How many, I wonder, plan to hit the Brain Gym this year?  What resolutions can we make, starting today, to help the neurons continue their snappy patter - and at lightening-fast speed?  For starters, here are mine:

1.  Keep exercising.  I’m very, very faithful here, to the point of being cranky on the rare days I have to miss a workout.  However , there is always room for improvement in toning those pesky ”problem” areas.  (Note to self: order that ”Brazilian Butt Workout” DVD  pronto.)

2.  More fish, fewer carbs.  I see Chicken of the Sea salmon packets in my future. 

3.  Do. One. Thing. At. A. Time.  I know, I know – multi-tasking is a fantasy but it is slow to die.  I mean, what am so afraid of missing that compels me to run 2 laptops AND the Bloomberg channel?   From now on, no online radio while the frontal cortex is working.  Period.

4. Spend time with friends.  That shouldn’t be so hard to do but truthfully I have to actually schedule such an activity or it won’t happen.  Friendships, even long-standing ones, take effort to maintain.  Facebook pokes don’t count.

5.  Keep stretching mentally.  Ditch the routine and seek out the novel, however uncomfortable.   Act on it.

6.  Take coconut oil (more on this later).  Supposed to do heaps for brain health.

7.  Avoid the cortisol stress hormone and reach for the, uh, zen.  Not ALL of the Interstate drivers are IDIOTS, are they?  A calm brain is a focused brain and focus is what I want lots of in 2012.

Happy New Year.

BN 

Secretly, though, slipping out to the grocery store for a few necessities (mind you, just bread and milk) I couldn’t resist the urge to eye a rack of marked-for-clearance Christmas items.

As if I really need that green and red Santa-patterned serving plate.  Oh, but the possibilities….perhaps to stack the finger sandwiches upon it for next year’s brunch, that bringing the approving nod from my sister-in-law, guru of domesticity.  Yes!  Already I am sucked into the fantasy.  Peace on earth.

And then this morning, trying to work and clear up pesky emails, temptation visits again in the form of “Grouponicus” messages and similar offerings from Amazon( previously known as my faithful book purveyor.)   The deals of the ‘net practically scream at you.  EIGHTY PERCENT OFF!!!  Swanky-sounding sites call to me - My Habit, Woot, Fat Wallet.  One click and I”m in the club.

Of course, the Brain part of Brain Nurse knows what’s at play in the cranial sandbox: the guilty pleasure of the Dopamine Pathway is involved and the relative success or failure of  the prefrontal cortex (PFC).   This is the brain’s governor of prudence, appropriateness and ability to plan ahead for the bigger goal.  A brain with an active PFC exercises circumspect.  We know that people who can delay pleasure and not blow their nest egg on impulsive buying have more PFC activity.  The instant-gratification camp, on the other hand, are more challenged in that area.  A study that got some media buzz last fall involved kids who made decisions on received marshmallow awards now or later.  Here’s a link on that research:http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/30/the-new-science-behind-your-spending-addiction.html

Hands down, the kids who couldn’t  delay gratification lost out later in life  – lower SAT scores, higher participation in crime, not to mention more trouble with debt and money management.  The good news, according to the article, is that such behavior can be retrained.  The brain, after all, is malleable and astonishingly adaptive.   Even in the face of marshmallows.

Seasons greetings,

BN

However, I did find a newly published brain book and snatched it up (that leaves 18).  It’s called “Brain Bugs: How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives” by Dean Buonomano.  Here’s a nugget from the Introduction:

Although we currently inhabit a time and place we were not programmed to live in, the set of instructions written down in our DNA on how to build a brain are same as they were – 100,000 years ago.  Which raises the question, to what extent is the neural operating system established by evolution well tuned for the digital, predator-free, sugar-abundant, special-effects-filled, antibiotic-laden, media-saturated densely populated world we have managed to build for ourselves?

This got me to thinking about wha I miss most – and what I don’t miss – as a digital immigrant from the old days, pre-webtellictual way of life…

What I Don’t Miss:

Having to stop at pay phones at sketchy gas stations

Not having caller ID (BIG time saver!)

Forced interaction with customer sales people

The Encyclopedia Britannica

White-out

What I  Miss:

Being unavailable

Eye contact with strangers or with known people under age 35

Voice inflection with above

 Time spent between hearing ring tones (yours and others)

Cursive handwriting

Stationary

Books on public library shelves

I like hearing different takes on our old friend, the hippocampus, the so-called “gateway to memory”  brain structure long implanted by evolution.  This one took me by surprise:

We now understand that the hippocampus set point that modulates the adrenal’s production of cortisol is programmed very early in life.  Thus, trauma at a young age increases the hippocampus’s sensitivity to cortisol.  And this sets the stage for an every-increasing decline in hippocampal function in adulthood, which inhibits our ability to respond to situations in novel ways.

I feel nothing but frustrated outrage over the Penn State scandal and I don’t  buy the notion that any of these football coaches are “fallen heroes” nor that the hushing-up of such abuse happened because of  “job pressures to stay quiet.” OH please.  So now the hapless young victims not only pay with immediate emotional, physical costs that we can only imagine.  Indeed,  their abilities to think, learn and adapt go hurting for a lifetime.

Makes me sick.

This is from SharpBrains.com “The 10 Habits of Highly Effective Brains”:

The point of having a brain is precisely to learn and to adapt to challenging new environments.   Once new neurons appear in your brain, where they stay in your brain and how long they survive depends on how you use them.  “Use it or lose it” does not mean “do crossword puzzle number 1,234,567″.  It means “challenge your brain with fundamentally new activities.”

Chop, chop.

And what a gem!  Why hasn’t anyone else written about the science of the reading brain – the interpretation of symbols translated into letters and then into words, into concrete and then into abstract thought?   What would our brains look like without literacy?

All of these questions float about  in my mind after reading another sad news item about the descent of reading scores for students who take the SAT exams, the lowest in several years according to the tiny article spotted in the San Antonio Express News.  Adding insult to injury, I noticed a blatant misspelling of a common word while working out at the gym yesterday.  The misspelling is a common one but it is staggering to think that no one caught it before it was laminated on expensive signs, full color literature and on the company website. 

To literacy. To reading.  Here’s hoping.

On my shelf:

“Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain” by David Eagleman

The predictability that you develop between your own actions and the resulting sensations is the reason you cannot tickle yourself.

“Brain Rules” by John Medina

That’s the power of the Brain Rule.  Learning results in physical changes in the brain, and these changes are unique to each individual. 

“The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain” by Barbara Strauch

Indeed, despite long-held beliefs to the contrary, there’s mounting evidence that at middle age we may be smarter than we were in our twenties.  How can that be?  How can we possibly be smarter and be putting the bananas in the laundry basket?

What I didn’t expect was how my senior-discount brain has laid down new tracks, as if it’s adapted  a different rhythm once the routine of “home” was  abandoned.  On a Brain Science podcast, I recall hearing about how the mind migrates more to the left hemisphere as we get older and that “novel experience” ramps up the right hemisphere.  If that’s true, surely traveling solo without a known agenda or companions constitutes such an experience.  I’m feeling more right-brained by the minute!

What used to occupy my thoughts (like which direction the Dow is headed or whether my hair needs gel today) has been discarded and replaced by new priorities:

- When is Swim Hour?

- When is Rest Hour?

- Is that a mosquito?

And so forth.

brain nurse

By the obligatory camera sweep of the coupon extremist’s home, she lives in a house that has an entire bedroom devoted to the shelving of products.    Proudly, the coupon queen displays her stash of stuff – cake mixes, cereal boxes, sports drinks, toilet paper (ok, you’ll probably use THAT).  She makes it clear that everything collected, at the expense of clearing off entire grocery store shelves, is for the sole purpose of immediate family.  Even if they don’t have kids. 

In the ultimate of real life irony, I happened upon a newspaper article that surfaced last week about couponers who resort to STEALING coupons from the bins of newspaper stands (only paying for a single paper and swiping the inserts of several).    The culprit was caught by a stake out (swear I’m not making this up) at a restaurant in Boise. 

So-o-o-o, is there any conclusion we can make from reality tv to reality crime?  Signs of the times?  Desperate housewives?  Unintended boon for print media? 

Or just this: we want stuff.  Preferably for free.  And the more the better.

Oh yummy, new episode tonight!

2.  Mother’s day came and went last Sunday.  I heard this terrific quote from Erma Bombeck and, thanks to the Internet, tracked it down.  The whole thing is called “Children are like Kites” and the end goes:

The kite becomes more distant and you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that binds you together and will soar as meant to soar…free and alone.  Only then do you know that you have done your job.

3.  I have become the Woman of the Disintegrating Bones, disdainfully diagnosed with osteoporosis by my doctor (he of the cherubic face and paunchy belly).  This after decades of exercise, late night milk drinks and a year of taking some expensive medication that makes me slightly nauseous.  I left with a new prescription (what else?) and instructions to avoid falling.  El Hubbo is of no consolation and has taken to calling me “Crumbles”.