There is a time in every man’s education when he
arrives at the conviction that...
The power which resides in him is new in nature,
and none but he knows what that is which he can do,
nor does he know until he has tried.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Albert Einstein, the great German physicist, believed he
used only a small percentage of his potential. If Einstein
was convinced of this, can you imagine how the rest of us
fare? Take a moment from your busy day and ask yourself:
How much of your brain do you use? Scientists tell us that
the average person uses only 10-20 percent of his or her
brain power. The remaining 80-90 percent lies dormant until
we learn how to develop it and consciously strive to reach
our full potential. Yet, typically, we tend to set our brains
at a low-level usage. We become comfortable in our environments
and our own capacities within the various roles (work, family,
community etc.) that we set out for ourselves. The result?
Often we begin to stop challenging our brains beyond a certain
threshold.
A good analogy for this is driving a car while engaged in
a conversation with a friend. Upon arrival, you may find
that you do not remember much of the ‘getting there’ because
you were so engrossed in the conversation. In a sort of auto-pilot,
your brain got you safely from Point A to Point B. It did
it because you trained it to do so. You learnt the proper
muscle coordination to drive a car, and your brain both reads
and tacitly understands the traffic symbols as you go. Meanwhile,
your
periphery vision is scanning the environment like a
computer, filtering information without you even being conscious
of it. If anything out of the ordinary should have occurred
while you were driving, chances are likely you would have
noticed it immediately. Yet, consciously, you likely aren’t
aware of any of this occurring at all. Most of us will remember
the conversation, specifically the subject of it and our
emotional responses. Everything else becomes a blur.
Our brain, which weighs in at three pounds, is the most
powerful “muscle” in
our body. It is also, arguably, the most neglected. It is
often only as we get older and begin to show signs of cognitive
damage (ie. memory loss, confusion and other signs of dementia),
that many of us consider the implications of not challenging
our brains enough. As we age, mental decline appears occur
largely in part to altered connections among brain cells.
Research has found, however, that keeping the brain active
allows it to build its own reserves of brain cells and connections.
In certain cultures - like Japan, for instance - this issue
is emerging on a mass scale as the majority of the population
begins to age. For a country like Japan, which has one of
the longest average life spans in the world as well as one
of the lowest birth rates, “noh tore” (brain
training) is verging on the point of a national obsession.
The first video game on the subject was created in Japan
and released in May 2005. Called “Brain Age: Train
Your Brain in Minutes a Day,” this program was developed
for Nintendo and based on the theories of Japanese neuroscientist
Ryuta Kawashima, who edited the software for the game.
A North American version of “Brain Age” was
released in April of this year, and the European version,
titled Brain
Training: How Old is Your Brain? was released shortly afterwards
throughout Europe and in Australia.
The game, which has sold an excess of five million copies
since its release in Japan, puts players through a daily
regime of brain tests and exercises. Some of the activities,
which are based upon Dr. Kawashima’s research, include
solving simple math problems, counting exercises and reading
literature aloud.
A sign of our Times
Brain science is a fascinating subject
of our times, for it has been only recently that scientists
have been able to learn how the neural network of the brain
forms. One of the most exciting discoveries in this field
is that brain cells continue to grow and connect with each
other in complex ways throughout our entire lives. This gives
us the capacity to continually “grow” our brains
and create new learning pathways. As the renowned brain researcher
Dr. Marian Diamond puts it: “The nervous system possesses
not just a ‘morning’ of plasticity, but an ‘afternoon’ and
an ‘evening’ as well.” The brain can, and does, change at any age. In fact, research
is showing in some cases how older brains can have an advantage
over younger ones when it comes to learning. In some instances,
more highly developed neurons respond better to “intellectual
enrichment” than less developed ones do. Consider your
brain a muscle, scientists say, and use it or lose it.
“
Read, read, read,” says Dr. Amir Soas of Case Western
Reserve University Medical School in Cleveland. “Do
crossword puzzles. Play Scrabble. Start a new hobby or learn
to speak a foreign language. Anything that stimulates the
brain to think.”
The suggestions made by Dr. Soas reflect the simplicity
at the core of what scientists mean when they talk about
brain
training. We don’t need to make extreme changes in
our lives to challenge our minds. Daily exercise is cited
as the best possible thing we can do for our brains. Breaking
up our routines (this could be as small as using a new
route to get to work), eating with the opposite hand, playing
games
that involve math and phonetics, memorizing telephone numbers,
and reading aloud are all practical suggestions.
Guy Pilch, who started Train the Brain Consulting in Victoria,
shared one of his tips recently in Alberta Venture. “Read
something backwards for a few minutes,” he reveals. “Your
brain has to work harder to make sense of things. It’s
like swinging two bats in the batting cage – your
body compensates for the extra weight, so when you step
up to
the plate with only one bat, it feels light.”
Finally, a very simple brain exercise that can be practiced
anywhere is using your weaker hand in place of your dominant
one to do simple tasks (ie. To control the computer mouse,
to use a fork, pick up your keys, twist off a bottle
cap, shoot a basketball or hammer a nail). If this sounds
rather
simple, or child-like, just recall that Einstein was
ambidextrous, as was Leanardo Da Vinci and Michaelangelo
(who painted
with both hands).
Some Fun Brain Facts.....Our
Brains are approximately 75% water…..our brains use approximately 20% of the total
oxygen pumping through our bodies…about 750ml of blood
pumps through our brains every minute!...Our brains consist
of about 100 billion neurons…. That's about 166 times
the number of people on the planet, and our brains are capable
of having more ideas than the number of atoms in the known
universe! (source: Tony Buzan, Head Strong 2001)
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