Why should I even want to take care of my brain? Don’t I have enough to do? Most people are busy enough with their spouse, their parents, their children, their grandchildren, their jobs, their homes, the laundry, paying the bills, their friends and the list goes on.
The simple answer to this question is that the brain is like a muscle, an extremely complicated muscle. You have a choice about this muscle – you use it or you lose it. So if you want to take care of your brain, one of the things that you need to do to is use it, preferably in new and novel situations.
For some people, keeping your brain healthy is very natural and you don’t even have to think about it. An example is Bob Woodruff, former anchor for ABC news. When he was young he learned Mandarin Chinese and got a law degree. He wanted to be on top of his game, so he learned about any area that he was reporting on. He liked tennis and other athletic activities so there was lots of rich red blood bringing oxygen to his brain. Oxygen is one of a brain’s favorite things, and it takes most of the body’s oxygen. So Bob Woodruff was blessed with a very healthy brain, which was a good thing because he had a head injury with brain damage in Iraq. He might not have a good recovery if his brain not so healthy to begin with. This is one reason why you might want to take care of your brain. A healthy brain is like shutters in Florida. They may not prevent a hurricane, but they’re more likely to keep your home safe.
This probably wouldn’t be my first reason to keep my brain healthy. I would just as soon avoid Iraq. I want my brain to be healthy it can support me in interacting optimally in the world. If my brain wasn’t working, I would forget the beginning of this article by the time I got to the middle. If I were a stock broker, I wouldn’t be able to pick the right stocks. If I were a politician, I wouldn’t be able to make decisions that would be good for the country. If I were an orthopedic surgeon, I wouldn’t be able to successfully complete the operation. As the world we live in gets more and more complete, it is more and more important to have a well functioning brain.
Now some people have a history of satisfaction with their brain. They managed their jobs and their personal relationships, they got from place to place, they ran their houses and they booked their cruises. Then they noticed that their memory was failing. They began to forget names, birthdays, anniversaries. Once they finally found their keys they forget how to get to the restaurant. They started to call everyone “honey” because it was easier than remembering their name. Sometimes they wouldn’t even realize that their memory had changed, but a spouse or a child would notice mental decline. Those who want to prevent, stabilize or possibly reverse memory loss now have options if they start taking care of their brain.
Keeping the Brain Healthy
There are many things that we want our brain to do. We want it to focus and pay attention. We want it to be able to do things in a reasonable time. We want it to have mental flexibility and we want it to be able to remember things.
There are many different levels of keeping the brain functioning optimally, just as there are many different levels of athletic ability, and there is an optimal level for every person. If I want to play tennis, I need to practice my strokes but I’ll never be a Chris Evert. Likewise, if you are a high powered professional who wants to stay on top of your game, working out your brain could help you to keep your edge. But if you’re a senior who is concerned about memory loss, you may never be an Einstein but you can make small changes that could have a significant impact on the way that you live.
Slowing mental decline is very important, and even if you can prevent further decline for a few years, you are ahead of the game. It could make the difference between living independently and living in a nursing home or in an assisted living.
If you’re concerned about your brain, you can go to our Sparks of Genius website and take the 39 point learning assessment, which will give you some ideas about what you can do for memory optimization. There are some other excellent web sites, like Cognitive Labs from Stamford University (www.cognitivelabs.com) which even has brain tests and brain games which can optimize cognitive functioning. If you do these two things, you can greatly enhance how your brain is working. But if this is all that you do, you had better be very motivated. You will need to keep playing these games at least a few times a week to see any progress.
I had a good friend who started working with some of the games that we use in our cognitive playground at Sparks of Genius. She came to the office a few times a month and she was making progress. She leased a cognitive training program and was working out at home. But she and her husband decided that he would coach her at home. So they left our program, stopped training at home and her memory continued to decline. My friend was only 65 when this happened and both her parents lived to be in their nineties. So she has maybe 35 years of impaired quality of life because she didn’t properly care for her brain.
How Coaching Works
We have all know the physical fitness model of taking care of ourselves. You eat right and exercise and to improve your health will be better. Your brain health will be better too, because there are nutrients in food that enhances mental functioning. Physical activity is essential because it boost the amount of oxygen in your brain.
So let’s take the physical fitness model and apply it to brain fitness. Now some people work out from their homes. They run on their treadmill, use weights, bands and a stability ball. They are able to do this on a regular basis and maintain their motivation. I am not one of these people. The main exercise I get at home is walking to and from the refrigerator. My physical health would be a disaster if this was the only way that I took care myself.
The mental equivalent of this would be someone who uses Berlitz tapes to learn French, does crossword puzzles and brain teasers, read books about Einstein’s equations, has lots of interactions with other people and travels extensively. In other words, they are able to structure their lives so that their brain experiences new and novel situations. It could also be someone who has a stimulating but not overly stressful career. While some stress actually helps to keep you on your toes, too much stress is pretty much bad for everything, including your brain. For example, puzzle master Will Shortz, the crossword editor of the NY Times probably has a very healthy brain. This approach works for a select few but not for most people.
Then there are people who go to a gym. Some people sign up for a gym every January 1 and maybe they go for a few months. Others are more motivated. They use the machines, the weight training stations, maybe take a class. They stay in pretty decent shape, nothing exceptional, but it’s better than nothing. This is the equivalent of playing games in Cognitive Labs. These games keep your brain functioning if you continue to do them on a regular basis. But it’s easy to get sidetracked one day, and then the next, until you are not doing them anymore.
Most gyms have personal trainers or coaches and I love to watch them. They help their clients reach their training objectives – whether they want to be “cut” or strengthen their rotator cuffs or be in shape for a triathlon. They teach proper form so that their clients make good use of their time. They have safety tips so their clients are less likely to be injured. They know many different ways of working any particular muscle group and they mix things up so their trainees don’t get bored. Trainers provide information about diet and life style changes. They make appointments for next time so it is more likely to that their clients will return to the gym. In short, those who really want to improve their physical health are much better off with trainers.
The mental equivalent of this would be to come to our Sparks of Genius playground and work out with your own personal trainer. There you get a program that is customized to meet your brain’s needs.
Just like bodies, every brain is a little different and there is an optimal blend of brain exercises that will be best for your brain. Just like you can strengthen different muscles in your body, there are different competencies that you can train for your brain – endurance, flexibility, speed, executive functioning, auditory memory, auditory discrimination, visual memory and visual discrimination, to name just a few. Your personal trainer will program different brain exercises for different times and mix it up so that you don’t get bored. Your coach knows what’s good for your brain and can give you other tips about diet and lifestyle changes that can help improve cognitive functioning. Your coach will review the training that you’ve done between sessions as well as assessing how you’re doing at the sessions to make sure that you’re making the best use of your time.
Remember I told you that the brain was like a very complicated muscle. Why would you want to entrust it to someone who wasn’t an expert?
For several years we have been working with people for 6 months or a year leasing brain training software, but we are currently developing a new memory tune up program with a shorter time commitment. We look forward to developing a program designed for you. Remember, if your brain isn’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
-Ninah Kessler,
Life Coach
