The Body’s Aristocrat

As you may well know, Patch editor, Kris Janisch is like a ninja shadow that swallows and slays stories; he is a turbocharged twinkle-toes of the media technology in Woodbury.  But Doreen!  His neighbor’s name is Doreen. He’s communicated with her a thousand times.  He couldn’t recall her two-syllable name when he ran into her at Panera on Lake Road. 

Has the above ever happened to you? Have you ever walked into a room with a task in mind, only to promptly forget what brought you there? What about the misplaced sunglasses, you forgot an appointment, how do I spell their/thier?  Recently, you were flabbergasted that you forgot what channel you were watching moments earlier, as you surfed the TV during commercials. What is my username password for itunes?

AVOID DIMINISHING GRAY MATTER

You are not alone. Is this the stuff of normal stress and distractedness, or is the brain seriously starting to slip? Many things affect the way our brain functions, including stress, lack of sleep, and getting older.

University of Michigan researchers found that cognitive ability starts to decline slightly as early as your twenties, when the brain begins to shrink and show other signs of aging.  To avoid a massive die-off of neurons  {the nerve cells that transmit signals involving memories, thoughts and feelings} we must do everything possible to strengthen our brain and protect it from future deterioration.

Many of us are losing loved ones in our circle of family and friends to Dementia and Alzheimer’s — grandmas and gran-das, aunts and unks that were tough, funny, mechanics, rigorous readers, master chefs, factory workers and teachers.  It seems tragic.

The wonderful news is that research also shows us that we can grow new neurons throughout adulthood. There are 50 to 100 billion in the brain.

Your Brain is kind of a Bossy Walnut.

This wrinkled walnut looking bossy guy that controls all of your body’s processes, rules!  The bossy guy is divided into different departments.  Brain Stem, at the base, connected to your spinal cord; is your life-support system, controlling automatic stuff like breathing, heart-rate and body temperature. Next, the cerebellum [latin for mini brain] coordinates fine motor, balance and posture. Together they form our most ancient hardware, called the Reptilian Brain, first brought to market some 250 million years ago.

Next is your limbic system. The primary structures of your limbic brain are the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus. The limbic brain provides us with value judgments and emotion.  At your core, an egg shaped thalamus processes information, while the hypothalamus is important in responses to cold, hunger and pain. This slightly updated hardware first saw action around 150 million years ago in small mammals.

The neo-cortex is our most updated processor; first finding action in primates some 2-3 million years ago. It, and the cerebral cortex, deal with all the smarty-pants functions, such as memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language [reading, writing, speaking] and consciousness — and, having harebrained ideas.  For example, when Kris, the editor, is all over you like a rash, so eager to crack open that hard boiled story of yours…  and, he gets a whiff of something cookin’… there’s no stoppin’ his cerebral cortex.  What a headcase!

Total surface area of the cerebral cortex is about 324 square inches — about the size of a full page of newspaper. Heady stuff, right?

Squeeze all of the water out of your brain and it weighs about three pounds. 

BRAINS BEHIND EVERYTHING

It is a no-brainer to take care of the body’s most important organ.  All of this brainwork needs a lot of resources.  Mental stimulation, physical fitness, good nutrition and stress management all help maintain brain health. 

Brain teaser games, puzzles, wearing your watch upside down, doing familiar things in an unfamiliar way, floss and brush with your non-dominate hand etc., all stimulate your brain, which means your body will send more blood to your head, bathing the cells in health giving oxygen and promoting the growth of new neurons. 

I dislike playing some games and I dislike trying to read upside down so I try to find other ways to boost brain power.  I notice that I do many things throughout the day on autopilot.  Do you? Do you wonder how the car got home?  I’ve been guilty.

I’ll make a note reminding myself to hear the birds, smile at strangers, awaken the senses to the sounds, sights and smells of the world. To be mindful of using the sensory parts of the brain.  As we get older we become more forgetful partly because our brain doesn’t process what we hear, see and smell the way it once did.  We tune out and put the daily tasks on autopilot.  We need to be more aware of being mindful and sense-itive.

You’ll be Sharp as a Tac ‘til your 100

Not only listening to Mozart improves brain function, but tests have also shown that taking music lessons actually boosts your IQ.  Singing and learning lyrics is a great way to challenge the brain to make new connections.  It makes you happy and relaxed.  So… sing, sing a song.

Make it simple to last your whole life long. Don't worry that it's not good enough, for anyone else to hear, just sing, sing a song.

Challenge that Brain and Make it Grow

It was once thought that your IQ was pretty much fixed, but tests show it can be improved.  Brain scans of those purposefully exercising their working memories showed growth in brain activity. 

OXYGEN

The brain accounts for only 2 percent of the whole body’s mass, yet it uses 20 percent of all the oxygen we breathe.  A continuous supply of oxygen is necessary for survival.  And, about 750 milliliters of blood pumps through your brain every minute.  And, when your heart pounds from exercising, more blood flows to the brain and body, reversing the cellular deterioration associated with aging.  After some tests in Germany, sprinters learned vocabulary words 20% faster after a run.  90 minutes of walking a week was associated with better cognitive function in older women…so no need to go all-out all the time to reap brain benefits.

MENTAL JUGGLING ACT

For a mental juggling act, I was going to suggest following the habits of this one particular Indian chap [more later] but maybe just chatting with a coworker over lunch to strategize and solve problems may fire up a neuron or two; keeping the brain nimble [although be forewarned – occasionally co-workers may be happy enough sliding toward a drowsy evening dementia of reality TV]. So approach each comrade with caution.  And on the way home or as you head back to the office, smell the roses, the pollen, have a right sneeze and focus, focus, focus... oh yeah, on the Indian chap.  

While playing a chess game, without seeing the board, a man from southern India, also learned a poem, answered general knowledge questions, kept count of how many times a bell was rung, memorized two lines of Spanish, and did mental arithmetic calculations.  Those Indians are so smart – such smarty-pantssses and show offs!!  I know a few lovingly, but most I know can’t stick poetry.

EATING YOUR WAY TO A BETTER BRAIN

The brain consumes more calories than any other organ.  It needs good food – fizzy drinks and junk food have been shown to reduce the mental powers of children.  Parents need to be responsible.   Junk and processed food contains lots of trans-fatty acids.  You need to eat well to feed your head, feed your child’s head.  I see little children constantly eating Doritos as mid morn snacks at school.  You need to send your little farts to school more often with healthy snacks. Rats that were fed on a diet of junk food did not fare as well getting out of mazes as other rats. Paradoxically, they did however excel at mastering rat cynicisms such as, “we don’t give a human’s backside WHAT you think!”

Eating beans on toast or eggs for breakfast boosts brain performance. My kids tell me that beans ARE a magical fruit [I maintain they are a legume but that doesn’t rhyme with “toot”].  Yogurt is a must for the brain, providing the amino acid tyrosine, which helps in the creation of certain neurotransmitters needed for good brain function.  So, needless to say our editor Kris must be eating lots and lots of yogurt. I mean just look what it has done for Jamie Lee Curtis and her regularity.

COFFEE AND CAFFEINATED TEA

A long term study of more than 1,400 Finnish people found that drinking 3 to 5 cups of coffee a day at midlife was associated with about a 65 percent lower risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia.  Caffeine blocks adenosine, the brain chemical that is believed to cause the memory loss and attention problems associated with sleep deprivation, which is what makes it so effective after a late night.

YOU’RE BRAIN, A WHALE OR A VIPER’s – WHO IS SMARTER?

So much to know and learn about the brain, it’s a clever character.  Often I’ve felt my brain was rather lightweight, only weighing in between 1,300-1,400 grams or 3 lbs.  The heaviest brain is that of a sperm whale, coming in at a massive 7,800 grams or 17 lbs!  And, an elephant’s brain weighing in at around 4,700 grams.  I shall take comfort, and see landscape of possibilities, because now I know that at least my brain is heavier than a goldfish’s, weighing  0.097 grams, or a viper’s, at 0.1 grams.  Whaddya know!?! But, as with computers, it isn’t the heaviest laptop with the best processor.

 ...All that is left to do is to wake up rested, throw myself into work, lead a purposeful life, always retain some low-grade stress to keep me on me toes, don’t sweat the lost stuff, & the forgotten appointments, keep telling myself that I have a sharp brain; stay slim, turn off TV, stand on my head, learn a new language, climb mountains, eat antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables (hard, hard to do all of the time!!) …do anything  that’s novel.  This will help me grow new connections to keep the brain livelier and it will continue the healthy blood flow to the noggin’.

LASTLY, A FULL BRAIN? … NEVER!

An ordinary computer contains about 200 gigabytes of storage – room for a lot of information.  Some neuroscientists estimate that the human brain has a capacity of around 100,000 gigabytes!

Another scientist has worked out that we’re able to store about 2 bits of new information per second.  Over a lifetime, this means we store about 1 gigabyte.  Maybe this explains why our brains never get full.

Adopt new habits to strengthen your grey matter today; and remember, “Do-reen”!