By Staff Reporter
Your car keys might actually be the key to maintaining your memory as you age. That’s according to health expert Dr. Steve Burgess, who has highlighted research linking a common daily habit—driving—with a significantly lower risk of dementia.
“Most people have no idea that something they do every day could be protecting their brain,” says Dr. Burgess, CEO and founder of CME Vacations, a company that organizes continuing medical education conferences for healthcare professionals.
The surprising finding? Regularly driving a car may help preserve cognitive function and reduce the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
A recent analysis of nearly 9 million death records over three years found that people in driving-intensive professions—like ambulance and taxi drivers—had dramatically lower rates of Alzheimer’s as a contributing cause of death. Ambulance drivers had just a 0.74% rate, and taxi drivers 1.03%, compared to a national average of 3.9%. Compared to chief executives, professional drivers were about half as likely to have Alzheimer’s listed on their death certificates.
The key to this protective effect appears to lie in the hippocampus—a part of the brain crucial for memory and spatial navigation. It’s also one of the first regions to deteriorate in Alzheimer’s patients.
Taxi drivers tend to have larger hippocampi,” says Dr. Burgess. “That’s likely because they are constantly solving complex spatial puzzles—remembering routes, adapting to traffic, and making navigational decisions in real time.”
Driving, it turns out, may be a powerful mental workout for this vulnerable brain region.
But modern convenience could be dulling this benefit. Dr. Burgess warns that excessive reliance on GPS technology might be doing more harm than good when it comes to brain health. “Using GPS all the time means your brain no longer gets to practice these critical skills. You’re letting your navigation app do the thinking your hippocampus used to do,” he says.
For those who don’t drive, or who want to further stimulate their brain, there are other options. Dr. Burgess recommends practicing navigation without GPS, taking new routes to familiar destinations, engaging in spatial reasoning games like mazes or certain video games, and maintaining regular physical exercise—long known to support brain health.
“Driving seems especially effective,” says Dr. Burgess, “but the key is regularly engaging your brain’s navigation systems.”
This emerging research may point to new, practical ways to prevent or delay cognitive decline. “It’s fascinating to realize that ordinary activities can have extraordinary impacts on our brain health,” says Dr. Burgess. “With dementia rates projected to rise, we need both pharmaceutical solutions and everyday lifestyle habits to protect our cognitive function.”
He adds that tools like virtual reality or targeted mental exercises could offer similar benefits for people who don’t drive, particularly older adults.
