Cloak and dagger thrillers keep the mind alert, finds new research

So there is hope yet for couch potatoes, for whom a work-out usually extends to fetching a packet of chips off the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet with a detour to the refrigerator for a soda. Scientists now say that watching a convoluted, nailbiting crime serial can do to the brain what a one-hour session at the gym does for the rest of the body: make it shipshape and sharp. But just as an amble in the park for that same amount of time will not yield the same benefits as an intensive gym session, a leisurely perusal of a less taxing TV show – say, a light comedy or family melodrama – will not have the same salutary effect on the little grey cells.

Indeed the screenplay writers of such serials must be complimented for managing to limber up the left side of the brain by their complicated script — high on both detail and emotion —while stretching the right side to decode speech tones and engaging all the visual regions of the brain at the same time.

That these intra-cranial calisthenics can be accomplished with nothing more than an engrossing collection of crime serials and a comfortable perch should enthuse more people to take them up. The next step would obviously be to devise a convergence of the two methods of exercise which would stimulate the brain as well as the body, for a truly all-round work-out. Without committing the crime, that is.