The works of Shakespeare and Wordsworth are "rocketboosters" to the brain and better than the other selfhelp books,researchers will say this week. Scientists,psychologists and the English experts at Liverpool University have found that reading the works of Shakespeare and other classical writers has a beneficial effect on the mind,catches the reader's attention and triggers moments of selfreflection.Using scanners,they monitored the brain activity of volunteers as they read the works by William Shakespeare,William Wordsworth,T.S Eliot and other classical writers. They then "translated" the texts into more "straightforward",modern language and again monitored the readers' brains as they read the words.Scans showed that the more "challenging" articles and poetry set off far more electrical activity in the brain than the modern versions.Scientists were able to study the brain activity as it responded to each word and record how it "lit up" as the readers came across unusual words,surprising phrases or difficult sentence structures.This "lighting up" of the mind lasts longer than the initial electrical spark,shifting the brain to a higher speed,encouraging further reading. The research also found that reading poetry,in particular,increases the activities in the right side of the brain,an area concerned with "autobiographical memory",helping readers to reflect on their own experiences in light of what they have read.The experts said this meant the classics were more useful than selfhelp books. Philip Davis,an English professor who has worked on the study with the university,will  tell a conference  this  week:"Serious  literature  acts  like  a rocketbooster   to the brain." "The research shows the power of classical literature to shift mental pathways,to create new thoughts,shapes and connections in the young and the old alike." According to the text,reading classical works can  _  .
help deal with some physical problems benefit our mind and thinking improve our reading skills help learn more about history