Keeping Your Brain Healthy: Brain-FX

Left-Handers Faster in Sports and Computer Games

Of course the Hubby has been telling me this all along since he's a lefty, but now there is a study to prove it: Left-handers 'think' more quickly.

This report is from the BBC News site:

Left-handed people can think quicker when carrying out tasks such as playing computer games or playing sports, say Australian researchers. 

The fast transfer of information in the brain makes left-handers more efficient when dealing with multiple stimuli.

Experts said left-handers tended to use both sides of the brain more easily.

Study leader Dr Nick Cherbuin from the Australian National University measured transfer time between the two sides of the brain by measuring reaction times to white dots flashed to the left and right of a fixed cross.

Martina Navratilova is left-handed, and so are many other sports legends.

If only the Hubby would apply his advantageous abilities to taking out the trash...

Use It Or Lose It: More Research

There's a great series of posts over at Dr. Ellen Weber's Brain Based Business blog about aging and mental exercise to keep your brain healthy. Dr. Weber writes about a book, Inside the Brain by Ronald Kotulak.

Here's an excerpt: Contrary to conventional wisdom…Kotulak said… people do not lose brain cells… in huge numbers… because of age. So why does it appear otherwise at times? Too many seniors allow their brain functions to stick… slog… and rust out… because of disuse.

Brain cells are now found to be sustained and stimulated by physically changing your brain through experiences and education well beyond the golden years… a new concept…

So my question to you readers is: "What have you done lately to exercise your brain?"

I'm learning to play World of Warcraft with my husband. Computer games are a great way to work out your brain, especially there there is some sequential reasoning involved, along with visual spatial organizing and hand-eye coordination. (So far I have completed some quests and advanced to level 9; and I've avoided getting killed by a couple of scary beasts.)

And you? What are you doing to keep your brain healthy?

Games for the Brain

Here's a site that specializes in giving your brain a workout through games:

http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/

These are mental exercises and games that will keep your brain thinking and developing its "neuro-muscles"!

Meditation and Brain Health

Scientists at last week’s Society for Neuroscience meeting presented findings from a new study that shows that the brains of those who meditate regularly are shaped differently.

It’s all about the cerebral cortex. Parts of this outer layer of the brain are thicker in those with a regular meditation practice, which may be why meditation leads to less stress and better overall health.

The really big news is that while these changes have already been discovered in the brains of monks, who dedicate hours and hours each day to meditation, the average meditating American may also have a thicker cerebral cortex.

Americans who meditate for just 45 minutes a day (six days a week), were shown to have thicker insulas, the area of the brain that is integral to processing thoughts and emotions.

“Studies have shown people who meditate are more relaxed, and skeptics will say, ‘Of course they’re more relaxed. They’re just sitting there,” said Sara Lazar, lead researcher of the study. “But sitting and relaxing in front of the TV doesn’t make your brain grow.”

[via LA Times] Posted on Lime.com.

Workouts for Your Brain May Tone Memory

Just as physical exercise pumps up your muscles and energizes your metabolism, mental exercise can improve your concentration, memory and other mental faculties.

This is especially important for a large population of Baby Boomers who are hitting their older years and beginning to notice declines in mental acuity.

Read this article in Wired online magazine from Aug. 4, 2005.

12 Things to Do To Work Out Your Brain

Dave Pollard writes an article Twelve Ways to Think Differently.

The Idea: Twelve methods that will exercise parts of your brain that rarely get it, and make you more creative and better able to understand the world.

The 12 methods that he points out are:

1. Meditation
2. Reconnect With Your Senses
3. Reconnect With Your Intuition
4. Analogies and Metaphors
5. Conversations and Interviews
6. Synthesis, Distillation and Restatement
7. Reading (and Writing) Fiction
8. Psychoactive and Other Drugs (not recommended for health reasons)
9. Learning a New Language
10. Learning Something Outside Your Comfort Zone
11. Do Impulsive and Serendipitous Things
12. Collaboration

It's worth the read, over on his How to Save the World blog. Please be advised that these 12 points are his own ideas, not recommended, especially point #8! All others seem like very good ideas to exercise your brain and to create new neural connections.

Your Brain Needs a Good Workout

It’s a case of use it or lose it. Stimulating your brain intellectually can cause measurable changes in structures and slow the aging process.

Engaging in mental exercise is similar to physical exercise. It can make the brain grow new connections between neurons and even grow brand new cells.

Mice that were raised in a stimulating environment were smarter, performed better on tests of memory and learning than those housed in Spartan environments.

How stimulating is your cage? Do you engage in a variety of activities, and are you continually learning and stretching yourself with new thoughts, new learning, new ideas?

It is well-documented that women with college degrees live several years longer and retain better mental and physical abilities after the age of seventy-five than less educated women.

The point is that exerting your brain intellectually spurs brain cells to grow new branches, creating millions of new connections or synapses between neurons. More cells and more connections give you more brain capacity. It also means that you have a larger supply of brain matter should you have an injury or a disease that affects the brain.

Dr. David Snowdon of the University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, heads a long-range study of elderly nuns. The most highly educated of them have a larger cortex with more branches and connections. This protects them in old age from symptoms of decline and disease such as Alzheimer’s.

The brain literally thrives on novelty in order to survive. According to Arnold Scheibel, director of the Brain Research Institute at UCLA, this is a feature important to survival in primitive man.

“The brain stem has an area called the reticular formation. It’s wired to respond selectively to the new and exotic. This was a survival mechanism when we were on the lookout for predators. Now, new challenges activate your reticular formation and stimulate the growth of dendrites (strands that connect the neurons). That’s why people should not only remain active, but take up new pursuits.”