Brain Exercise

[Bent_Bladi]

Salams All!

Okay, I don't know about you - but reading all this stuff about the many ways people can lose their memory (some or all) kinda made me nervous. I don't want to be some vegetable by the time I'm 60!!!

I found these brain exercise tips and feel free to share any you may find.

Now lets get those brains PUMPIN'!!!

[Bent_Bladi]

Mental Exersises:

When we are young the world seems filled with curious wonders, delightful discoveries, and daunting challenges. Our brains are taking in countless bits of information and we are developing lifetime skills. This burst of learning is like the brain Olympics of our human journey. Yet unlike the Olympic athletes who have a limited time to demonstrate their peak performance, the human brain can continue to grow and improve with exercise.

Here you will find a variety of suggestions and research that can help keep you mentally fit.

A Brain Exercise You Can Do Right Now

This is an exercise that can strengthen neural connections and even create new ones.

Switch the hand you are using to control the computer mouse. Use the hand you normally do NOT use.

What do you notice?

Is it harder to be precise and accurate with your motions?

Do you feel like you did when you were first learning to tie your shoelaces?

If you are feeling uncomfortable and awkward don’t worry, your brain is learning a new skill.

Try other neural building and strengthening exercises with everyday movements. Use your opposite hand to brush your teeth, dial the phone or operate the TV remote.

Imagine Increased Muscle Strength!-Experiment

In a fascinating experiment, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation discovered that a muscle can be strengthened just by thinking about exercising it.

For 12 weeks (five minutes a day, five days per week) a team of 30 healthy young adults imagined either using the muscle of their little finger or of their elbow flexor. Dr. Vinoth Ranganathan and his team asked the participants to think as strongly as they could about moving the muscle being tested, to make the imaginary movement as real as they could.

Compared to a control group – that did no imaginary exercises and showed no strength gains – the little-finger group increased their pinky muscle strength by 35%. The other group increased elbow strength by 13.4%.

What's more, brain scans taken after the study showed greater and more focused activity in the prefrontal cortex than before. The researchers said strength gains were due to improvements in the brain's ability to signal muscle.3

Pay attention to your breathing. Is it slow and deep, or quick and shallow? Is your belly expanding and contracting, or is your chest doing all the work?

Engage Your Brain

It is important to challenge your brain to learn new and novel tasks, especially processes that you've never done before. Examples include square-dancing, chess, tai chi, yoga, or sculpture. Working with modeling clay or playdough is an especially good way for children to grow new connections. It helps develop agility and hand-brain coordination, (like controlling the computer mouse with your opposite hand).

Travel Stimulates Your Brain

Travel is another good way to stimulate your brain. It worked for our ancestors, the early Homo sapiens. Their nomadic lifestyle provided a tremendous stimulation for their brains that led to the development of superior tools and survival skills. In comparison, the now-extinct Neanderthal was a species that for thousands of years apparently did not venture too far from their homes. (Maybe they were simply content with their lives – in contrast to the seldom-satisfied sapien.)

Early humans gained a crucial evolutionary edge from the flexibility and innovation required by their strategic lifestyle, which also led to a more diverse diet that allowed their brains to rapidly evolve.

Neurobics™

Neurobics™ is a unique system of brain exercises using your five physical senses and your emotional sense in unexpected ways that encourage you to shake up your everyday routines. They are designed to help your brain manufacture its own nutrients that strengthen, preserve, and grow brain cells.

Created by Lawrence C. Katz, Ph.D., a professor of neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center, neurobics can be done anywhere, anytime, in offbeat, fun and easy ways. Nevertheless, these exercises can activate underused nerve pathways and connections, helping you achieve a fit and flexible mind.

Neurobic Exercises

Try to include one or more of your senses in an everyday task:

• Get dressed with your eyes closed
• Wash your hair with your eyes closed
• Share a meal and use only visual cues to communicate. No talking.

Combine two senses:

• Listen to music and smell flowers
• Listen to the rain and tap your fingers
• Watch clouds and play with modeling clay at the same time

Break routines:

• Go to work on a new route
• Eat with your opposite hand
• Shop at new grocery store

Reading and Bingo

Consider your brain a muscle, and find opportunities to flex it. "Read, read, read," says Dr. Amir Soas of Case Western Reserve University Medical School in Cleveland. Do crossword puzzles. Play Scrabble. Start a new hobby or learn to speak a foreign language. "Anything that stimulates the brain to think." Also, watch less television, because "your brain goes into neutral," he said.

Challenging the brain early in life is crucial to building up more "cognitive reserve" to counter brain-damaging disease, according to Dr. David Bennett of Chicago's Rush University. And, reading-habits prior to age 18 are a key predictor of later cognitive function.

A cognitive psychologist in England found that when elderly people regularly played bingo, it helped minimize their memory loss and bolster their hand-eye coordination. Bingo seemed to help players of all ages remain mentally sharp.5

What's Thought-Provoking is Brain-Promoting-Research

Research on the physical results of thinking has shown that just using the brain actually increases the number of dendritic branches that interconnect brain cells. The more we think, the better our brains function – regardless of age. The renowned brain researcher Dr. Marian Diamond says, "The nervous system possesses not just a 'morning' of plasticity, but an 'afternoon' and an 'evening' as well."

Dr. Diamond found that whether we are young or old, we can continue to learn. The brain can change at any age. A dendrite grows much like a tree – from trunk to limbs to branches to twigs – in an array of ever finer complexity.

In fact, older brains may have an advantage. She discovered that more highly developed neurons respond even better to intellectual enrichment than less developed ones do. The greatest increase in dendritic length occurred in the outermost dendritic branches, as a reaction to new information.

As she poetically describes it: "We began with a nerve cell, which starts in the embryo as just a sort of sphere. It sends its first branch out to overcome ignorance. As it reaches out, it is gathering knowledge and it is becoming creative. Then we become a little more idealistic, generous, and altruistic; but it is our six-sided dendrites which give us wisdom."

Stimulating Environment Protects Brain-Study

Animal studies show that intellectual enrichment can even compensate for some forms of physical brain damage. For example, a mentally stimulating environment helped protect rats from the potentially damaging effects of lead poisoning.

Neuroscientists at Jefferson Medical College compared groups of rats given lead-laced water for several weeks in two different environments. Rats living in a stimulating environment showed a better ability to learn compared to the animals that were isolated. "Behaviorally, being in an enriched environment seemed to help protect their brains," says Jay Schneider, Ph.D., professor of pathology, neurology, anatomy and cell biology.

"The magnitude of the protective effect surprised me," he says. "This might lead to an early educational intervention for at-risk populations." It suggests a way to diminish the damage that lead does to kids: by manipulating their socio-behavioral environment.

[nesreen]

I definitely need to read this page again , and pay attention to the exercises , my memory is failing me big time . sometimes im in big trouble because of it . i make lists and i lose them .

when i need to put something on my shopping list (stuck on the fridge door) and if hubby is in the kitchen i ask him to write it down . he never writes the word but a definition

the other day : i asked him to write Ketchup . He wrote : Jamal's daily diet of sugar and tomatoes ( i did not figure it out , i promise , (silly me ) Jamal rolled his eyes at me, on the way to school, and told me : mom it is ketchup

bananas : he wrote you can split those .
so i have to really think about those items on my list . I stopped asking him for help

[Bent_Bladi]

hey, lol - but what he's doing can help with your memory, cuz it stimulates "unused" parts of the brain... makes you think of things in different ways

hey, my brain is getting me into trouble too these days . I'm getting SO absentminded lately... i got a parking ticket today cuz i forgot to put a quarter in the parking machine THIRTY BUCKS FOR A QUARTER!!! . And when I drive, for some reason i always take the long way, making several U-turns, driving up into alleys when i can take the short main street.... it drives my sister crazy, lol

[Cheba_Mami]

nice braintraining

[Bent_Bladi]

Physical Exercise for a Better Brain

Most of us know that physical exercise is good for our general health, but did you know that physical exercise is also good for your brain? If you think you’re going to get smarter sitting in front of your computer or watching television, think again. Here scientists present the evidence that a healthy human being is a human doing.

Our Sedentary Society

Not too long ago, futurists envisioned humans evolving giant thumbs in response to a push-button world. They did not foresee humanity's real response to all its labor-saving conveniences – a sedentary, inactive society with a deteriorated vascular system and consequent decline in physical and mental health.

Nearly half of young people ages 12 to 21 do not participate in vigorous physical activity on a regular basis. Fewer than one-in-four children report getting at least half an hour of any type of daily physical activity and do not attend any school physical education classes.

In June 2001, ABC News reported that school children spend 4.8 hours per day on the computer, watching TV, or playing video games. The impact of computers, video games, school funding cuts, and public apathy have combined to leave Illinois as the only state that still requires daily physical education in first through 12th grades. This is a far cry from the 1960s, when President John F. Kennedy made physical fitness a priority for Americans of all ages.

These sedentary tendencies represent a real health crisis. And, not just for couch-potatoes. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) occurs when blood circulation slows, allowing clots to form and then, eventually, break free, causing death. DVT has been nicknamed “economy class syndrome,” because airplane passengers who sit throughout a long flight in the close quarters of economy class have become victims of DVT.

About Physical Exercise

The word exercise derives from a Latin root meaning "to maintain, to keep, to ward off." To exercise means to practice, put into action, train, perform, use, improve.

Exercise is a natural part of life, although these days we have to consciously include it in our daily routine. Biologically, it was part of survival, in the form of hunting and gathering or raising livestock and growing food. Historically, it was built into daily life, as regular hours of physical work or soldiering. What is now considered a form of exercise – walking –was originally a form of transportation.

Walking Benefits Brains

Walking is especially good for your brain, because it increases blood circulation and the oxygen and glucose that reach your brain. Walking is not strenuous, so your leg muscles don't take up extra oxygen and glucose like they do during other forms of exercise. As you walk, you effectively oxygenate your brain. Maybe this is why walking can "clear your head" and help you to think better.

Movement and exercise increase breathing and heart rate so that more blood flows to the brain, enhancing energy production and waste removal. Studies show that in response to exercise, cerebral blood vessels can grow, even in middle-aged sedentary animals.

Walking Improved Memory-Study

Studies of senior citizens who walk regularly showed significant improvement in memory skills compared to sedentary elderly people.

Walking also improved their learning ability, concentration, and abstract reasoning. Stroke risk was cut by 57% in people who walked as little as 20 minutes a day.

Women Who Walk Remember-Study

When the cognitive abilities of elderly women were compared, those who walked regularly were less likely to experience age-related memory loss and other declines in mental function.

University of California at San Francisco researchers measured the brain function of nearly 6,000 women during an eight-year period. The results were correlated with the women's normal activity level, including their routine walking and stair-climbing.

"In the higher-energy groups, we saw much less cognitive decline," said neurologist Kristine Yaffe, MD. Of the women who walked the least (a half-mile per week), 24% had significant declines in their test scores, compared to only 17% of the most active women (17 miles per week).

It wasn't a matter of all or nothing. "We also found that for every extra mile walked per week there was a 13% less chance of cognitive decline," said Yaffe, who is Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center. "So you don't need to be running marathons. The exciting thing is there was a 'dose' relationship which showed that even a little is good but more is better."

"In the higher-energy groups, we saw much less cognitive decline" – a protective effect amounting to as much as 40% – according to Yaffe. "This is an important intervention that all of us can do and it could have huge implications in preventing cognitive decline."10

Wake Up Your Brain in the Morning Exercise

In the morning, while you're still in bed, slowly begin to move your toes – any way that feels good. Wriggle, scrunch, and stretch. Move all your toes up and down several times, or work just your big toes. Wiggling your toes activates nerves that stimulate your brain and internal organs.

Do this exercise first thing each morning or after sitting for an extended period of time. It will help you to wake-up and become alert more quickly. Your whole body may feel pleasantly energized. Most important, your first steps – and those throughout the day – will be safer ones. (Falls are the second leading cause of spinal cord and brain injury among people over 65 years old.)

Foot Note (ew!)

The human foot is one of the body's most complex engineering marvels. The eight arches in your feet do a remarkable job of evenly distributing the weight of your body, while 200 ligaments coordinate 40 different muscles that control the 56 bones in your feet – one fourth of all the bones in your body!

An intricate system of blood vessels and nerves connect the feet with the rest of the body. Your feet are good barometers of the aging process; inflexible toes, cold feet, and poor circulation are signposts of time.

Physical Exercise Helps Higher Brain Functions-Study

Before enrolling in the trial, and four months later, the cognitive abilities of the participants were tested in four areas: memory, executive functioning, attention/concentration, and psychomotor speed.

Compared to the medication group, the exercisers showed significant improvements in the higher mental processes of memory and in "executive functions" that involve planning, organization, and the ability to mentally juggle different intellectual tasks at the same time.

"What we found so fascinating was that exercise had its beneficial effect in specific areas of cognitive function that are rooted in the frontal and prefrontal regions of the brain," said Blumenthal. "The implications are that exercise might be able to offset some of the mental declines that we often associate with the aging process."

Run for More Brain Cells-Study

Ongoing animal studies at The Salk Institute show that running can boost brain cell survival in mice that have a neurodegenerative disease with properties similar to Alzheimer's.

When these mice are sedentary, "it appears that most newly born brain cells die. We don't understand that fully, but it probably has something to do with an inability to cope with oxidative stress," said Carrolee Barlow, a Salk assistant professor and lead author of the study. "Running appears to 'rescue' many of these cells that would otherwise die."

Furthermore, the miles logged correlated directly with the numbers of increased cells, she said. "It's almost as if they were wearing pedometers, and those that ran more grew more cells."

Running is a Brain Boost-Study

Running's brain-boosting effects were in the hippocampus, a region of the brain linked to learning and memory and known to be affected by Alzheimer's disease, Barlow said. "The results suggest that exercise might delay the onset and progression of some neurodegenerative diseases."

This study builds on work directed by Salk Professor and co-author Fred Gage, showing that running also leads to increased brain cell numbers in normal adult mice, elderly "senior citizen" mice, and a genetically "slow-learning" strain of mice. Gage's studies have shown that new cell growth occurs in human brains, too. Therefore, this suggests that the boosting effects of running may occur in people as well.

[Bent_Bladi]

Sorry, here's the source:

The Human Brain - Exercise