How brilliant is a system that can create something that was not there a second before?
Perhaps the most obvious lifestyle factor affecting brain health is mental stimulation. The human brain seeks stimulation regardless of age, and this stimulation likely begins in the womb. As we’ve learned, the brain gets stimuli from enriched environments, which helps to facilitate development of brain reserve, the term used to describe the brain’s development of dendrites and brain cell interaction. Brain reserve helps your brain to delay the onset of neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia and Alzheimer’s, so the more you have, the more likely your mind is to stay young and sharp. Ultimately, environmental input can shape the structure and function of your brain across your entire life span, which is why it’s important to create environments for yourself that optimize the development of brain reserve.
Mental stimulation is critical to the development and health of the human brain. Cognitive stimulation of the brain begins in the womb and continues to have tremendous health-promoting value until you die. How does an enriched environment promote mental stimulation through novel and complex stimuli? Creativity and innovation are two critical thought processes to promote in any setting dedicated to brain health. Albert Einstein often asserted that a less structured environment best unleashes the imagination and creativity of the brain. Unfortunately, our traditional environments, such as school and work, tend to adhere to a highly structured and programmatic approach to life. We need to be able to think more creatively and approach the same problems of life with increased imagination.
The human brain can be stimulated using many different types of information and stimuli, though novelty and complexity remain necessary ingredients for any stimulus to be considered to promote brain health. Novelty and complexity are so important because such stimuli are processed by the cortex, where brain reserve is best generated. We do not want to engage in activities any more than is necessary that are rote and passive, that probably are most related to the subcortex, and that most likely do not contribute much to development of brain reserve. We all have to do rote activities like putting on clothes and brushing our teeth. True mental stimulation can only be gained through such activities as reading; writing; traveling; engaging in creative pursuits, such as art and music; game-playing; learning new languages, including sign language; developing hobbies; and participating in a critical exchange of thoughts, like debating.
Research on the human brain and brain health is helping all of us understand more about our brains and how to apply specific activities in our daily lives to promote our own brain health.
Research shows that language appears to be critical when it comes to brain development. The sophistication of the language system in young adulthood might actually be predictive of brain health in late life. Dr. D. A. Snowdon, an epidemiologist who has spent many years following a cohort of nuns with an interest in the relationship between their lifestyle and health (known as the “nun study”), including brain health, has found that the number of ideas expressed in diaries written by twenty-one-year-old females predicted percentage of tangles in the brain, a marker of Alzheimer’s, nearly sixty years later.
Dr. Snowdon proposed that language sophistication in early life might mark a well-developed brain, resistant to neurodegenerative changes later in life. In contrast, a language system not well developed in early life may mark a vulnerable brain, at risk for neurodegenerative changes in later life. This suggests that we can all work to develop our writing and speaking abilities early in life as one means of building a healthier brain and perhaps a resistance to neurodegenerative disease later in life. This is a good example of how mental stimulation early in life can have long-lasting positive effects on brain health.
There is also some interesting work done researching brain development by teaching infants sign language prior to their neurological ability to speak. Infants can learn about twenty signs prior to being able to speak words. When the infants exposed to sign language are followed, they have greater articulation abilities, and their IQ is higher by the second grade relative to controls (children not taught sign language). As we learned earlier, higher IQ early in life relates to reduced risk of dementia later in life. Once again, interventions early in life that enhance IQ and develop the language system appear to be examples of proactive brain health. These studies underscore the critical point that brain health is a lifelong pursuit and that risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s may actually begin in childhood, but it’s never too late to promote brain health by learning a new language, even sign language!
Each of these studies supports the beneficial effects that mental stimulation has on brain health, with that benefit lasting many years. They also help people understand what types of activities are not only mentally stimulating but what specific activities promote brain health.
Because your brain is the single greatest information-processing system in the universe, it is not surprising that many people focus on mental stimulation as perhaps the only factor for brain health. It is important to remember that the human brain is not just a cognitive processor; it is an emotional, motor, and creative system in addition. Mental stimulation can help not only with the development of cognitive skills, but also with processing of emotion and even learning of methods to enhance motor and coordination skills.
Studies have indicated, for example, that higher levels of education not only lead to reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease but can also help to reduce the risk of depression. Our ability to cope with difficulty in our lives is enhanced as we learn more. At this point we do not have one index or metric for mental stimulation other than the intelligence quotient (IQ), though a company called Fit Brains, online at fitbrains.com, is working on a Fit Brains Index (FBI), and you can also derive your own brain health lifestyle score by completing the survey in the Introduction of this book. Both of these are meant to provide you with gross measures of strengths and weaknesses in your cognitive FBI and brain health lifestyle and are not scientifically based.
Appealing to the cognitive focus of the human brain, there are numerous computer-based products being sold to the consumer that aim to provide memory and other mental exercises. You can challenge yourself with these mental exercises on a daily basis with the hope of improving your different cognitive or thinking abilities. Use the software on your own computer or visit an Internet site where you can complete your mental workout. A 2006 study by Dr. Sherry Willis and her colleagues at Penn State University is one of the first to document long-term positive effects of cognitive training on everyday function in older adults. We will likely continue to see new businesses emerging around the desire for improving the mental aspects of the brain. This represents another example of a cultural shift toward brain health!
Learning new and difficult information provides a short-term benefit that includes enhanced intelligence. Perhaps more important, however, a long-term benefit is also derived, in which the brain builds brain reserve that can help to delay onset of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. The very function of learning today, therefore, is health promoting, with the greatest positive effect taking place many years later! This is the precise reason I believe learning should be part of our health care plan and encouraged by the major health care payer systems such as Medicare and others. A nation enlightened to brain health for its citizens will promote behaviors that encourage learning across the life span. If you engage in consistent learning and activities that promote mental stimulation beginning in early life, your risk of developing dementia will decrease. This will result in a general reduction in costs for treating dementia later in life.
Learning is a critical function to the existence, survival, and development of humans. Our brains are literally changed from one second to the next when we learn something new. The hippocampus takes the information our brains collect via the sensory pathways and helps the brain to transition that information from a short-term buffer to a longer-term storage in a specific region of our cortex. I view learning as a health-promoting behavior because it most likely helps the brain develop new brain cells, increases brain reserve, alters our neurochemistry in a way that may help alleviate mood disorder, and may ultimately be critical in the brain’s ability to fight off dementia later in life. It is a short step to take from viewing learning as a behavior that promotes brain health to begin to encourage everyone to actually engage in lifelong learning.
I have had the pleasure of learning about the value and fun of Elderhostel and Osher lifelong learning programs. Hundreds of thousands of older adults are enrolling in university classroom work as part of their “retirement.” What used to be the beach or the golf course is now a book and classroom! Indeed, research indicates education is a major factor contributing to longevity and health. The actual event of learning something new involves the laying down of a new neural network that was not there before. It bears repeating that with continued learning, the brain develops a rich network of neural associations we refer to as brain reserve. It is this brain reserve that helps to delay onset of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s.
We need to invest in learning prior to onset of dementia and indeed to combat dementia, as we are expending millions of dollars in dementia care on an annual basis, and this is only going to become a bigger problem worldwide. In order to be proactive, we need to begin very early in life. Our children will more likely care for their brains if they understand this wonderful part of their being. The earlier the education occurs, the earlier a proactive lifestyle for brain health can be started. As we learned earlier, the types of environments we expose our brains to early in life relate to the health of our brains later in life.
BRAIN HEALTH TIP
Develop your language system, learn a new language, read and write daily, and expose your brain to sign language! Sign on to fitbrains.com and get started on learning more about your brain and begin your daily brain-fitness program.
Mental stimulation that is active, difficult, and new will foster development of neural connections in the cortex, the primary site of brain-reserve development. Mental stimulation can be engaged by many things, from reading, to writing, to brain puzzles, to problem-solving games, and of course, some activities such as language development that have a universal human benefit for brain health—important at all ages across the entire life span.
We can recognize what we already do that might be healthy and also identify resources in our environment to include in our brain health lifestyle. A good example is research that supports a relationship between game playing and brain health. Most of us have enjoyed playing board games with family or friends even though we never considered it a brain-healthy exercise. The same can be said for some of the older (solitaire) and newer individual games (sudoku) and the computerized brain health fitness programs such as Fitbrains.com. Once again, these mentally stimulating activities provide the brain with novel and complex input that can help build brain reserve and brain health.
Games. Traditional board games have also been studied, and a publication several years ago in a major medical journal reported a relationship between playing board games and reduction in the risk of dementia. My interpretation of this finding is that playing board games can and should be included in a brain health lifestyle. I was asked by a major well-known company to promote board-game playing on a national media tour. This was both fun and important, and the research on brain health made this a consumer-friendly and necessary communication. Recall that stimuli that are novel and complex are most likely to stimulate the cortex, where brain reserve is developed, and it is the novel and complex that lead to buildup of brain reserve.
You probably never thought of your family game of Scrabble or Monopoly as a brain health workout. Other games such as poker, bridge, sudoku, and crossword puzzles have brain-health-promoting effects so long as they are “novel and complex.” Once any activity becomes “rote and passive,” the positive brain health effects have been reduced, so remember to increase the level of difficulty when you engage in these activities. At the neurophysiological level, you want to maintain stimulation of the cortex by doing things that are novel, complex, and challenging.
Reading and Writing. Another way to stimulate your mind is to read and write on a daily basis, which is great brain exercise. By engaging the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is responsible for new learning and memory, we most likely foster new brain-cell development and increase brain reserve. The more you stimulate and massage your hippocampus, the more learning occurs, and the better chance for an increased IQ. In fact, writing sentences as a teenager or young adult that include numerous ideas has been shown to promote brain health even sixty to seventy years later. Also, writing with passion rather than a more stoic statement of fact has been correlated with increased longevity. Perhaps passion is an important component of living a long and healthy life. Try to read new material on new topics and write with the intent of expressing ideas. Remember, try to write with your non-dominant hand a few minutes a day to build an ambidextrous brain!
BRAIN HEALTH TIP
Enroll in a lifelong learning program in your community or at your local university. Encourage your local school board to integrate curricula on the basics of the human brain within the elementary school—be proactive!
Music. Classical music has been found to have a relationship to learning in children. It is not uncommon to observe classical music being played in some classrooms during study period or perhaps even during a test. Study time at home can be enhanced with background music, especially classical. Some research suggests classical music played for the baby developing in the womb may have neurological benefit, so there’s definitely promise here for you to reap brain health benefits from this practice! I also encourage you to try and learn to play a musical instrument. It is true that learning to play a musical instrument is harder as you age, but your brain can learn an instrument at any age. Do not be afraid to develop that dormant part of your brain!
Start to play those wonderful board games again, learn a musical instrument, and tune in to a classical radio station.
Travel. Travel has been shown to reduce the risk of dementia or, better said, to increase brain health. Consider how this behavior might promote brain health. You already know that the best environment for your brain is to surround yourself with the complex and novel. The whole point of traveling away from home is to leave your familiar surrounding and expose your brain to a novel and complex environment. As a result, you will use your cortex to navigate, and you will probably find it exciting and maybe frustrating at times. Interestingly, as you stay in that new environment, you will become more familiar and comfortable. The novel and complex will become rote and passive with time. Every day you travel to and from work and home and essentially do not use your cortex. Your subcortex has the mental maps of your home and neighborhood encoded, and the processing tends to be rote or subconscious. New environments are more stimulating for your brain. The other nice thing about travel is that you will meet new people who contribute to your enriched environment!
BRAIN HEALTH TIP
Try and take a trip or two this year to a new surrounding and enjoy the brain health benefits!
How can your home become an enriched environment, and what things can you do in your home to promote mental stimulation and the entire five components of the brain health lifestyle? The home can be a great place for mental stimulation. Unfortunately we tend to rely on televisions, computers, iPods, and our cell phones for entertainment. These technologies require passive processing that does not stimulate the cortex, which is not the right way to stimulate the mind. Remember that in order for activities to be stimulating, they must be novel and complex in order to maximize development of brain reserve and brain health. It is important to understand that we can use these relatively new technologies to promote brain health. Indeed, research indicates that reading new information on the Internet stimulates the brain and that listening to music on the iPod can stimulate memory in those who suffer from dementia. It is true that these technologies can provide stimulating learning opportunities, but we need to be vigilant about our brain’s need to be active and not passive most of the time. Once again, the nice thing about the home setting from a brain health perspective is that the lifestyle can be applied as a family. Here are some ideas for how you can increase mental (cortical) stimulation at home:
• Participate in activities that are creative and artistic. Set out a structured time during the day for creative writing and have each family member share their creation.
• Establish a weekly night for board games and get the entire family involved. Playing board games has been related to a reduction in the risk of dementia. Crossword puzzles and sudoku are examples that can also be beneficial so long as they remain complex and novel.
• Consider using brain-fitness software like that found on fitbrains.com. There are so many ways to engage and stimulate your mind—explore different brain-fitness software to find what works the best for you and your family.
• While at home, make it a habit to debate and discuss national and world events. Encourage everyone to speak.
• Encourage music, including playing an instrument and listening to music together.
• Learn a different language, including sign language.
• Read together and share the meaning of the story. Having critical discussions is a great way to engage your mind.
The home is always a great place to begin thinking about changes to promote a brain health culture where we live. Similar to the home setting, the work setting becomes an important environment to consider simply because we spend so much time at work.
Similar to the home setting, the workplace is an environment where most of us spend a significant amount of time. It is probably true that many companies and work settings have wellness programs, such as walking clubs and nutritional advice programs. The work setting can also be an environment that provides opportunities for mental stimulation. It is important to first review your own behavior in the workplace and to assess how you might be able to derive more mental stimulation during your typical workday.
Most employees complete work duties on a daily basis that tend to be predictable and routinized. As such, employees spend a good deal of their time stimulating their subcortex, the part of the brain that helps with procedures and skills that require processing that is subconscious. The goal of a brain health environment is to provide novel and complex stimuli that engage and stimulate the cortex, help to build brain reserve, and maintain conscious processing. Consider the following for ways you can stimulate your brain at work:
• As an employee, you are encouraged to try new tasks and activities in your work setting. This will increase processing of stimuli that are novel and complex and increase the chance for brain health benefit.
• Do not be afraid to express your creative ideas and provide time for employees to imagine. Integration of diverse disciplines can help to forge new ideas that otherwise might tend to remain in operational silos.
• When leading a meeting, consider setting the chairs of the room in a circle or several small circles rather than rows and columns. This can engage everyone in a more integrated rather than didactic manner. A more integrated approach can promote personal interaction and constructive dialogue.
• Ask human resources if your company provides any assistance for you to enroll in formal lifelong learning that might occur at a local college or university or within the work setting itself.
• Ask if you can assume roles that will nurture your communication skills, including public speaking and provision of succinct responses that are both clear and informative. Ask your information officer if the company has technologies to assist your own daily tasks and if you can learn about the different software.
• Ask if you can establish a type of brain health kiosk in the work setting where employees can access information on the basics of the human brain and the brain health lifestyle, complete their online brain fitness workout, get the latest research news on the human brain and brain health, and even complete their online brain health survey to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their brain health lifestyle.
You can take a brief inventory of the environments you typically traverse on a daily basis. Most of us spend a healthy portion of our time at home, which is why a previous section was dedicated to mental stimulation in the home. However, we also spend time in other settings, such as our work site and maybe a gymnasium, library, or facilities where we recreate or enjoy entertainment. Once you have a conscious sense of where you typically spend your time, you can analyze the value of novelty and complexity that each environment provides you. The goal is to expose your brain to settings that provide activities and stimulation that are novel and complex. You can do this and still have some fun along the way! The following brain-health-promoting tips can be used in different areas of your life to promote mental stimulation:
• Try new tasks and activities in your daily life. Some ideas would be to accomplish your typical daily tasks using a different approach, or maybe you could reach your destination using a different route. By changing your approach, you will be providing your brain with novelty and complexity and therefore boost your brain health benefit.
• Try to develop one or two new hobbies over the next year. A hobby really is the development of a new talent, and this requires stimulating your brain to develop the neural circuitry that enables you to perform the task or hobby. You can learn how to use a new computer program, or you can take up golf or tennis, gardening or knitting. So long as the new activity is new for you, your brain will be stimulated in a healthy way.
• As the brain is pleased with multiple and simultaneous stimuli, consider and encourage communication and learning or teaching that engages multiple sensory systems. We all tend to rely heavily on our visual and auditory systems to the neglect of our ability to taste, smell, and touch. Your brain can be stimulated using all the sensory pathways.
• Break out of intellectual silos and share knowledge. Perhaps most important from the perspective of brain health is the need to integrate and merge different bodies of knowledge, academic and applied, to form an entirely new intellectual or tangible entity (intellectual alloy). This is accomplished by getting groups of people to think differently and to merge their talents and knowledge with those of others. Most of the time we operate in silos with complete focus on our own goals and deadlines. We can enhance brain health and promote creativity, imagination, and innovation by breaking down silos and merging the content within the silos—the benefit being that mental stimulation, creativity, and new answers to old problems can emerge from this sharing of knowledge.
These are just a few tips to get you started—there are so many ways to engage your mind. Mental stimulation is critical to brain health. Your brain is constantly seeking and processing information. The wonderful thing about the human brain is that it changes and responds to the types of environmental input provided. This fact provides all of us the opportunity to select specific settings or environments that provide the most brain-health-promoting stimuli, so immerse yourself in enriched environments to keep your brain sharp and fit.
TIPS TO PROMOTE BRAIN HEALTH: QUICK REVIEW
• Keep an active reading habit. This can include a book or two a month, reading the newspaper every day, and a favorite magazine on a weekly basis.
• Enroll in a brain fitness program like those found on fitbrains.com. You can engage in daily activities that stimulate memory, language, attention, visuospatial, and executive skills.
• Engage in new activities that are challenging. Try to learn a new language or learn how to play a new instrument.
• Be artistic and creative. Pick up a hobby like painting, making pottery, or any other activity that promotes your imagination.
• Enroll in a class or workshop that interests you, perhaps a class on public speaking or even course offerings available through corporate learning centers.