(Cosmopolitan) - If you ever feel guilty about reaching for the odd glass of wine every now and then, don't, because one scientist is adamant that wine can actually give our brains more of a workout than doing a maths equation - which sounds like more than enough reason to drink it as far as we're concerned.

According to The Times, neuroscientist Dr Gordon Shepherd, from the Yale School of Medicine says that drinking wine engages more working parts of the brain than any other human activity. Yep. WOAH.

And no, it has nothing to do with all the crazy things you start to think (or do) when you've had one glass too many, but everything to do with the simple - or not so simple, as it turns out - process of taste.

In Dr Shepherd's book Neuroenology: How The Brain Creates The Taste of Wine he states that the process of swirling a glass of wine in our mouths, and the tongue muscles and taste receptors that this triggers, engages more of the brain than listening to music or even solving a maths problem.