Magnificent Mind at Any Age

Brain Envy

ELIMINATE THE DAILY HABITS THAT HOLD YOU BACK

Bad habits are like chains that are too light to feel until they are too heavy to carry.

—WARREN BUFFETT

Lucy, a well-respected scientist and entrepreneur in her early fifties from Boston, came to see me after selling her company. Even though she was financially set for life, there was so much stress associated with the sale that she had trouble sleeping, was racked with anxiety, and had obsessive tendencies that she thought she had left behind in her twenties. As part of our evaluation we performed a set of brain SPECT scans. Her husband, Arnie, came along and also got scanned, in his mind, to support his wife. He was just curious. I looked at her brain and saw the trouble I had expected and recommended a course of treatment. When I looked at Arnie’s fifty-six-year-old brain, it looked like he was eighty (see Image 3.1). I asked him what he was doing to hurt his brain.

“Nothing, Dr. Amen,” he said with a look of disbelief.

“Really?” I said, feeling a little confused as to why his brain looked so bad. “How much do you drink?”

“Oh, not very much,” he replied.

“What’s not very much?” I asked. Through the years I have learned to always ask this follow-up, clarifying question.

“Oh, maybe I have three or four drinks a day.”

Image 3.1: Arnie’s Brain

“Every day?” I said.

“Yeah, every day. But it’s never a problem. I never get drunk. I have never gotten into trouble with it,” Arnie said with anxiety.

“Why do you drink every day?” I asked.

“Since my daughter went off to college I have this empty nest thing going on. The time I used to spend with her, I now spend at a local pub, seeing my friends. It’s a social time, kind of like the show Cheers.”

“Well, you are poisoning yourself,” I said. “You’re fifty-six and your brain looks like it’s eighty. If you keep this up, pretty soon your brain is going to look a lot worse, and with that comes trouble with everything in your life.”

Arnie was shocked that his brain looked as bad as it did. As we talked, I could see he was beginning to develop “brain envy.” After learning about his brain, it was clear he wanted his to function better. I gave him a very specific brain healthy plan that included abstinence from alcohol, regular exercise, mental exercise, vitamins, supplements, and fish oil. Four months later he wrote me saying that he mentally felt like he was twenty years old. His energy and memory were better, and he felt smarter and more articulate. His work as a business consultant had also improved, and he started writing a book about his work, something he had wanted to do five years earlier but could never find the time or motivation.

Personally Confronted with Bad Brain Habits

Over the years I have personally had ten brain SPECT studies, beginning at age thirty-seven when we first started to do scans. Looking back, my early scans showed a toxic, scalloped appearance that was definitely not consistent with great brain function (see Image 3.2). My last scan, at age fifty-two, looked healthier and much younger than my scan fifteen years earlier, even though scans usually become significantly less active with age (see Image 3.3). Why? In the intervening years, I developed “brain envy” and wanted a better brain. As I learned about brain health, I put into practice what I preached to my patients and readers.

All of my life I have been someone who rarely drank alcohol and never used an illegal drug. Then why did my brain not look great? Before I understood about brain health, I had many bad brain habits. I ate lots of fast food, lived on diet sodas filled with aspartame, often would get by on four to five hours of sleep at night, worked like a nut, didn’t exercise with any regularity, and was living in a marriage filled with chronic conflict and stress.

Your daily habits and routines, as we will see, are either hurting or helping your brain. In this chapter we will look at one of the major obstacles to your success—your behavior each day. This chapter begins with a “Bad Brain Habit Quiz” to show you your strengths and weaknesses. Then we will explore fourteen bad brain habits that span all age groups and finish the chapter by considering bad brain habits across the life span as they relate specifically to childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle age, and the elderly.

Image 3.2: My Scan at Age Thirty-Seven

Image 3.3: My Scan at Age Fifty-Two
Notice there is less bumpiness or scalloping on the scan at age fifty-two.

As you read about these bad habits, I can hear some of you thinking, much like my patients or the teenagers who took our high school course “Making a Good Brain Great” have said, “How am I going to have any fun, if I have to watch everything I do every day?” My usual response is that you have much more fun with a healthy brain than with one that is out of sync. A healthy brain is more thoughtful, playful, insightful, romantic, productive, and wealthier. Do you think you will have more fun if you can stay in a great relationship, keep a meaningful job, save your money to spend it on planned, fun activities, and be able to think well into your later years, as opposed to four-wheeling in the desert (rife for brain injuries), being drunk or high, or living with chronic anger?

BAD BRAIN HABIT QUIZ

Please rate each question on a scale of 0 to 4.

0	1	2	3	4	NA
Never	Rarely	Occasionally	Frequently	Very Frequently	Not Applicable

____ 1. My diet is poor and tends to be haphazard.

____ 2. I do not exercise.

____ 3. I put myself at risk for brain injuries by doing such things as not wearing my seat belt, drinking and driving, engaging in high risk sports, and so on.

____ 4. I live under daily or chronic stress, in my home or work life.

____ 5. My thoughts tend to be negative, worried, or angry.

____ 6. I have problems getting at least 6–7 hours of sleep a night.

____ 7. I smoke or am exposed to secondhand smoke.

____ 8. I drink or consume more than two normal-sized (8-ounce) cups of coffee, tea, or dark sodas a day.

____ 9. I use aspartame and/or MSG.

____ 10. I am around environmental toxins, such as paint fumes, hair or nail salon fumes, or pesticides.

____ 11. I spend more than one hour a day watching TV.

____ 12. I spend more than one hour a day playing computer or video games.

____ 13. Outside of work time, I spend more than one hour a day on the computer.

____ 14. I have more than three normal-sized drinks of alcohol (8 ounces of beer or wine or 1 ounce of hard liquor) a week.

0–6	Great brain habits
7–12	Really good; work to be better
13–20	Fair; you are prematurely aging your brain
>20	Poor; time to be very concerned

Fourteen Bad Brain Habits That May Affect All Age Groups

1. Lousy diet

2. Lack of exercise

3. Risking brain trauma

4. Chronic stress

5. Negative thinking, chronic worry, or anger

6. Poor sleep

7. Cigarette smoke

8. Excessive caffeine

9. Aspartame and MSG

10. Exposure to environmental toxins

11. Excessive TV

12. Excessive video games

13. Excessive computer or cell phone time

14. More than a little alcohol

1. LOUSY DIET

You literally are what you eat. Every cell in your body, including brain cells, make themselves new every five months. Some cells, like those that make up your skin, regenerate every thirty days. Eating a healthy, balanced diet provides the nutrients and fuel to drive optimal brain function. Your diet makes a big difference in how you feel. Yet so many of us are diet disasters. Obesity and diabetes are at epidemic proportions. Both of these problems are directly related to diet and are risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. What you eat on a daily basis helps or hurts your brain.

How are your eating habits? Do you skip breakfast? Do you grab two doughnuts in the morning on the way to work, with the large coffee filled with flavored cream and sugar? Or do you think you are being smart by saving the calories from the sugar and using aspartame? Do you grab a diet soda and think that all you are getting is sweet, bubbly water? Do you allow yourself to get so hungry that you gorge at lunch or dinner? Do you keep candy in your desk at work or easy to get at in the cabinets? Do you plan your meals or only think about them when you are hungry? Are you a sucker for supersizing meals? Do you gorge late at night?

The best brain diets include the following.

• Lots of pure water. The brain is 80 percent water.

• Few calories. Obesity is bad for your brain, as fat stores toxic materials and obesity doubles the risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

• Lean protein. Fish, chicken, lean pork, and beef, for example, all help build neurons.

• Complex, low glycemic carbohydrates. These include whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.

• Healthy fats. Fish, avocados, and raw nuts all maintain nerve cell membranes and myelin.

•. Lots of dietary antioxidants, such as blueberries. I often tell my patients to eat from the rainbow (food with many different colors, although this does not mean Skittles). See my book Making a Good Brain Great for more suggestions for a brain healthy diet.

2. LACK OF EXERCISE

No matter what your age, being a physical slug is bad for your brain, even if you are spending all of your time doing New York Times crossword puzzles. The brain needs physical exercise. Without it, the brain struggles. Exercise boosts blood flow to the brain, which helps supply oxygen, glucose, and nutrients and takes away toxic substances. Anything that limits blood flow results in poorer oxygenation, glucose delivery, and nutrient deficiencies. If the deep areas of the brain are starved of healthy blood flow you will have problems with coordination and processing complex thoughts. Exercise also increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a chemical that helps with neurogenesis. When we lose more cells than we make, aging occurs. In laboratory rats, research shows that exercise generates new brain cells in the prefrontal cortex (judgment and thoughtfulness) and temporal lobes (memory), which survive for about four weeks and then die off unless they are stimulated. If you stimulate these new neurons through mental or social interaction, they connect to other neurons and enhance learning. This is why people who only work out at the gym are not as smart as people who work out at the gym and then go to the library. At every age, exercise helps keep the brain healthy. Without it, we become fatter, less intelligent, and definitely not happier.

The best exercises combine aerobic elements, which means you get your heart rate up, with some form of coordination movement. Coordination movements activate the cerebellum, at the back bottom part of the brain, and enhances thinking, cognitive flexibility, and processing speed. Dancing is a perfect exercise, especially learning new steps, but if you drink when you dance that completely ruins the benefit. The other perfect brain exercise is table tennis. It is great for your cerebellum, because you have to get your eyes, your hands, and your feet all to work together at the same time, while you are thinking about the spins on the ball. I think of table tennis as aerobic chess. And it involves very few brain injuries. In 1999 I played in the U.S. National Table Tennis Tournament with hundreds of other people and there was not one brain injury. According to a new brain imaging study from Japan, table tennis helps balance your brain. Researchers studied a group of patients before and after playing table tennis and showed increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, the thoughtful part of your brain, and the cerebellum, just after playing for ten minutes. More table tennis, less football and boxing!

3. RISKING BRAIN TRAUMA

Even though I discussed this earlier, it bears repeating. Brain injuries can have a devastating impact on your life, no matter what your age. I have had patients who fell down a flight of stairs at age three, fell out of a second-story window at seven, and fell off the roof in middle age. I’ve had other patients suffer severe skateboarding accidents in their early teens, snowboarding accidents in their later teens, and four-wheeling accidents as young adults. I’ve had elderly patients who experienced bad falls. All of these injuries have the potential to damage the brain and compromise your abilities and happiness. Does your day-to-day behavior increase or decrease the risk of brain injuries?

• Do you speed in your car or text-message on your phone while driving?

• Do you head soccer balls? This has been shown to damage the front tips of your temporal lobes (potentially affecting memory, language, and emotional control).

• Do you play tackle football? In a study from Virginia Tech, high school football players get hit in the head an average of thirty to fifty times a game, sometimes with the force of a severe car accident.

• Do you ride bikes, skateboard, ski, sled, or snowboard without helmets that fit snugly? A helmet that fits is much more protective than one that doesn’t. Bike riding is the number one cause of brain injuries in children and teens.

• Do you go four-wheeling, off-roading, with all-terrain vehicles, Jet Skiing, or boat racing?

• Do you drink alcohol? This increases your risk of a brain injury from a motor vehicle accident, falls, or making someone else mad enough at you to give you a brain injury.

• Are you taking medications or drugs that make you unsteady on your feet or decrease your reaction time, increasing your risk of injury?

• Do you drive without your seat belt buckled or while talking on a cell phone?

• Do you box or play extreme sports that place you at increased risk?

There are many more daily habits that increase your risk of injury. Remember that your brain is soft and your skull is hard. Respect and protect your brain.

4. CHRONIC STRESS

Chronic or severe stress, stemming from family conflict, financial hardships, health problems, or environmental challenges, can affect all age groups. When stress becomes unremitting, it hurts the brain. In a series of studies reported in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, researchers looked at the effects of long-term exposure to stress hormones, especially cortisol, on the brain function of older adults, young adults, and children. In the first study, researchers measured levels of cortisol in a group of older adults over a period of three to six years. They found that older adults with continuously high levels of cortisol performed worse on memory tests than older adults with moderate or low cortisol levels. In addition, older adults with long-term exposure to high cortisol levels also had, on average, a 14 percent smaller hippocampus, the area of the temporal lobes involved with memory. In tests with young adults, researchers found that short, temporary increases in cortisol negatively affected their thinking and memory skills. But these impairments were only temporary. Another study with young children and teenagers from different socioeconomic classes showed that children with lower socioeconomic status had higher average stress hormone levels than the other children. Taken together these studies show that chronic stress impairs the brain function for people of all ages.

High cortisol levels not only shrink the hippocampus, but they also make you fat by disrupting several hormones involved in appetite control. In addition, daily stress increases blood pressure, disrupts sleep patterns, and increases negative thinking patterns, all of which hurt brain function. Having techniques to counteract stress, such as daily relaxation, meditation, prayer, or exercise, can have a positive effect on how your mind works.

5. NEGATIVE THINKING, CHRONIC WORRY, OR ANGER

Thinking is a habit. Negative, worried, or angry thinking is a bad habit that results from a lack of “thoughtful” education. Most people think that thoughts just happen. We are not taught to question or correct the negative words or images that run wild in our heads. Yet these awful thoughts are often at the core of anxiety and depressive disorders, relationship and work problems, and they have a real, measurable, negative biological impact on brain function.

Our brain and body respond to every thought we have. At all ages, including young children, the quality of our thoughts is either helping us or hurting us. Positive, happy, hopeful thoughts release chemicals that help you feel good; negative, worried, or angry thoughts release a completely different set of chemicals that make you feel bad and erode the functioning of your brain. Depression, often the result of rampant, unquestioned negative thoughts, doubles the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, increases your risk for substance abuse to self-medicate the bad feelings, and pushes other people away, increasing isolation and loneliness.

6. POOR SLEEP

Do you go to bed late and get up early? Do you toss and turn, look at the clock, wonder when morning will come, or become disgusted with yourself that you have no power to turn your mind off? Sleep is essential to healthy brain function. People who get fewer than six hours a night have decreased blood flow to the brain, and they have trouble thinking clearly during the day. Sleep problems are rampant in our society. According to the National Institutes of Health, 30 percent of the population has chronic sleep problems and 10 percent are affected by symptoms of sleep deprivation during the day. The prescriptions for sleep medications, such as Ambien and Lunesta, have skyrocketed in the past decade. We are in the midst of an insomnia epidemic. In 1900, Americans, on average, got nine hours of sleep a night. In 2008, we got only an average of six hours of sleep at night. Our brains were not designed to have a 33 percent decrease in sleep in such a short period of time. The advent of the lightbulb is the likely cause of the change.

Shift workers, those suffering from jet lag, teens who have their sleep schedules off-kilter, and those suffering from sleep apnea are all at risk for poorer brain function. Those who are sleep deprived score poorer on memory and math tests, have lower grades in school, and are at much greater risk for driving accidents. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drowsiness and fatigue cause more than one hundred thousand traffic accidents each year and young drivers are at the wheel in more than half the crashes. Sleep deprivation is also associated with depression and attention deficit disorders. Recently, sleep apnea (snoring loudly, breath holding when sleeping, and tiredness during the day) has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

Sleep is involved in rejuvenating the brain. Without it, people can become psychotic. When I was the chief of Community Mental Health at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert we saw a number of soldiers who started to hear voices and became paranoid after being sleep deprived for up to three days in a row. Fort Irwin is home to the National Training Center, which teaches soldiers desert warfare. Troops spent days at a time in war games without much sleep. Mental health casualties were always high during those periods of time.

Try to get seven to eight hours of sleep at night, more for children and teens. Practice good sleep habits, such as avoiding much caffeine or nicotine. Also, do not use alcohol as a sleep aid, as it will wear off and cause you to rebound and wake up in the middle of the night; avoid exercise before bed; and learn relaxation techniques to calm your mind.

7. CIGARETTE SMOKE

Nicotine prematurely ages the brain. Nicotine, found in cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, and nicotine patches, tablets, and gums, causes blood vessels to constrict, lessening blood flow to vital organs. Smokers experience more problems with impotence because of low blood flow to sexual organs. Nicotine constricts blood flow to the skin, making smokers look older than they are. Nicotine also constricts blood flow to the brain, depriving the brain of the nutrients it needs, and eventually causing overall lowered activity. If this substance is so bad, then why do people use it? In the short run, nicotine, like alcohol and other drugs of abuse, makes many people feel better. It stimulates the release of several brain neurotransmitters, such as acetylcholine, which improves your reaction time and your ability to pay attention. It also stimulates dopamine, which acts on the pleasure centers of the brain, and glutamate, which is involved in learning and memory (although high glutamate levels cause programmed cell death and is associated with causing Alzheimer’s disease). No wonder people use nicotine and have trouble quitting. But if you want a healthy brain, do what you can to stay away from it.

Secondhand smoke is harmful to everyone, especially developing minds. Mothers who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to have children who have behavioral and learning problems. Additionally, secondhand smoke increases asthma, infections, and cancer. Smoking is a very bad brain habit.

8. EXCESSIVE CAFFEINE

Found in coffee, tea, dark sodas, chocolate, and pep pills, caffeine constricts blood flow to the brain and many other organs. A little caffeine a day is not a problem, but more than a cup or two of coffee a day can be trouble. Caffeine does four bad things to the brain. First, it dehydrates it, and anything that dehydrates the brain causes us to have problems thinking. Second, it interferes with sleep. Caffeine blocks adenosine, a chemical that tells us to go to sleep. By blocking adenosine, we can get by with less sleep. But as we have seen, sleep is essential for healthy brain function. No wonder so many people need a cup of coffee in the morning to get going. They are treating their sleep-deprivation symptoms. Third, caffeine also constricts blood flow to the brain, causing premature aging. Lastly, caffeine is addictive. Many people have significant withdrawal symptoms, such as headaches and tiredness, when they try to stop. Less caffeine is better.

9. ASPARTAME AND MSG

Many people drink diet sodas by the gallons, thinking that they are drinking nothing more than sweet water. I have had my share of diet drinks in my life, but when I read about the negative effects of aspartame, I became concerned. From the age of thirty I started to have arthritis in my hands and knees. When I stopped the aspartame, my joints no longer hurt. I have also had many patients report feeling better after stopping the intake of artificial sweeteners. Their headaches went away, they could think more clearly, joint pain improved, memory improved, and surprisingly, some even lost weight. My sense is that it also depends on our own genetic makeup. Some people seem to have no problems with artificial sweeteners, while others have terrible reactions to them. Less is better.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is another problem for many. Personally, I get headaches when it is in something I eat. But it is nothing like the reaction of one of my patients. This man came to see us from the Midwest. He had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and some anxiety and depressive symptoms. In his history, he told us he became violent when exposed to any MSG. As part of his evaluation we scanned him; at his request, we did an additional scan on MSG. The MSG scan showed a significant left temporal lobe deficit, which is often associated with violence or rage reactions. I told him he had a choice to stay away from MSG or take medication to protect his temporal lobes. To my surprise he decided to take the medication just in case. When asked why, he said that if he lost his temper one more time his wife would leave him and you never know what has MSG in it. When possible, hold the MSG.

10. EXPOSURE TO ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS

Most people do not wish to think they are being poisoned or poisoning themselves on a daily basis, but the frightening fact is that they may be. Painting without appropriate ventilation, visiting nail or hair salons too often, breathing in gas fumes as you fill up your car, using pesticides, and even remodeling your home have been implicated in brain damage. Understanding the sources of brain toxins can help you avoid them.

Breathing paint fumes and other solvents, such as hair and nail products, are brain toxins to approach with care. As a group, indoor painters have some of the highest levels of brain damage I have seen. I once evaluated a famous movie director whose scan showed a toxic appearance. On questioning, it was clear he had been exposed to high levels of paint fumes on many of the sets he had worked on. Getting proper ventilation was one of the keys to helping him heal. In my conversation with him, he told me the painters were the nuttiest people he ever worked with. He said they often got into fights on the sets for little or no reason and were the most unreliable. “Even the women act crazy,” he said. No wonder, if they are exposed to chemicals that hurt the viability of brain tissue. A recent study reported that hair-dressers had a higher than normal risk for Alzheimer’s disease. When you go into a hair or nail salon, they often reek with fumes. If you get your hair or nails done only go to shops that have great ventilation.

11. EXCESSIVE TV

No matter what your age, watching too much TV, playing too many video games, or spending too much time on the computer is bad for your brain. Our brains were not developed or evolved for the rapid change in technology that is affecting us today.

Parents hoping to give their children an edge by using infant educational videos, such as Brainy Baby and Baby Einsteins, are actually holding them back, according to a report in the Journal of Pediatrics. For every hour a day that babies eight to sixteen months old were shown the videos they knew six to eight fewer words than other children. Parents are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on these videos. “Unfortunately, it’s all money down the tubes,” according to one of the study’s authors, Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle. Christakis and his colleagues surveyed a thousand parents in Washington and Minnesota and determined their babies’ vocabularies using a set of ninety common baby words, including mommy, nose, and choo-choo. The researchers found that 32 percent of the babies were shown the videos and 17 percent of those were shown them for more than an hour a day. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television at all for children younger than twenty-four months.

Another study published in the Journal of Pediatrics reported that for every hour a day children watch TV there is a 10 percent increased chance of them being diagnosed with ADHD. This means that if the child watches five hours a day she has a 50 percent chance of being diagnosed with ADHD. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, children spend an average of three to four hours a day watching TV.

In other studies, increased television watching in childhood put people at risk for brain problems as adults. Dr. R. J. Hancox and colleagues from the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine in Dunedin, New Zealand, assessed approximately one thousand children born in 1972–1973 at regular intervals up to age twenty-six. They found that there was a significant association between higher body-mass indices, lower physical fitness, increased cigarette smoking, and raised serum cholesterol (all affect the brain). These are all factors that are involved in brain illnesses, such as strokes or Alzheimer’s disease. In yet another study adults who watched two or more hours a day of TV had a significantly higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Watching TV is usually a “no brain” activity, and less is better.

12. EXCESSIVE VIDEO GAMES

As a father of four children and a child psychiatrist, I have thought a lot about video games over the past twenty years. At first, I found them great fun to play. But soon thereafter, I started to worry. Action video games have been studied using brain imaging techniques that look at blood flow and activity patterns. Video games have been found to work in an area of the brain called the basal ganglia, one of the pleasure centers in the brain. In fact, this is the same part of the brain that lights up when researchers inject a person with cocaine. My experience with patients and one of my own children is that they tend to get hooked on the games and play so much that their school work, job performance, and social time can deteriorate, a bit like the effect of a drug. Some children and adults actually do get hooked on them.

There is also scientific literature that reports video games may increase seizure frequency in people who are sensitive to them. You may remember the seizure scare on December 16, 1997, when the Japanese cartoon Pocket Monster (Pokémon) showed an explosion of red, white, and yellow lights that triggered 730 Japanese children to go to the hospital with new onset seizures. The condition is called photosensitive seizures (seizures triggered by light). I often think video games trigger subclinical seizures in vulnerable kids and adults, causing behavior or learning problems.

Two studies from the University of Missouri examined the effects of violent video games (a significant percentage of video games) on aggression. One study found that violent real-life simulation video game play was positively related to aggressive behavior and delinquency. The more people played, the more trouble they seemed to have. Academic performance deteriorated with increased time spent playing video games. In the second study, laboratory exposure to a graphically violent video game increased aggressive thoughts and behavior. The results from both studies suggest that exposure to violent video games will increase aggressive behavior in both the short term (e.g., laboratory aggression) and the long term (e.g., delinquency). In a comprehensive review of other studies it was found time and again that exposure to violent video games is significantly linked to increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts, aggressive feelings, and cardiovascular arousal and to decreases in helping behavior; none of this is good for overall brain health.

13. EXCESSIVE COMPUTER OR CELL PHONE TIME

Computers, e-mails, the Internet, instant messaging (IMing) and cell phones are taking over our lives, and not always to good effect. Some people, like me, get well over a hundred e-mails a day. Some teens are IMing up to fifteen people at a time. According to a recent study, the distractions of constant e-mails, text messages, and voice mail are a greater threat to IQ and concentration than is smoking marijuana.

Drowsiness, tiredness, and an increasing inability to focus reached “startling” levels in the trials of eleven hundred people, who also demonstrated that e-mails in particular have an addictive, druglike quality. Research subjects’ minds were all over the place as they faced new questions and challenges every time an e-mail dropped into their in-box. Productivity at work was damaged and the effect on staff who could not resist trying to juggle new messages with existing work was the equivalent, over the course of a day, to the loss of a night’s sleep.

“This is a very real and widespread phenomenon,” said Glenn Wilson, a psychologist from King’s College, London University, who carried out eighty clinical trials for the marketing research firm TNS, which were commissioned by the information technology company Hewlett-Packard. The average IQ loss was measured at 10 points, more than double the 4-point mean fall found in studies of cannabis users. The most damage was done, according to the survey, by the almost complete lack of discipline in handling e-mails. Dr. Wilson and his colleagues found a compulsion to reply to each new message, leading to constant changes of direction, which inevitably tired and slowed down the brain.

Constantly checking e-mails, IMs, voice mails, and the Internet is stressful, but it is also addictive as one is always waiting for the next good e-mail, IM, or voice message to hit, like waiting for the next blackjack in the card game 21. The anticipation of something good keeps us checking something routinely. It also distracts us from staying focused on the person or task at hand. Checking these messaging systems is an important way to communicate, but it is better to set aside specific times each day to work on them and leave them alone the rest of the time.

14. MORE THAN A LITTLE ALCOHOL

Contrary to popular belief, red wine, except in small quantities, is not a health food. In my experience as a brain imaging physician, alcohol is directly toxic to brain function. The SPECT scans of people who consume more than three alcoholic beverages a week look toxic. Alcohol lowers overall blood flow and activity in the brain, which is why alcohol calms anxiety and disinhibits people, but over time it negatively affects memory and judgment.

Alcohol affects the brain by reducing nerve cell firing; it blocks oxygen from getting into the cell’s energy centers; and it reduces the effectiveness of many different types of neurotransmitters, especially those involved in learning and remembering. Alcohol is a double-edged sword, depending on the quantity of intake. Large amounts of it—four or more glasses of wine or the equivalent in hard liquor on a daily basis—increase the risk of dementia. However, it has been found that small amounts—a glass of wine once a week or once a month but not daily—may reduce the risk. The reduced risk seems to be related to the fact that alcohol and cholesterol compete with each other and sometimes it is good for alcohol to win. Small amounts of alcohol compete with high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the good cholesterol, which actually removes the harmful types of cholesterol. When a person drinks a little alcohol, HDL is not allowed to bind to the cell membrane, so it is forced back into the bloodstream where it lowers low-density lipoprotein and other harmful cholesterols. This reduces the person’s risk of heart disease, atherosclerosis, and strokes, all of which are known causes for dementia. On the other hand, researchers from Johns Hopkins University found that even moderate alcohol consumption (about fourteen drinks a week) has been correlated with brain shrinkage. When it comes to the brain, size matters! My advice is that small amounts of alcohol after age twenty-five is okay, but don’t push it. Why wait until you’re twenty-five to drink? As discussed earlier, the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex, is not fully developed until age twenty-five. Why start poisoning it before it has had a chance to fully develop?

You might wonder why I put alcohol as a potential problem affecting all age groups. If a parent has a problem with alcohol, it definitely affects the whole family, including the children. Parents who drink regularly tend to be less available for their children and less able to see their needs.

Bad Brain Habits of Children

Bad brain habits seen in children include all of those mentioned above and more. Whenever you “give in to get along” by submitting to a child’s demands for unhealthy foods, you perpetuate a brewing disaster. Poor brain healthy foods encourage difficult behavior, which only makes parents less able to provide healthy meals. As my friend the nutritionist Dr. J. J. Virgin says, “Exposure equals preference. What you feed children is what they will eat throughout their lives.”

A study from the department of psychology at England’s University of Southampton researchers confirmed what many people have suspected: food dyes and additives are bad for children’s brains. Over three one-week periods, three hundred three-to nine-year-old children were randomly assigned to consume one of three fruit drinks daily: one contained the amount of dye and sodium benzoate typically found in a British child’s diet, a second drink had a lower concentration of the additives, and a third was additive-free. All the children spent a week drinking each of the three mixtures, which looked and tasted alike. During each weeklong period, teachers and parents rated such qualities as restlessness, lack of concentration, fidgeting, and talking or interrupting too much. Researchers found that within an hour children were significantly more hyperactive when drinking the stuff containing additives. Stay away from dyes and food additives. Read the food labels!

In general, I have found another disturbing trend over the past twenty-five years. Parents are giving in more and more to difficult behavior. If a child has a habit of whining or crying to get his or her way and the parents give in to such behavior, they have taught the child’s brain to whine and cry, making him more vulnerable to mood and emotional problems later on. The two words I like best in effective parenting are firm and kind. Children need love, attention, and affection, but they also need rules and discipline for their brain to develop properly.

Another way to develop a bad brain habit with children is by allowing them to endlessly argue with parents. When you allow children to chronically oppose or argue with you, you actually encourage their brains to be less flexible. When the brain area called the anterior cingulate gyrus works too hard, owing to a deficit in the neurotransmitter serotonin, people get stuck on negative or oppositional thoughts and behaviors. Behavior therapy has been shown to help calm down this part of the brain. Stopping argumentative behavior actually helps the brain work better. One of the best ways to do this is to directly deal with the behavior. On the bulletin board in our five-year-old’s room is a set of seven family rules. One of the rules is “No arguing with parents. As your parents, we want to hear your opinion. More than twice constitutes arguing.” This way, no arguing is the expectation, and cooperation is encouraged. If Chloe argues, there is a consequence. When she cooperates, there are smiles and rewards.

Another concern for children is watching the same movie over and over. Once a child has seen a movie, there is little suspense or thought about what happens next. Repetitive watching turns out to be a no-brain activity.

Never reading to a child is a bad brain habit. Children need new learning to expand their brains and they learn best in an enriched environment. The more active parents and caregivers are in encouraging reading and education, the more children will see learning as a lifelong value. New learning throughout life is thought to be a major preventive factor for Alzheimer’s disease.

Children often are filled with negative or frightening thoughts that they never learn how to challenge. Children need education in correcting the bad thoughts that go through their heads. I once taught a class for third-graders called “How to Think.” I was shocked by the number of distorted negative, hurtful, scary thoughts that frightened and depressed the kids. By age eight they are able to understand and correct negative thought patterns. Negative thinking can be a very bad brain habit and needs to be corrected as early as possible. It is easy to do this by teaching them about ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) and ANTeaters, discussed in chapter 12.

Bad Brain Habits of Teenagers

Typical teenagers have many bad brain habits. Typically, they watch too much TV, play too many hours of video games, are on the computer into the wee hours of the morning, IM others to the distraction of all else, engage in high-risk sports, are often sleep deprived, get into motor vehicle accidents, and have terrible diets. No wonder suicide is the second-leading cause of death in this age group. We must do better at taking care of the teenage brain. I think many parents and school administrators prematurely abdicate the role of supervising this group, feeling helpless to have a real impact. Yet I have found through teaching our high school course, “Making a Good Brain Great,” which is now used in over thirty-four states and seven countries, that these kids are amenable to education and informed influence. In my mind, lack of guidance for teens is a very bad brain habit.

Teens do best when their parents know where they are, who they are with, and what they are doing. Teens do best when they know their parents check on them. You need to be your teen’s prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that provides supervision, judgment, and impulse control), until they can properly monitor themselves. The prefrontal cortex does not fully develop until we are twenty-five years old, so even supervising young adults is appropriate.

Besides those bad habits listed above (diet, head injuries, lack of sleep, excessive caffeine, etc.), we now need to include drinking and drug use, which are especially problematic to developing brains. I am ever amazed at how much our teens drink and how many drugs they consume. Significant alcohol and drug use may arrest development. If people start drinking moderately or more during adolescence, when they stop, say, in their midtwenties, they are often still at the same emotional level as when they started.

Many teens also feel invincible. Risky behaviors, such as driving fast in the rain, jumping off rock cliffs into the ocean, or head banging in mosh pits, are nothing more than fun, until something terrible happens.

A bad habit that teenage girls often engage in is nonstop drama. It is great to have friends to talk about the ups and downs of teen life. Yet new research suggests that when girls talk on and on about the same problems, such as home or boyfriend troubles, it actually makes them feel worse.

Teens who have the habit of hanging out with other teens or young adults who do drugs, fight, or are involved in other dangerous activities are also at higher risk for brain damage that will diminish their chances for success. Who you spend time with matters, as we often become like the significant people in our lives.

Bad Brain Habits of Young Adults

As we leave our parents’ home and supervision to go off to college or live on our own, the bad brain habits tend to flare. There is often increased drug or alcohol usage; less sleep; poorer diets; and the stress of doing things other people used to do for us, such as paying bills, grocery shopping, and planning vacations.

One of the unique stresses of this age group is that you are trying to be competent and successful on your own, which adds a burden of stress not seen before. Money worries are commonplace. Learning how to navigate intimate relationships can be challenging, as your brain is starting to interact with another brain on a deep level. Children may make their first appearance into your life, which, in my personal experience, dramatically increased my sense of responsibility and stress. No longer could I just be so focused on my own fun and happiness, I had another little life to look after.

Bad Brain Habits of Middle Adults (Age 30–65)

Middle age is a breeding ground for stress and bad brain habits. Being there myself, I can relate. We often work too hard, taking care of children and our own parents; have trouble sleeping; wake up feeling tired; start the day with two cups of coffee; finish the day with red wine (erroneously thinking it is health food); and worry about jobs, finances, teenagers, and myriad other issues. We are the world’s caretakers and often get little respect for keeping everything going.

If we add getting your hair or nails done too often (the exposure to these toxic chemicals has been associated with increased Alzheimer’s disease and bladder cancer), taking sleeping pills at night, not getting enough sex (sexual frequency has been associated with health and longevity) or being in a distant or stressful marriage, not getting adequate exercise, carrying around fifty extra pounds, focusing on our failures, you have the prescription for anxiety pills and forgetfulness. No wonder we start to look old.

Bad Brain Habits of Older Adults (> Age 65)

By this stage of life people have accumulated many or most of the bad habits described above. I once had an eighty-four-year-old patient whose daughter bought her a poker video game. She really enjoyed the game and played more than four hours a day. Her family noticed that she started to have trouble sleeping and was becoming more anxious and irritable. When she stopped playing, she went back to her normal, happy, sleeping, relaxed self.

A lack of exercise is now at its peak, as aches and pains start to creep in. Taking fish oil on a daily basis can significantly help joints feel more limber and less painful. Television watching is as high or higher than at any other stage, which is very troubling, as those who watch the most TV have the highest incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.

Focusing on disappointments in the past is a common trait in the elderly, and it can be very harmful to mood and health. A lack of new learning causes the brain to become tired. To keep the brain young throughout life it must be challenged. Social isolation is also very common as friends and siblings die at ever increasing rates. Being involved with social activities is important to brain health.

I have treated many elderly patients who have taken up new hobbies. I love this for them, except when they take up painting and do not have good ventilation. The elderly brain is potentially very vulnerable to toxicity.

Dietary deficiencies are common, as many elderly live alone and are more reticent to cook for only one person. In addition, dehydration is common, as they may not be getting enough fluids, or they are taking diuretics to lower their blood pressure. In addition, many elderly are seeing multiple doctors and taking multiple medications every day, without having a personal physician who oversees everything a patient takes. I have seen truly awful brain function associated with myriad medications.

Once you learn to love your brain and eliminate the bad brain habits that destroy your best chances for success, you are ready to use your brain to its fullest potential to reach your dreams.