As important as it is to keep the body in good physical condition, taking care of your mind is just as vital, if not more so. The brain is the master control center of the body – the “motherboard” of our existence. It is a marvelous little machine.
The brain controls your emotions, your heart and lungs and your thoughts as well as serving as a center for detecting pain and coordinating movement.
Simply put, without your brain, you can’t survive. And without your brain functioning like a well-oiled machine, it’s difficult to think clearly, act reasonably and speak intelligently. For the Baby Boom generation to tussle with the problems of modern society, they will have to keep their brains performing at the highest level possible.
It’s not an easy task. It’s difficult to keep the brain humming along as it starts to wear out after years of intense use. However, there is good news in this regard for the graying members of the Baby Boom generation. There is a plethora of new research that is opening up fascinating insights into the human body’s central processing unit.
“A lot of myths about the brain have been dispelled the past few years,” says Dr. Bruce Miller, the director of the Memory and Aging Center at U.C. San Francisco. “The brain is constantly remodeling.”
The latest research shows the standard-held belief that the brain inevitably deteriorates with age simply isn’t true. Many scientists no longer believe the brain peaks at 40. They say it is not hard-wired and rigid as once thought. They think the brain, in fact, is elastic and flexible. That it retains an amazing degree of “neuroplasticity” that allows people to learn and adapt throughout their lives.
In some ways, the brain actually improves with age.
To be sure, the brain does lose some effectiveness as a person gets older. The portion that stores short-term memory declines with age. You also lose “processing speed.” Neurons simply aren’t as efficient as they were when a person was younger.
Nonetheless, the research on the human brain is encouraging for people past the age of 45. Perhaps most importantly, some scientists believe the brain actually improves on certain functions as it ages to make up for deterioration in other sectors.
For starters, they believe as the brain gets older, it strengthens its “white matter,” the tissue that, in essence, glues together all the nerve cells, or “gray matter.”
An important component of the white matter is a substance called myelin. It keeps nerve signals firing smoothly. Throughout a person’s life, myelin is laid down in the brain. In younger people, it’s deposited in the motor and sensory lobes because those age groups are more active. As one ages, some scientists believe, myelin is pasted in the higher brain regions where sophisticated thought takes place, perhaps to encourage the older echelon of a species to be more reasoned.
In addition, some research indicates the brain’s two hemispheres work together better as a person’s ages, an inherent compensation for the declining abilities in other regions. That allows older people to cross-index information better. In fact, the two halves of the brain may not only work together better as it ages, it also may create new cognitive stages in later life.
What this means is you might not remember as much as you used to, but as you get older you can manage information more efficiently. While a younger person can multi-task and quickly remember names and places, an older person who doesn’t recall as much raw data makes better use of the information he or she does retain. Some scientists believe older people’s temperament actually changes to allow them to handle these improved reasoning skills. It’s nature’s way, they say, of giving the older portion of a species the knowledge to help counsel the younger population. Some say that is where wisdom originates.
“There is this idea that wisdom comes with age,” says Dr. Robert Levenson, a U.C. Berkeley psychologist and one of the nation’s leading authorities on the brain. “What does that mean? It doesn’t mean you can do mental arithmetic much more quickly. It means you can put things in perspective. You can evaluate things against a spectrum of relative information.”
This change is why many people feel wiser, calmer and more secure in themselves as they get older. It’s not just life experiences that provide this. It’s the brain altering the way information is cataloged and utilized.
The brain cannot do this all on its own. It takes work to keep a brain sharp. Your mind is just like your muscles. If you don’t use your brain, you will slowly lose it. If you have a non-stimulating job, if you watch a lot of television, if you lead a passive life, then your mind will become dull and so will you.
It’s a simple concept. The best way to keep the mind active is to keep it busy. To feed it with activity and oxygen. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this. The first is mental exercise. Anything you can do to keep current coursing through those neurons is beneficial. The more parts of the brain you use, the better.
Language is one of the best activities for the mind. The spoken word requires the brain to harness a large portion of energy. Reading a book is not the most challenging task for your brain, but it certainly is better than watching t-v.
Doing crossword puzzles or any word-related quizzes galvanizes the mind even more. Joining a book club combines reading and speaking into one activity. Writing in a journal is medicinal for the mind. Creative writing gets more juices flowing. Perhaps best of all is a foreign language. Learning, re-learning or keeping current on a second language works the brain like a treadmill.
Another brain-intensive activity is music. Not so much listening to it but playing it. Learning how to master a musical instrument or practicing one you already know can fire up the brain. It’s not only good for the ears, it is good for the gray matter inside your skull.
Exercising your neurons isn’t the only thing beneficial to the brain.
Exercising your body can be, too. Aerobic work pushes oxygen-laden blood throughout your body. Since oxygen is your brain’s number one food, exercise fuels that part of your system by sending blood coursing through your gray and white matter. Scientists also say when your muscles contract and release, they emit a chemical that includes a protein called IGF-1. That substance travels through the blood system into the brain. Once there, it issues instructions for the brain to increase the production of other chemicals, including one that fuels the process of higher thought. So, as you strengthen your muscles, you can also expand your mind.
What you eat – or don’t consume – can also affect your brain. There is widespread agreement among health experts that fish is good for your head. The reason is the omega-3 fatty acids they contain. Oily fish such as salmon, sardines, mackerel and herring are the best sources for this “brain food.” It’s also recommended older people eat a sufficient supply of fruits and vegetables, especially those bright in color. The pigments of those red, yellow and orange foods contain antioxidants that are healthy for the brain.
Exercise, diet and sufficient rest all contribute to getting the human brain in better physical shape. They all increase the capacity for knowledge. However, all this improvement goes for naught if the brain isn’t used. It’s much like giving a car a complete engine overhaul and then not driving it. Baby Boomers must take care of their brain and they must also make use of it.
Focusing on the mind will be vital for Baby Boomers, not only for themselves but also for society. If we intend to solve some of the problems we have helped create, if we plan to advise those younger than us, if we plan to mentor the up-and-coming generations, we will need all the facilities of our brain to be in functioning in top-notch condition.
Our next 10,000 days is crucial and it will also be busy, if we so choose.
Firing up our neurons will be important in making our senior years productive.
Extract from “10,000 days” by David Mills