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Keep your brain ticking
Senior
Consultant Neurologist Dr. J.B. Peiris suggests some simple ways to keep your
mental faculties healthy:
A few days
ago a friend of mine asked me how best to remember names.
Having
faced the problem myself (possibly a
familial trait) I could not think of a suitable answer immediately.
So, I did some thinking,
reading and surfing and here are some interesting facts, myths and food for
thought.
By the
time you are 65 years, your brain isn't what it used to be-you will start to notice the
signs:
You forget
people's names and you cannot remember where you left your keys or mobile
phone.
Clearly not everyone ages in the
same way
Reaction
time is slower
and it
takes us longer to learn new information.
Sometimes
it takes longer to retrieve information,
resulting
in that ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ phenomenon
where you almost have that word or
that thought. That's typical of the middle-age brain.
There is a
good reason why our memories start to let us down.
At this
stage of life we are steadily losing brain cells in critical areas such as
the hippocampus - the area where memories are processed.
This is
not too much of a problem at first; even in old age the brain is flexible
enough to compensate.
At some
point though, losses start to make themselves felt. It's true that by midlife
our brains can show some fraying.
Brain
processing speed slows down.
Faced with
new information, we often cannot master it as quickly as our youngers.
And there's little question that our
short-term memories suffer.
There are,
however, some brain functions which improve with age.
We
actually grow smarter in key areas in middle age which, with longer life
spans, now stretches from our mid 40s to our mid to late 60s.
In areas
as diverse as vocabulary
and inductive
reasoning, our brains function better than they did in our 20s.
As we age, we
more easily get the "gist" of arguments.
Even our
judgment of others improves.
Often, we
simply "know'' if someone or some idea is to be trusted.
We also
get better at knowing what to ignore and when to
hold our tongues.
Fresh thinking about the brain
An old myth in neuroscience is that once a brain cell dies off you
can't replace it.
But many
studies have now shown, that there is,
in fact,
brain cell growth throughout life.
It
continues to develop, and even continues to grow new brain cells.
So the brain can continue to learn
throughout the middle age years and beyond.
Plasticity
of the brain
The brain can be changed or moulded to suit the needs the concept of
"Plasticity" which relates to changes by adding or removing
connections, or adding cells.
Research
has shown that in fact the brain never stops changing through
learning.
In a
recent study referred
to as "your brain on Google," healthy, middle-aged volunteers, all
novices on the computer, were taught how to do a Google search.
They were
told then to practise doing online searches for an hour a day, for seven
days.
After the
week's practice, the volunteers came back into the lab and had their brains
scanned while doing a Google search.
The scans
revealed significant increases in brain activity in the areas that control
memory and decision-making.
The area of the brain that showed the increases was the frontal lobe,
the thinking brain,
especially
in areas that control decision making and working memory.
With practice, a middle-age brain
can very quickly alter its neuron-circuitry; can strengthen the neuron
circuits that control short-term memory and decision making.
It is also
known that other areas of the brain also increase in size with usage.
For example, the finger
area in the motor cortex in Braille readers and professional string
instrument players is more extensive than in a normal individual.
The ability of the brain to change
with learning is what is known as Neuro-plasticity.
Remembering
names and numbers
Let me now try to answer the question I posed at the beginning how to
remember names and numbers.
Repeat it 7 seconds later
Train your mind frequently by repeating to yourself anything you need
to remember as quickly as you learn it.
This is
very useful especially when remembering phone numbers and dates.
Repetition
is a simple system on how to improve memory power,
but it
works even for long term memory.
Recall it after 7 seconds to store
it in memory.
Write it
down
Let the paper remember for you.
The point
is to have use of the information later, and if that's more easily done by
way of an "external memory device" like pen and paper, why not take
advantage of these tools?
Also, writing things down is
another way to more strongly "fix" something in our minds.
Imagine
the future use of your new
information
If you think about how you will use information, you're more likely
to remember it.
For example if after learning a
new algorithm in a math class you imagine using it during a test, you'll probably
remember it better - particularly when taking a test.
How to
improve brain fitness
Consider the brain a muscle.
Variety and curiosity is
the basis.
When
anything you do becomes second nature, you need to make a change.
If you can
do the crossword puzzle in your sleep, it's time for you to move on
to a new
challenge in order to get the best
workout for your brain.
Brain
aerobics
What exactly constitutes a brain aerobic exercise?
To qualify
as a brain aerobic exercise, the activity
·
Needs to engage your attention
·
Must involve two or more of your senses
·
Must break a routine activity in an unexpected, nontrivial way
Play games
Sudoku,
Crosswords
playing
chess
or bridge,
dancing
regularly
and
electronic games
can all
improve your brain's speed and memory.
These
games rely on logic, word skills, math and more.
These
games are also fun.
You'll get benefit more by doing
these games a little bit every day -- spend 15 minutes or so, not
hours.
Meditation
Daily meditation is perhaps the single greatest thing you can do for your
mind/body health. Meditation not only relaxes you, it gives your brain a
workout.
By creating a different mental
state, you engage your brain in new and interesting ways while increasing
your brain fitness.
Turn off
your television
Television can stand in the way of relationships, life and more.
Turn off your TV and spend more
time living and exercising your mind and body.
Exercise
your body to exercise your brain
Physical exercise is great brain exercise too.
By moving
your body, your
brain has to learn new muscle skills, estimate distance and practise
balance.
Choose a variety of exercises to
challenge your brain.
Read
something different
Branch out from familiar reading topics.
If you
usually read history books, try a contemporary novel.
Read foreign authors, the classics
and random books.
Learn a
new skill
Learning a new skill works multiple areas of the brain.
Your
memory comes into play, you learn new movements and you associate
things differently.
Learning a
new language
or
becoming computer literate is equally good.
Reading
Shakespeare,
learning
to cook
and
building an airplane out of toothpicks
all will challenge your brain and
give you something to think about.
Make
simple changes in you routines.
We love our routines.
We have
hobbies and pastimes that we could do for hours on end.
To really
help your brain stay young, challenge it.
Change
routes to your destinations,
use your
opposite hand to
open doors,
and eat
dessert, shave, and brush teeth,
texting,
using the computer mouse.
Writing
with the other hand is a useful way of using the non dominant hemisphere
to do a component associated with
speech usually located in the dominant hemisphere.
The brain
is an organ like no other.
You can
exercise it in many different ways and this is the best way to make the best use
of it.
Use it or lose it, is true of the
brain; importantly
you can use it in many different ways.
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