Mind360 Blog

Having difficulty paying attention? Forgetting where you put things? Wondering whether or not you may be ‘losing it’ mentally?

Relax; everybody experiences lapses in their various cognitive skills due to one reason or another, and often without any serious cause for concern.

But then again, what harm is there in having yourself checked out mentally from time to time, especially when there are a number of simple tests easily available to you?

Get a Head Start

Next time you visit your doctor, ask him or her to arrange for you to undergo any of the following tests to assess your current brain health. After all, a healthy body requires a healthy mind.

SIMPLE BRAIN HEALTH TESTS

Test of Variable Attention (T.O.V.A.)
Measures responses to visual stimulus. Includes scores for consistency, impulsivity, inattention, and response speed.

Weschler Memory Scale (WMS)
Tests brain recall abilities in four areas: working memory, verbal memory, immediate memory, and visual memory.

Millon IQ
Assesses four types of intelligence: abstract, emotional, creative, and perceptual.

Type and Temperament
Assesses behavioral temperament and personality.

Steve Daitch is the Social Media Manager at Mind360.com - a leading scientific brain training games developer for boosting your memory, attention, executive functions, reasoning, and other key cognitive skills. As a Mind360 visitor you simply select your own Personal Training Program, which comes complete with a personal coach and constant feedback to ensure your swift and visible progress.

New brain facts

Cognitive science is the study of the brain. It has given us new insight into how the brain works. It has also revealed countless new and interesting facts about the physical composition of the brain as well, interesting facts that you probably didn’t know.

Our information superhighway

For instance, did you know the weight of the brain is about 3 lbs? Or that the brain is made up of about 75% water? You have heard of neurons, and probably know that they are the circuit stations of the brain, but did you know that the brain has about 100 million of them? And of those 100 million, each is linked to 1,000 to 10,000 synapses to convey information around the brain.

No hard feelings

And remember the “brain” scene in the movie Hannibal? Well, that was physically possible, because there are no pain receptors in the brain, so the brain can feel no pain. Yikes!

Why we are smarter

Further, the brain has physical characteristics that make us smarter as humans. At 2% of body weight, the human brain comprises the largest percentage of body weight of any organism.

High maintenance

It takes a lot of blood to keep that brain going: there are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the brain. It also takes a lot of oxygen: up to 20% of the total oxygen in your body (remember, the brain only weighs three pounds).

Protective padding

Ever wonder why we can hit our heads without damaging our brains? Well, there is a lot of padding: the human brain is the fattest organ in the body, with up to 60% fat composition.

The changing brain

A newborn baby’s brain grows to about three times its size at birth in its first year. The brain stops growing at age 18.

Whole brains

And you know that myth that we only use 10% of our brains? Well that is far from true: every part of our brain has a known function.

Memory lag

Did you ever think that traveling could affect your memory? Well, science has learned that frequent jet lag can impair memory due to stress hormones.

The champ

Did you know there is a recognized global memory champion? His name is Ben Pridemore, and his claim to fame is memorizing 96 historical events in 5 minutes and memorizing a single, shuffled deck of cards in 26.28 seconds. Sound strange? Well, everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame somehow. Do you remember who said that? Good, your brain is still working!

More fun and interesting facts

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Want to learn more fun facts about the brain? Here are 100 fascinating facts you never knew about the human brain.

Feeling sluggish even though you been conserving your energy? That’s your brain talking. We all know how important it is to get a good sleep, but new studies continue to show more and more cognitive benefits from regular sleep patterns.

Recent studies have identified sleep as essential for learning a diverse set of new complex tasks, ranging from spatial and visual memory skill acquisition to learning motor sequences.

Studies also indicate that not only is it important to get good sleep before performing a task, but it is essential to get good sleep after learning a task as well. In fact, empirical observations have demonstrated that among test groups of people learning new tasks, those who slept after learning the new task performed the task much better than those who stayed awake over the same time period before performing the task.

In effect, we need to break up our tasks with sleep.

Learning a new task, or preparing for a new task, each requires sleep afterwards. Sleep allows the brain to rest and absorb the new lessons or challenges that have been put before it.

So don’t just wait until you are tired. Nourish your brain with strategically-timed sleep, such as sleeping through the night to let a lesson sink in, or taking a quick nap after task set-ups. Incorporate well-timed sleep into your schedule for optimal brain performance when you are awake.

Reaction time

Reaction time has always been important in daily life. Today it is more than a trendy expression. Science is identifying the specific ways in which brain training can contribute to acceleration of reaction speed, which can help us with daily functioning activities such as driving.

Improve performance

Whatever our cognitive needs and whatever cognitive stage we are in, research reveals that processing speed enables us to perform the daily activities that our lives demand of us more effectively. And the higher the level at which an individual functions, the more success and fulfillment that individual experiences, no matter what age.

Lasting results for all

New research has confirmed that cognitive training of processing speed has a visible positive impact on daily activities of older adults, with reaction speed one of the key benefits. Further, the positive results of training cognitive speed were observed to have at least a two year impact and proved adaptable to all ages and education levels.

The daily grind

Think about all the challenges that come your way during the day, from your workplace to your home to your driving environment: imagine how much more fulfilling these tasks would be if you performed them at maximum efficiency.

Increase happiness

Science has verified that older adults can benefit as much as the general adult population from having their brains trained. Better results give all of us an increased sense of gratification from our individual tasks. And the satisfaction a job well done brings can make us all a whole lot happier.

The Brain Diet

Ok let’s get right to your brain diet. Spices such as turmeric and sage or minor munchies such as walnuts have been proven to be effective brain food. But don’t worry, there are more substantial (and tasty!) forms of brain nutrition.

Entree

First there’s wild salmon (sushi anybody?). Wild salmon is one of the healthiest forms of nutrition across the board for anybody to eat. It is an essential source of Omega 3 fatty acids, as well as a source of non-animal protein, which the brain loves. Salmon improves your brain matter, and reduces your risk of stroke and Alzheimer’s among other things.

Complements

As for drinks and dessert, the cacao bean is loaded with high concentrations of cognitive enhancers. Yes, that means that chocolate is brain food! But before you run out and buy yourself a Snicker’s bar, remember that popular brands of chocolate have all kinds of additives and preservatives which are actually bad for your brain.

Organic chocolate is the good stuff your brain likes, especially minimally processed and fully organic non-alkalized cocoa powder, which you can add to a high protein drink such as soy milk (or just regular low-fat milk for those of you who aren’t so hardcore).

Munchies

If you have the munchies, high cacao percentage chocolate bars of at least 75% cacao content will feed your brain well.

Tea

Your brain also fancies a nice cup of tea, but only tea with stone ground Gyokuru green tea powder.

Berries

The well known akai berry is another source of Omega 3’s.

Blueberries are an even more amazing berry. They have been found by the FDA in a Tufts University study to actually reverse age-related decline, improve short term memory loss, and help reverse age-related loss of balance.

Cup of Joe

Finally, a cup of coffee can also do the trick, but not just any coffee: it’s all in the beans. Fresh ground gently roasted coffee bean powder is great for the brain—even the caffeine! In fact, science has demonstrated that regular coffee consumption will reduce the risk of mental decline and associated diseases such as Dementia and Alzheimer’s.

So there’s your first official brain diet: your brain is now ready to chow down!

Too Much Information

According to research, driving in many respects poses the biggest everyday challenge to cognition. Driving skills and responsive reflex require more cognitive load than virtually any other activity—even flying a plane.

Cognitive Overload

Cognitively speaking, the response required of the brain while driving overland is overwhelming: the driver must respond to instant estimates of speed and distance, as well as what is taking place in front of and around the vehicle, internally as well as externally.

The Speed of Man

The driver is also often pressed into deciding which way to go while speeding by signs amid multiple sensory inputs of sight and sound, forcing the brain to react at a speed that science says it simply has not evolved for. The brain is made to react at best to the speed at which a human being runs, not the speed of a car.

The Mechanics

Among the multiple cognitive abilities required for driving, research lists attention, perceptuomotor skills, memory, and decision-making. These partially segregated neural systems are required to interact seamlessly in the virtual blink of an eye in automobile operation.

The Solution

Driver testing programs and simulators are highly popular items right now for groups with vested interests in improving driving skills, such as insurance companies and brain injury transition centers.

Product Optimization

Tests are being conducted with the first test samples being elderly drivers to determine the most effective form and characteristics of driving simulators. The goal of program design is to predict and develop necessary individual cognitive skills on a user-by-user basis. Schools, computer software, and on-line tests will make simulation programs available on a widescale basis in the very near future.

Added Benefits

In addition to getting safely from Point A to Point B, sharpening cognition skills for driving can potentially lower fuel costs: specific driving behavior impacts fuel economy, such as removing one’s foot from the gas to stop instead of driving fast and slamming on the breaks.

Many of you have probably heard that the French propensity for drinking wine has been scientifically proven to reduce heart disease. Well first of all, it’s true. Second of all, that cup of red wine can also help keep Alzheimer’s away, as well as tumors.

A team of researchers at UCLA recently set to work to find out how this could be possible. This is what they discovered: naturally occurring compounds in red wine called polyphenols were clearly observed under microscope blocking the proteins that give rise to toxic plaques that destroy braincells.

For those with existing plaques (sorry, could be anyone, comes with age), polyphenols reduce the toxicity of those plaques, thus reducing the amount of cognitive deterioration that the plaques can otherwise cause.

For those of you who actually don’t like a nice glass of red wine, there are still more options: large quantities of many polyphenols show up in high concentration in tea, nuts, berries and some plants.

Anybody who wants to know more, don’t worry! That same team of doctors is beginning human trials to observe the effects of various forms and quantities of the over 8000 types of polyphenols. The goal is to determine what substances are best for people to consume to battle, prevent, or offset Alzheimer’s. And as soon as they know, you’ll know, because we are going to post immediately. So check back and stay tuned!