A Puzzling Way to Grow a Better Brain
Do you remember when your kindergarten teacher used to say “Alright class, I want everyone to put on their thinking caps.”? I have to be honest—that silly phrase used to really bug me! You see, I took her remark as insult, as if I spent the majority of my school day just sitting on my nap mat, dull as my pencil, waiting for snack time. (Yeah, I know, I was a pretty cynical five-year-old!)
Well, if my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Hall, was alive today, I’d have to call her up and apologize for my bad attitude. What she was doing, by using that particular phrase, was preparing her young students to deliberately challenge their brains’ capacity. I should have been grateful.
Researchers have discovered that intentional “higher learning” and “mental manipulation” is critical for amassing ample brain cell reserve. Mental exercise builds brain power in two ways: by manufacturing new connections between individual brain cells and by fortifying existing links from one brain cell to another. Frequent participation in “brain calisthenics” enables our brains to think faster, learn more, and forget less. In order to be effective, however, your chosen mental exercise must challenge your memory, focus, and/or concentration.
A 2009 study, sponsored by the National Institute of Aging at the National Institutes of Health, yielded stunning results with regards to exercising one’s brain. Seventy-year-old seniors who were put through a 10-session cognitive training program remembered things more clearly, processed information more speedily, and reasoned more efficiently afterwards—the equivalent to knocking off 7-14 years from their brain agefor the next two years!And guess what? They still maintained a mental advantage over their peers even five years later [1]!
There are many ways this sort of brain training can be achieved—but the one which is the most fun is mental manipulation! Puzzling, analyzing, and problem solving are all potent vitamins for your brain matter. So, play a game of Concentration® with your children or grandchildren, begin working on a 500-piece puzzle, do a Word Search, noodle the crossword puzzle in your daily paper, or pick up one of the many “brain power” workbooks available.
Remember, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
[1] Bendheim, Paul E., MD. The Brain Training Revolution. Naperville: Source Books, 2009. p.56.
*Today’s Monday Morning Health Tip was excerpted, in part, from my book, Get Healthy…for Heaven’s Sake.