Like a leg in a cast, when unused the brain deteriorates. Studies have shown that watching television requires less brain energy than looking at a wall. TV is trance enhancing.When a certain part of the brain is stimulated by a life task, more blood goes to that area. For example, your vision is focused in the back of your brain. When you perform a visual task, the back of the brain receives increased blood flow, and therefore more oxygen and nutrients.
Strength-Buidling Exercises
Intellectual challenge and enrichment thereby cause actual structural changes in the brain. It grows, just like your biceps do when you perform chin-ups. The tiny branches of brain cells sprout new branches when the brain is simulated.
None of this information is in any way surprising. It is just the way nature works. Your structure and function depend on active stimulation for growth and vitality. The natural world has little tolerance for organisms that cease to grow. Your brain is no exception.
Intelligence Protects
It is suggested that Alzheimer's disease affects smart people less. This doesn't mean that smart people don't get Alzheimer's disease, but the theory holds that if you're smart, you'll have a larger mental repertoire to draw from before the deficits caused by Alzheimer's kick in.
But how to train a brain? This is where we need lots of work. Predictably, brain drugs such as certain amino acids emerge to do our brain work for us. No one knows if they might work or not, but I disparage our eternal effort to find shortcuts. We need a brain-exercising program to keep our most meaningful organ brisk and reactive. The details of such a curriculum have not been worked out yet, and it will vary greatly among us, but for starters I suggest we
- write a letter a day
- do volunteer work
- learn a language
- be physical
- stay social
- learn to play a musical instrument
- be active in government and protecting the environment
- care a lot about things
- be necessary.
Use your brain. Build your brain.
