marmite can help reduce stress