Who wouldn’t want to be smarter, more mentally alert and on the ball instead
of fumbling through life in a fog of confusion? These days, stimulating our
grey matter is big business, with a plethora of smart drugs, fiendish sudoku
puzzles and bestselling books from the Mind Gym. Now, Nintendo has entered
the fray, with the world’s first computerised personal trainer for the
brain. The programme has sold 2.4m copies in Japan since its launch last
year.
Devised by Dr Ryuta Kawashima, the Super Mario of neuroscience, Brain Training
is a series of quick but challenging exercises designed to “energise the
brain”, just as a workout might give your body a boost. The first exercise
involves naming out loud the colour of words that are flashed on screen. The
snag is, all the words are themselves colours, for example, “red” is written
in blue, yellow and black. Kawashima’s assessment of my current brain power
is 80 years old. I am marginally less geriatric with mental arithmetic
(brain age, 71). Apparently, your brain should get smarter with daily
practice. This should be possible no matter how dull-witted you might feel
after taking the test. According to a study in Nature, only 48% of IQ is
down to genes; the rest is down to education and environment.
Dr Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a cognitive neuroscientist and author of The
Learning Brain, says the adult brain is trainable. “It is in a constant
state of change. Every time you learn a new thing or see a new face,
something in the brain changes.” She subscribes to the “use it or lose it”
theory. “Doing mental exercises — crosswords, sudoku or using a computer
programme — improves parts of the brain that govern language, concentration
and mathematical ability. Practice makes the brain more alert in whatever
area you’re working on.” Several brain-imaging studies back this up. At MIT
in Boston, adults who had never played the piano were given a simple
exercise to practise for two hours a day. After five days, the area of the
brain responsible for finger movements became far more active. Another
recent study, at Regensburg University in Germany, scanned people’s brains
before and after they learnt to juggle, practising every day for three
months. Two regions of the brain that process visual motion increased in
size, but went back to normal when the subjects stopped juggling.
One of the biggest mental challenges most of us face is information overload.
This inevitably hinders our brain power, and it is one area in which brain
training can help. One of the Nintendo exercises involves naming, at speed,
the number of syllables in a sentence. For example: “Taking apples from a
beautiful garden is forbidden.” Another involves reading aloud extracts from
classic works of literature such as Sense and Sensibility and A Tale of Two
Cities. “These exercises train your brain to prioritise information and
filter out everything extraneous. It’s about focused attention versus
divided attention, both of which are governed by the brain’s frontal lobe,”
says Blakemore. This is useful for the multitaskers among us, forcing a
blast of sustained concentration.
“When it comes to developing our mind, we need all the help we can get,” says
Michael Gelb, the author of How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci: Seven Steps
to Genius Everyday. “Crosswords, sudoku, chess problems — all these mental
sports keep the brain sharp, but also make you think more creatively,
because they inspire a spirit of mental curiosity. By training your brain,
you’re making a commitment to maintain your intelligence, and by doing that,
you’ re likely to be open to new ideas, possibilities and inventions.”
He points out that it was Da Vinci who said: “Just as iron rusts from disuse,
and stagnant water putrefies or, when cold, turns to ice, so our intellect
wastes unless it is kept in use.” However, he does sound a note of caution.
“It doesn’t matter what type of brain exercise you choose, the thing is, you
need to enjoy it. If you’re groaning over the fact that you must
do your brain training, it’s not going to work.”
Sebastian Bailey, of the Mind Gym, believes any brain-training programme is
effective only if you apply what you learn to your life. “Psychologists call
it ‘transfer of learning’. Doing sudoku every day is unlikely to help you do
anything except get better at sudoku. However, if you take a mindful
approach and think, how can I apply the principles to, say, my shopping
list, it could help. Sudoku trains the brain to look for the absence of
items as well as presence, and to spot patterns. With practice, if you can
transfer the skill, it makes for a richer experience.”
Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: £19.99, by Nintendo
AMANDA URSELL'S TOP FIVE BRAIN FOODS
Specific parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus, are crucial to
short-term memory, receiving, processing and passing on information between
nerve cells. To keep the hippocampus in good shape, a healthy intake of
antioxidants is essential: they protect and repair the cells and prevent
sticky plaque building up on the blood-vessel walls, which can interrupt
blood, oxygen and nutrient flow and hinder memory. What you should eat:
- Strawberries According to scientists at Tufts University in
Boston, they raise the levels of antioxidant vitamin C in the blood by
20%.
- Sunflower seeds and carrots Studies show that these contain
vitamin E and betacarotene respectively, both of which are crucial for
maintaining brain power.
- Protein-rich chicken, turkey or fish Enjoy summer barbecues,
because the amino acids in these foods increase levels of dopamine,
which improves concentration by putting the brain on high alert.
- Omega-3s Found in oily fish, fortified bread, milk and eggs.
They help us to focus on the task in hand by allowing messages to speed
through brain nerve endings.
- Water This is vital for increased brain power. Research at
Aberdeen University shows that even slight dehydration affects
concentration.
ALL IN THE MIND: How to give your brain a good workout
- USE YOUR COMMUTE Lawrence Katz, of Duke University in North Carolina, invented
the term “neurobics” to describe activities that are done in nonroutine
ways to stimulate the brain. In his book Keep Your Brain Alive: 83
Neurobic Exercises, he suggests a number of commuter exercises,
including: “On a train or bus, close your eyes and use other cues, such
as the speed of the train or bus, or turns in the road, the sound of
brakes or people getting on and off, to visualise where you are.” Best
leave home a bit earlier.
- TRY MIRROR-WRITING Try writing backwards, or writing with your nondominant
hand. “Da Vinci wrote his notebooks in mirror-writing, and he was
ambidextrous,” says Michael Gelb. “The point is to shift out of your
habitual neuromuscular pattern and create a different neural pathway to
follow. That’s how you get new ideas.”
- TURN OFF THE TELEVISION “Focus on the details of your home instead,” suggests
Sebastian Bailey. “Ask yourself, is my kitchen set up in such a way that
saves me time? How about my wardrobe/CD collection? Most of us operate
on default settings, but by practising a more mindful approach, we can
actually free up extra brain energy.”
- CHEW GUM Activity in the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for
making new memories, increases when people are chewing, so a stick of
gum can give the brain a quick boost.
- LEARN A SECOND LANGUAGE Language learning forces your brain to switch tracks
continuously, which is one of the most mentally demanding things you can
do. It's particularly effective for honing the frontal lobes, which
generally shrink with age.
