Work Brain to Keep It Sharp
March 20, 2007

By ABIGAIL LEICHMAN
STAFF WRITER

In order for the human brain to reach its peak potential, people must engage in physical and mental exercise, scientists say.
How can you get a really buff brain? Work it.
“It is absolutely necessary to exercise your brain,” says neuroscientist Jennifer Chotiner. “Real estate in your brain is very precious. If something is not being used, the brain figures you don’t need it anymore. It’s ‘use it or lose it.’”
The best brain workout has two daily components: learning and aerobics.
Scientists have long known about the first part. “The brain is like a computer, a learning machine that comes with hardware,” says Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of the division of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. “Education and cognitive stimulation upgrades the software.”
Education seems to be the most consistent protective factor against Alzheimer’s disease, he adds.
It’s only lately that studies have proven how aerobic exercise — even a brisk daily walk — impacts brain fitness by promoting the growth of new brain cells to replace the ones that die off naturally as we age.
“Through aerobics, we can actually increase brain volume in the area that we use for working memory,” says Kennedy.

HABITS FOR A FIT BRAIN
Challenge your mind. Learn a foreign language or how to knit or play a musical instrument. Do crossword or jigsaw puzzles. Read a few paragraphs upside down, shop at a new grocery store, use your non-dominant hand for tooth- or hair-brushing, do certain routine tasks with eyes closed. Read a book or article on a subject you know nothing about. Figure out how to do small fix-it jobs yourself. Keep a journal or diary.
Exercise your body. Aerobic activities boost blood flow to the brain, keeping it in peak condition. Three hours of walking per week improves memory, learning ability, concentration and abstract reasoning. Ballroom dancing is more aerobic than tai chi, but both protect against cognitive decline because they require learning and remembering specific movements.
Eat (and drink) right. Nourish and protect your brain with whole-grain carbs; lots of fruits and vegetables; grain, vegetable and fish protein; fats from nuts, seeds, olives and cold-water fish; and plenty of filtered or bottled water. Cut down on meat, shellfish, dairy, refined sugar, artificial sweeteners, carbonated drinks, caffeine and alcohol. Consider vitamin B-complex and antioxidant supplements.
Protect your skull. Head injuries, even in childhood, increase the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s later in life. Use helmets when biking, skating and playing contact sports.
Strengthen your spirit. Maintain social ties and an active interest in the outside world. Stress-tamers like meditation, prayer and deep breathing are valuable to brain health, too.
Sources: “Gary Null’s Mind Power” (New American Library, 2005), “Saving Your Brain” by Jeff Victoroff, M.D. (Bantam, 2002), “Brain Fitness” by Robert Goldman, M.D. (Doubleday, 1999), National Institutes of Health
Both the learning and the aerobics should start in childhood. But they’re most critical for adults, because even as young as 20, the brain’s processing speed is slowing down and paving the way for dementia.
Add memory-boosting techniques to the mix, and you’ve got powerful weapons against “senior moments” that may strike long before you’re eligible for AARP membership.
Reenaa Chawla of the Brain Studio in Mahwah has offered some of her memory “tips, tricks and visualization techniques” from her self-developed Age Smart workshops to seniors in Rutherford and Fair Lawn.
Rising to the challenge Chawla describes her typical client as “40 to 60, well educated, socially forward, with multiple areas of stress in their life that present specific memory challenges.”
Aside from simple memory aids (anagrams, abbreviations and associations), she guides clients in game-like challenges to sharpen powers of perception.
“We tend to use fewer of our own learning faculties and more external aids such as computers and timers,” Chawla says. “It’s high time to come back and make use of these capabilities. The only way to [do that] is through the five senses.”
Or perhaps through movement, as Brain Gym adherents believe.
Brain Gym is based on the premise that specific movements can optimize the brain’s ability to store and retrieve information. It’s taught in schools in 80 countries, including a Jewish Montessori school in New Milford.
Metropolitan Opera singer Connie Green of Fort Lee has taught Brain Gym to kids, professional athletes, musicians, people with mild brain injuries and parents of special-needs children.
“The premise is that … cross-motor movement, like marching and swinging arms, integrates both sides of the brain and opens up connections that haven’t been made before,” says Green.
Neuroscientists like Chotiner, chairwoman of the biology department at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, say most people don’t need to sign up for brain workouts.
“You can just turn off the TV and read a book or have a heated political discussion,” she says.
Kennedy suggests that any learning activity you enjoy, whether it’s reading, chess, watching “Jeopardy” or playing computer games, will upgrade your cranial “computer.”
That’s good news for the 13 million people who regularly play “brain food” computer games such as sudoku and UNO, according to MSN Games.
“Playing online casual games, such as brainteasers, crossword puzzles, trivia titles and any variety of mentally challenging and fun games can actually stimulate the brain and stimulate new connections between cells,” says Dr. Kathleen Hall, a work-life expert and founder of the Stress Institute in Georgia.
Kennedy says the key is identifying mental and physical activities you truly like to do.
“Find intellectual stimulation that’s fun and fits your lifestyle, and find walking or other physical exercise you enjoy, and do it a half-hour every day,” he says. “It may not matter what you do so long as you do it with passion.”
E-mail: leichman@northjersey.com

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