Sharpening Your Brain

The idea is to create new circuitry. “When that scaffolding is finally in place,” Richard Restak wrote in his book Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot, “you will experience yourself in the world differently.”

“When we’re young we are recruiting neurons to form networks or nerve nets,”  Restak goes on to say. As we age the networks can connect to multiple networks utilizing common neurons, which is why learning a second foreign language is made easier once you’ve learned the first one.

In truth, the things that require the most effort usually prove most rewarding. Moving out of the comfort zone is almost always a good idea and the sense of accomplishment, despite early frustration, can be so uplifting emotionally and such a confidence builder, all things combine to increase brain function. It’s difficult to convince your teenager of this but the older we get the more we realize just how meaningful that is.

The key is to step gently. It’s best to move ever so slightly out of the comfort zone and allow your brain a chance to process new concepts before moving on; it’s important to challenge ourselves without making the task so overwhelming that we lose interest.

Scientifically designed brain games are geared for that kind of gradual challenge.

If you knew it was possible to challenge your brain in a gentle and fun way; if you also knew it would require only a few minutes a day and that, not only would your progress be measured, but you yourself would quickly begin to notice the difference, would you pursue that path? Most of us have accepted the prior universal belief that a child’s brain is like a sponge and, after an early age we lose the ability to learn knew things and grow our intelligence. Show me the lad ’til five; I’ll show you the man, the English say. But ‘it ain’t necessarily so’ and we should not surrender to that notion. Happily, several studies point in the opposite direction. Public television in the past year aired and re-aired a very encouraging documentary on the brain’s plasticity and cognitive abilities. Recent research coming out of Hamburg, Germany and published in the Journal of Neuroscience demonstrates that older brains still have the flexibility to literally grow. “Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief” by James M. McPherson documents that Lincoln taught himself to become a crack lawyer, in middle age taught himself Euclidean geometry solely for the mental discipline, and taught himself to become a military strategist. He was always challenging his brain. If there’s a recurring theme in all of this it is, simply put, use it or lose it. Some endeavors are more helpful than others, though. Moreover, you can’t rest on your laurels. The subject of brain development is intriguing to most of us, especially us late bloomers, and if brain training is indeed possible the only question remaining is: where do we sign up? The scientists at Lumosity have created amazing games to improve all components of brain development. The games are fun, varied and, as you progress, they become more challenging. You’ll find yourself looking forward to each new session, which end all too quickly, and you will in short order be impressed by a noticeable increase in mental acuity. There are of course many activities with the same goal in mind to be discussed but Lumosity, which offers a free trial period, is an excellent place to begin.