Slashdot Mirror
Keep Fit Program For The Brain
merryprankster writes "New Scientist is running a
feature on 11 steps
to a better brain. While becoming a nun might be an extreme way to avoid
senility, there are lots of other tricks, techniques and habits, as well as
changes to your lifestyle, diet and behaviour that can help you flex your grey
matter and get the best out of your brain cells." From the article: "First, go to the top of the class by eating breakfast. The brain is best fuelled by a steady supply of glucose, and many studies have shown that skipping breakfast reduces people's performance at school and at work. But it isn't simply a matter of getting some calories down. According to research published in 2003, kids breakfasting on fizzy drinks and sugary snacks performed at the level of an average 70-year-old in tests of memory and attention."
i recommend a game of "Go" a day
"It's official: playing go really does keep your mind sharp. Researchers have just released a comprehensive study of the benefits of challenging intellectual activity among the elderly and found that exercising the mind through board games, social activities and education offers powerful protection against mental deterioration and disease.
'Those who played board games had a 74 percent lower risk and those who played an instrument had a 69 percent lower risk. Doing crossword puzzles cut the risk by 38 percent,' reported Shankar Vedantam in the June 19 Washington Post. The report found that seniors who regularly engaged in mentally challenging pastimes reduced their chances of developing Alzheimer's disease and other dementias by as much as 75 percent, compared with those who didn't exercise their minds."
More info on Go, the game that exercises both sides of your brain!
I suspect the folks at Netscape could really benefit from this. (See preceding article...)
What happened to the 12th step?
Oh, wait...
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
The obvious stuff that has been known for millenia -- eat healthy, exercise (your body and your brain), don't abuse yourself.
Sad that this is so forgotten that it is news.
I haven't eaten breakfast in years. I don't wake up early enough for it. I just eat a big lunch and dinner and snack during the whole day.
Am I missing out on something here?
Wow, so that makes me about 90, every day.
Maybe that's why I couldn't remember my girlfriends birthday. This will be my excuse from now on!
"Hun, I don't eat a healthy breakfast, how am I possibly going to remember to do the laundry?!"
Hey, as long as that Tony Little bastard isn't promoting it, I'll do anything.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
...Profit!
#12: Don't read /.!
Oh, wait.
That green slime had it coming.
While becoming a nun might be an extreme way to avoid senility,
So most slashdotters will keep their sanity into old age if they only undergo a gender change operation?
Trolling is a art,
"While becoming a nun might be an extreme way to avoid senility, there are lots of other tricks, techniques and habits..."
There are non-nun habits?
Well intentioned parents buy their kids crap like Pop Tarts or NutriGrain bars thinking they are healthy. Well read the ingredients and the nutrition label. Practically no fiber, and corn syrup and hydrogenated fat dominate.
Most of the breakfast convenience foods are just candy packaged differently. It's better to eat a piece of fruit (low glycemic index) or whole wheat toast, which, suprise suprise, are just as convenient!
(looking down) I may have a few "hardware" problems. At least nuns don't have to shave.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
Beans and toast? Marmite? For breakfast? Sounds to me like they is torturin' them young'uns.
kids breakfasting on fizzy drinks and sugary snacks performed at the level of an average 70-year-old in tests of memory and attention.
So there was a definite improvement then.
12. Ignore everything you read on Slashdot!
Okay!
Um...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
If this will help improve my memory, I'm willing to try it out.
Maybe if I'd been doing this previously, that Google Puzzle Challenge would have been a bit easier. And I only tried last year's challenge.
Stupid people hurt my head.
It requires a bit of self-control as you have to ignore your hunger but as your body gets used to the idea that it will eat later anyways, you won't notice it much.
This energizes me quite a lot, and the work day just goes by faster, and problems are much easier to tackle.
Mostly random stuff.
Put on a nicotine patch before your next final and reap the rewards!
$6.21 is the number of the beast before sales tax. Meh.
Alcohol kills brain cells, it's true. But it kills the weakest and most poorly adapted ones, just like Darwin says. That leaves your good brain cells unencumbered by the dead weight cells and they can function at full capacity.
That's why you get so much smarter when you drink.
Stolen and paraphrased from someone much funnier than I am.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
I start the day off with a brisk walk.
For breakfast, I have two eggs, fried in olive oil, with chives or onions.
Then I work a while on my bicycle. It has a fork for extra spice, and a three cheeses for more gondola.
I remember putting together my Heathkit computer, with the round things and the keyboard. We didn't have mice back then, except in the basement. Now they come in everywhere, and I can't seem to trap them.
I think I'll lay down a while.
sigs, as if you care.
First, go to the top of the class by eating breakfast.
/. are two ways to turn your brain into a couch potato.
That and late nights on
I'm not dumb. I'm resting my brain.
Regular cardio vascular excercise has been shown to provide substantial benefits to alertness. Don't worry about losing your nerd status by excercising. Simply commute to work on a bicycle , like I do, with baggy shorts and a high powered bike like strapped to the top of the helmet. You'll stay fit, save money and retain your geek status.
YOUR brain is the greediest organ in your body,...
I'm not quite sure if that is correct.....
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
I always play a Mozart CD when reading /.
it speeds up recognition of dupe articles,
yet I manage to stay calm and relaxed.
Had to post this before the dupe. But
thats just a proof dupe recognition works
really well.
P.S.: I dont like proving that I am not a script
12. Ignore everything you read on Slashdot!
But that would leave me with 11 steps again. And then I would read you, and get 12 steps again. And then I would have 11. Ohh, the paradox.
I'm 28 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser. Then a honey almond body scrub. And on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then apply an herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. There is an idea of a Rude Turnip, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me. Only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our life styles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Two older couples are out for a walk. The men are walking behind the women.
Man 1: We ate at a great restaurant last night.
Man 2: Oh really? Which one.
Man 1: The name escapes me right now ... what's the name of that flower, you know, with the thorns?
Man 2: A rose?
Man 1: Yes, that's it. Rose, where did we eat last night?
sigs, as if you care.
1. Eat oatmeal for breakfast - if you must add sugars, make them complex, not processed (e.g. raw).
...
2. Get half an hour exercise each day, which basically means take the stairs or take the bus or if you drive don't park so close to work.
3. Get eight to nine hours sleep a night - this is the hard one for me. If you run a sleep deficit, sleep in Saturday morning, but wake up the usual time on Sunday.
4. For guys, drink one to two glasses of red wine with meals. For women, one-half to one, but depends on body mass.
5. Stop watching the news. All those car chases and crashes five states away just add to stress and you can't do anything about them. If you must watch, choose a less exciting program like PBS or such.
6. Ditch your watch and cellphone. Really.
7. Do crossword puzzles or something that engages your brain most every day. You meet a lot of cute girls that way
8. Don't be in such a rush. Biologically, we're not built to live like that.
9. Eat low on the food chain - how you do this is up to you, but avoid processed foods.
All the rest is commentary.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I see nothing in your quote or the tiny amount of text in the linked article that indicates this is nothing more than a correlation study. Did they actually take a random group of senior and somehow get half of them to play board games, and the other half to not play board games and then come back years later and see if there was and difference between the two? (How the hell you'd get the people to either play, or not play board games despite their preference I have no idea).
If not, it seems far more likely that people that have dementia don't want to play board games, instruments, etc because.. well they have dementia. That might make it a LOT harder to concentrate on something like a board game or an instrument.
AccountKiller
You are what you eat, and that includes your brain.
Are they suggesting that I eat my own brain to become really smart?!?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
And don't miss breakfast. This is why the United States is a nation of fat slobs. Nutritional experts telling everyone they need to eat like an adolescent during his growth spurt. Most people don't need breakfast or lunch either for that matter.
And choline is a neurotransmitter so eat food high in choline. Umm, can our bodies synthesize choline? Or any other neurotransmitter for that matter. Disease caused by neurotransmitter deficiency, e.g. myasthenia gravis are not caused by diet low in choline
We need essential amino acids which we cannot synthesize. All that is required is a diet with a reasonable amount of high quality protein.
you lose it. It's a universal truth for humans. Look into the studies done on the quality and length of life after people retire. And for all you pervs out there, yes, this applies to your shlong as well. Not using it can lead to an enlarged prostate and possibly prostate cancer.
Don't read Slashdot!
Bad for your health.
Plus you will become smelly man with beard.
Ha ha, made you think!
Mark
Liked this comment? Why not buy me something nice
Avoid Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters.
I recommend Warcraft. I usually end playing right about time for breakfast. It's too bad Pizzahut doesn't deliver at 10am.
My God... That's the alternative? Marmite or beans on toast in the morning? I think I'm better off staying stupid until after lunch.
Catch the scarcasm there? Are we really supposed to be suprised by this article? People have been saying for years that 70 year-olds often have the memmory capacity of a 4th grader, now the article is just turning this around, and implying the obvious. Are we really supposed to be suprised that 4th graders have the memmory of 4th graders?
If you are not doing it now start. I would rank this even higher than a healthy diet. If you jog or do rhythmic exercise that creates a meditative state, you get a double bonus. Everything starts with that. You can try the "smart" drugs and the mental exercises after you get your sorry ass off the couch. Exercise is the best mental tonic I've found.
My grandpa of 82 years learned English in his 70's (while living with us in Canada for a few years at a time), and managed to make a family tree tracing back to the 1600's. He's always reading and although not doing creative art or poetry, he does keep himself busy with learning. As far as I know he's pretty healthy so far.
So how come you don't notice there's a bike strapped to the top of your helmet? You might actually "imporve" your commute time if you rode the bike instead.
Did anybody try http://mybraintrainer.com/? It has 8 online excersises which when performed daily seem to improve I.Q. by few points. Personally,I did feel sharper (for that day only :-)) whenever I did these excersises. However, the downside is that it might get boring after few days.
This Slate article http://slate.com/id/2111758// compares several IQ boosting products and finds that the Mybraintrainer is one of the most effective ones. Give it a try !
Aparently no one else got the American Psycho reference.
Much of the human brain is made out of fat. Modern diets are very deficient in a fat called Omega 3. Increasing your omega 3 intake will increase your intelligence.
And then a nice stress free day of murdering with axes, chainsaws and nailguns...
oops...
I think the real cause of deminsia is something to do with the ability to accept change, in dealing with "generation gaps" but that's another story.
Honestly though, how many of the folks were expecting there to be 11 steps laid out before us? Is that maybe because we live in a day and age where we expect to not have to USE our brains?
I have a buddy of mine that is taking on-line classes. He has a math class. All he does is Google whatever the problem is, and BAM! there it is, the answer. This surely doesn't help him out at all. I notice that most people that keep their brains busy, even if with simple things, they often seem fresh, and light. These people don't usually end up with brain problems.
There is a part of the brain, like in Windows Documents and Settings, where the internal workings of the computer (controled by the computer) and the outer workings of the computer (controled by the user) combine. I think in our lives, we try to often over-rule the automatic, intuitive, and natural parts of our brains. Like in Windows, if you do this to an exessive extent, you could damage the natural flow of the way things work.
The more you understand the natural occurance of things, the less reality weighs on you.
Nevermind the hard work, what about the drugs? the first tip is about smart drugs and includes the following quote:
"Modafinil can keep a person awake and alert for 90 hours straight, with none of the jitteriness and bad concentration that amphetamines or even coffee seem to produce."
Hot damn! How much did Cephalon pay for that ad and where can I get some!
air and light and time and space
Anyone have info on the relative benefits of Chess vs Go?
...exactly how becoming a nun would be a great way to avoid senality? Choose to become one and you're already a good way there. Please tell me that was a quote.
And NutriGrain bars are, when compared to a Snickers.
Take it with you to work! Seriously, I used to skip breakfast, grab some fast food at lunch, and go out to dinner almost every night, and I felt sluggish, worn down, and found that my grasp over my mental faculties was slipping...so, around a year ago, I hit reset on my life and diet, and I've felt better - in every way - ever since.
By preparing all of my daily meals on my own with fresh ingredients (including making my own snacks), I've lost weight and body fat (I'm at a very trim 173lbs with 10% body fat...almost as good a condition as I was in when I played baseball and soccer year-round back in high school), I've had far more energy, and I've been sharper and more on the ball in my day to day doings at work and at play (hobbies and such). I also started an exercise regime that has further improved my conditioning and stamina and energy level, and have been a happier person for it.
My meals are all balanced to come out as close to what we're supposed to be taking in on a daily basis according to doctors recommendations (caloric intake, vitamins, minerals, etc, etc, etc). I snack exclusively on fruits and vegetables. My breakfast includes a variety of fruits and homemade granola mixed in with a serving of plain yogurt, and I'm able to take that with me to work to eat while I go over my start of day emails and voicemails. My lunches are good sized, but never too large, and the same goes with my dinners. I've cut back on the amount of red meat and pork that I take in, and have increased the amount of fish and chicken....like I said, I hit reset entirely.
I don't mean to sound like I'm preaching or whatever, but I really do believe that there is a lot to be said for eating well and taking care of yourself...I still smoke and have the odd pint of beer here and there, but even those bad habits have decreased nearly to the point of being non-existant.
In short, eat breakfast...you can still eat well, have it taste good, and be good for you if you 'wake up late' and are 'running behind'...hell, you'll find you might even sleep more soundly and wake up more readily if you change your diet.
note: As an aside, and this may or may not be something you would be interested in...a side-effect of my healthier living has been an increase in both my libido and in my performance...couple that with a healthier living sig-o, and you've got a pretty nifty little sex life going. Fruits and vegetables help a lot, from what I understand...in more areas than just performance and stamina. I'm just sayin', is all...
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
While becoming a nun might be an extreme way to avoid senility, there are lots of
Oh! Hahahahehehehahahahahhaha ha ha. Hehehehe. Hee Hee. Heh.
Okay, perhaps it's not that funny.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
It seems that some of the damage may be mediated through triglyceride, a cholesterol-like substance found at high levels in rodents fed on trans-fats. When the researchers gave these rats a drug to bring triglyceride levels down again, the animals' performance on the memory tasks improved.
Can't they hire someone who knows what they're talking about to fact check this tripe? This is only a sample of the incredibly poor science contained in this article.
And what study was that? I mean, there's "studys" on everything, so where it came from is important, and that assumes that your memory is correct and there's really a study of such a thing in the first place.
And yeah, that would need proof.
I for one will start practicing some (more) of these basic things. While the 'confidence' comment was listed as a neurofeedback result, practicing healthy eating, exercising, and doing mental 'workouts' will probably have a similar effect.
/. I'm desperate for some real female attention... ;-)
That, and just like any other 'typical' guy hanging out on
Let S_n = {nst+us+vt : s,t in Z \ {0}, u,v in {-1,1}}. For all n in Z where |n| > 2, Z \ S_n is infinite... right?
That's because Kirstie Alley scarfed it all down before Terrie could flop over to the tube.
..it goes on for pages. And it has big words.
Bah.
For years I had trouble getting to sleep. I just didn't get tired until there was only 4-5 hours left to sleep before work the next day. I'd try to will myself to relax, or do my exercising before bedtime (which they say not to do). A friend at work suggested melatonin, which I now take each night about a half hour before I want to be asleep. It works like a charm, and I'm always asleep after that half hour (or an hour at most). Supposedly after you take it for a few weeks, you shouldn't need to anymore (as your body will fall into a schedule of increasing natural melatonin at the usual time). However, I still take it each night just to be safe. I highly recommend it for anyone who has trouble falling asleep.
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy" - Spider Robinson
as a graduate student in psychology I am upset by the frequent unscientific articles posted on slashdot relating to my field. Here are a couple of points that I think need to be made:
.000001% increase in IQ but in 10,0000) people. I can assure most of the results reported in this article are based on studies that are closer to the later method than the former. Furthermore this .00001% increase (is in the previous example) is an AVERAGE. That it is, for you in particular eating breakfast may even decrease your IQ. That is, infering something is true about an individual from the group that individual belongs to is a fallacy. There's even a name for this fallacy (the ecological fallacy).
1. All of you probably know this but I'll just emphasize the point: "correlation is not causation."
2. All these "facts" are based on very questionable statistical techniques. I won't go into these techniques here but the idea in these experiments is that you want to make sure the effect of some manipulated variable is above chance (statistical significance). There are two ways to do this: have a large effect (e.g. eating breakfast causes a 10% increase in IQ) or just get lots of people so that even a small effect is not very likely by chance (e.g. eating breakfast causes a
3. Finding a brain area that is "activated" (fMRI) during a certain cognitive task is about as unexciting as learning that people use their hands to perform a physical task. OF COURSE, there is some area (or mostly likely areas) of the brain that is used in cognitive task just as of course there are areas of the body that perform "physical" tasks. Furthermore, it's unclear if "activation" should mean anything at all. Activation is defined as some small change in blood flow (which is correlated with neural activity) as measured via the oxygen levels picked up by a fMRI machine. Again, these difference results just need to be statistically significant to get published so that who knows what that meeds for individuals.
Little offtopic but shoddy science is the bane of all true geeks damn it.
According to research published in 2003, kids breakfasting on fizzy drinks and sugary snacks performed at the level of an average 70-year-old in tests of memory and attention.
Maybe that's because they are being raised by the kind of parents that feed their kids cola and candy for breakfast?
You can't take the sky from me...
Does anybody take this and can coroborate the claims of the article?
If this stuff really works I'd be concerned about long term side effects.
The correlation between IQ and working memory is very much an ongoing debate in the psychometry community. The article is heavily biased toward one end of the spectrum in that debate, as well as in a biased (to be fair, everyone has a bias) towards a certain view of IQ tests that may, or may not, correspond to facts.
The point being that a News Scientist article posted on the internet is not the best source of information. Research is.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Gee, that's funny, essentially every nutritionist not moaning under a cultish trance over some Atkins variant would say dinner's the one to cut back on, but to get a healthy breakfast above all else. It's a conspiracy of experts, as you say. (Please ignore the obvious fact that Americans have never managed to follow this advice from the nutritionists all that well.)
All that is required is a diet with a reasonable amount of high quality protein.
I understand the appeal of contrarian positions, but you're just an Atkins fanboy. That diet, and all its many corollary marketed materials, exist for nutritionists on the same level that "intelligent design" does for biologists. You've successfully regurgitated your share of the sophisms, so call it a day. Go grill a steak.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
One way that I keep mentally sharp is read a book (or sometimes a few) per week. The brain is just another muscle that needs to be exercise regularly. I find reading fiction paperback and a non-fiction book on a regular basis keeps me sharp.
/. doesn't count. It's similar to what the study said about kids eating sweet foods in the morning: their mental abilities are like 70-year-olds. We got too many those around here. :P
Reading
Oh god, this should be rated either +5 insightful or funny, I can't decide which. I guess more people need to see the movie :(
I wish I wasn't on a diet. He makes good cake.
Anyway, back to what I meant to say: that's a genuinely funny post, for some reason, and me with no mod points. Somebody mod it up, please, +1 surreal or +1 underrated, anything but funny, so more people can get the giggles at work.
See what I've been reading.
The best brain excercise that comes naturally to me is harassing other commenters on slashdot. The trick is to spend enough time thinking it out so that it's not construed as a troll (at first glance anyway). This is great fun and it keeps you learning new things. Win/win!
...would argue with your basic premise of men losing sanity, given our natural state.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
"Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper."
Anyway. Eat when you need the energy. Eating in the evening when you don't need the energy just leaves you hungry in the morning. Something with whole grain to provide energy for several hours and maybe fish.
Omega-3 fats have been shown to make a significant difference to heart disease and mental ability. Fish oils or flax seed oils. It seems that the human diet may have contained a lot of fish historically. A kipper for breakfast may not be a bad idea.
Deleted
If only I had mod points ...
Do you like Phil Collins? I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual. It was on Duke where Phil Collins' presence became more apparent. I think Invisible Touch was the group's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. Christy, take off your robe. Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. Sabrina, remove your dress. In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, the sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Sabrina, why don't you, uh, dance a little. Take the lyrics to Land of Confusion. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority. In Too Deep is the most moving pop song of the 1980s, about monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive and affirmative as anything I've heard in rock. Christy, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your asshole. Phil Collins' solo career seems to be more commercial and therefore more satisfying, in a narrower way. Especially songs like In the Air Tonight and Against All Odds. Sabrina, don't just stare at it, eat it. But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist, and I stress the word artist. This is Sussudio, a great, great song, a personal favorite.
It's strange the West came to conclusions the East has hundreds & thousands of years ago in Yoga, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, etc.
I can't seem to find a study online right now, but I have in the past read a few different studies that suggest that the optimal amount of sleep varies from person to person, generally between 6-8 hours. The way to find your optimal sleep amount is to take a week when you won't have to get up for anything. don't set an alarm, just wake up when you wake up, and see how much you are sleeping each night. The first few nights will probably be longer, you are catching up on your sleep deficit, but by the 3rd or 4th night you will be "topped off", and should sleep roughly the same amount for the next few nights. This is your optimum amount of sleep.
Of course, you can also train your body to need less sleep. Research Thomas Edison sometime, the man was amazing!
For example if you calculate 73 - 6 + 7, your working memory will store the intermediate steps necessary to work out the answer.
That doesn't need any working memory to speak of, even if you're of average IQ you will simply recognize it's much easier to calculate -6+7 first which yields 1 and then add it to 73 to get 74.
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
Your understanding of exercise is wrong. If you must eat breakfast alone to do a workout in the morning, eat breakfast alone. Completing a workout after eating 7-10 hours earlier is not healthy, and will mostly break down muscle. If you want to loose some fat and gain some power (why not?) make sure your metabolic state is correct first.
The principle of eating before your workout is universal and doesn't need any source. In case you dont believe me, here's an article about nutrition and swimmers. http://www.bcst.com/uploads/876.htm
Swimming not your thing? Talk to one of the real health experts at your friendly neighborhood gym.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Arnold Schwarzenegger's Body Builder's Encyclopedia Some of the information is outdated, but overall, this book could just help you change your life. From productive work out routines to proper nutrition (which foods to eat together for proper protein intake), this book contains enough information to help any non-self respecting nerd become... well... self respecting. In conclusion... eat breakfast. Or get to tha choppah. Just do something. Your brain and body will thank you for it.
As a general rule concerning processed foods - if mold can't grow on it, neither can you (or your brain).
or else!
it's called focal dystonia when it has to do with fine motor function, and the most "common" (it's not really that common) example of it is a piano player who practices so hard for so long, he can't use his fingers anymore, PERMANENTLY
some of this effect has to do with the muscles, but some it also has to do with the brain:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web
this is extreme, i know, but it's just a signal to some who might overdo it that you CAN overdo it. so yes, "use it or lose it"... but don't abuse it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I avoided going to the dentist for about 3 years because I didn't feel I needed to. My teeth were straight, white and my gums looked healthy. I flossed 3-5 times a week, brushed twice a day, and used listerine all the time.
I started developing headaches and went to go see a doctor. After trying a few things and nothing helping, he suggested that based on the region of my head pain, I should see a dentist to make sure I wasn't afflicted with grinding, or other teeth issues.
Lo and behold I had an itty bitty bacteria infection on one of my back teeth and gums. It never hurt. It never stank. The dentist remarked for not having been to the dentist in a while, my mouth was remarkably clean of plaque and tartar.
After recieving treatment I noticed an unsuspected side effect. I had more energy. I slept better. It was quite noticable too. My next visit back to the dentist, I inquired and his explanation was quite logical. Your mouth is obviously a breeding ground for bacteria both good and bad. What's in your mouth is basically in your whole body. If you have bacteria in your mouth, your immune system has to work just that much harder to keep you healthy.
An odd anecdote but I'd thought I'd share none the less. It might seem like a no brainer to keep your mouth clean, but even those who follow all the "rules" can experience bacteria spots that affect your overall health and energy levels.
Maybe it's just the shear Dadaism of it, or that the poster used one too many Inherently Funny Words...
Those who complain about affect & effect on
that explain a lot!
I thought i was going boinkers wearing a wool sweater in july and having urges to pee whenever i see a sign of toilett
trying to get smart without thinking is like to trying to
get into shape without exercising. the brain is a muscle,
and if you don't use it, you lose it. the more effort
you make to think, the stronger your cognitive ability will be.
here's another take on cognition...
--| Devotion Increases Cognition |---
In an epoch of criticism, ideals are lowered; other feelings take the place of veneration, respect, adoration, and wonder. Our own age thrusts these feelings further and further into the background, so that they can only be conveyed to man through his every-day life in a very small degree. Whoever seeks higher knowledge must create it for himself... Whoever, therefore, wishes to become a student of higher knowledge must assiduously cultivate this inner life of devotion. Everywhere in his environment and his experiences he must seek motives of admiration and homage. If I meet a man and blame him for his shortcomings, I rob myself of power to attain higher knowledge; but if I try to enter lovingly into his merits, I gather such power...
It is not easy, at first, to believe that feelings like reverence and respect have anything to do with cognition. This is due to the fact that we are inclined to set cognition aside as a faculty by itself -- one that stands in no relation to what otherwise occurs in the soul. In so thinking we do not bear in mind that it is the soul which exercises the faculty of cognition; and feelings are for the soul what food is for the body. If we give the body stones in place of bread, its activity will cease. It is the same with the soul. Veneration, homage, devotion are like nutriment making it healthy and strong, especially strong for the activity of cognition. Disrespect, antipathy, underestimation of what deserves recognition, all exert a paralyzing and withering effect on this faculty of cognition.
(How to Know Higher Worlds)
and live In a cave.
until the day I day.
... is to start listeneing and talking with your soul... And if you don't have a soul, then talk to your consiousness instead. And ask it where you put your soul? See what it tells you. See if it tells you nothing at all. If you get a response then there is some form of memory assoication in your brain. If you don't get a response then there is no form of memory association in your brain. Rinse and repeat with any subject matter for your grey matter that you like. If you ignore the response you will not impact any assoications you may have with what you where recalling. Here's enough logic for you all to start programming your brain. Try to keep up. -Daniel
-Debug
Television OFF = Brain ON
Nuff said...
>funny, but I don't know why...
Comedy is about misdirection. You expect one thing, and get another. That's why jokes aren't funny if you'ver heard them before.
The repetitive use of the same word or phrase in different context seems not to follow this rule, but yet it does. Monty Python used the line "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" several times in different situations, always dropping it when you least expected it.
The GP is funny because of the multiple layers of misdirection.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
feeling cultures are much more in touch with thier :) zen
:) zen
feelings.
logical cultures are good at solving problems and
logically creating problems that do not exist only to solve them later with even more logic. Logic is as logic
does.
what does zen mean to you? what do you think zen means
to me? what do you think zen means to us?
or, better yet, read the book. It's a lot sicker but all the critique about the 80's yuppies is more detailed too.
Go hug some trees.
Work stops at 5pm, get in the car, crawl through congestion, hey, home at 6:30.
Then the fun begins, cooking, cleaning, groceries. Perhaps I'm ready at 8:30 to think about getting exercise. Wel, no way, 'cause I have to get to bed at 10 because the alarm clock is waiting for me the next morning...
Sucks to be me, I guess...
How bought we just get linux to run part of our own brain? You know, the stuff we hate doing... Remembering where we put our keys, if we fed the dog or not, how to tolerate your womans shopping, where to best steak is at, etc. Women can choose thier own list of what they would want it to run. :D
-Debug
Therefore works for me.
During basic and my earlier training course they woke us up at 5am sharp and did PT (physical training) for about an hour. Breakfast was not until 6:30.
I was in the best shape of my life.
What is disturbing is that article talks about pills in the first bit. A sales pitch for drug pushing companies? Thanks but I'll stick to my diet and gym/kung-fu routine.
To kill of those puny girlybrain cells and make more room for the big strong hebrain cells to grow.
Yes, it's really a 12 step program.
You had me at "a lot sicker"
IIRC studies have linked having a clean mouth (swallowing less bacteria?) to having fewer heart problems. So.. have a clean mouth to be happy and healthy. w00t.
Although convents aren't co-ed, they are available, separately, for both sexes.
Not just during sleep, but during rests between studying sessions or attempts at acquiring a skill. Breaking up the time you spend in trying to learn, memorize, or achieve something into several attempts instead of laboring for long sessions will accelerate your progress. I.e. 4 x 30 minutes is better than 1 x 2 hours. This probably applies to physical training, too. I first learned this from a book on trumpet playing (A New Approach to Altissimo Trumpet Playing).
Actualy, I've heard that eating suggary snacks actualy improves long-term memory formation. Might not be good for the rest of your body, of course...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"universal and doesn't need any source", what kind of crap is that? Here's an article that contradicts you, mr. universal: http://www.naturalphysiques.com/cms/index.php?item id=43&catid=4
(Celui que tient la peur de devinir nuage)
One thing I've wondered is whether exercise staves off senility, or is it just that non-senile people are more able to exercise. Both would result in the same correlation as this study, but the latter would not mean a causal relationship.
I've seen similar questions about elderly running and arthritis. Does running stave off arthritis, or is it merely people with good joints are able to run when older.
A brand new study found a significant correlation between the above than average consumption of cucumbers by nuns and their low incidence of senility. All attempts at isolating the active substance in the vegetable have failed so far.
What might be really useful would be big interactive fiction text adventures, custom developed to use a person's life and location as game data for settings and puzzles.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
"I used to think that the brain was the most important organ in the body, until I realized, look who's telling me that."
It's similar to neurofeedback in that it can train your mind to stay in certain states, for example Beta, high alertness. SBaGen at http://www.uazu.net/sbagen is a good GPL cross-platform program. Just be sure to use headphones, and make sure the soundcard has stereo sound, turn off channel mixing or other special effects.
Do you want a bigger brain?
Has your brain ever dribbled out when you wish it had shot out?
I've found great productivity improvement at work from just not checking my email as often. I don't have any of those popup "new mail" notifiers or icons and just check my email every 45 minutes to an hour. In the past just making a quick email check, even if there's nothing there, sets your brain off-task and it takes a few minutes to ramp back up. Like the article says, this adds up considerably throughout the day.
That sounds interesting. Anyone tried it? Any reports? Anyone know of any good / cheap devices to do this?
Music lessons:
/ math/basic/
Yep. Unlike most things in school the student is free to draw the notes in their head; it's not just about memory. I feel it tunes in with the intition behind the scenes more so than words.
Maths: "For example if you calculate 73 - 6..."
Let's actually talk this through what's going on. I'm not very good at this. At all. Some people seem to do it easily and I have no idea why. There's something they do that I'm missing. In fact, most people can do this quicker than me.
What I do in my head (probably the wrong way, an insight in how to do it wrong):
1) I instinctively remember that half of 6 is 3 so that takes it down to 70 by just taking off the 3.
2) Then I take off 1 by 1 until I get to 67. I then remember that in a relationship of 10, 7 is related to 3. In my head things are based around 10's.
^ now you see this (probably?) is a silly way to do it. I suspect other people have remembered tricks to do this and that's why they're quicker than me. It's just that I've never seen it discussed and I wasn't taught it - I just remember counting pencils one by one one day, and then doing long division the next (which I still can't do).
I thought I'd missed something so I looked up how it's taught:
http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/lesson_plans
but I could only see exercises...!
Memory marvels:
You have to develop a habit of stopping your memory from filtering out the boring stuff.
Sleep:
Why do I need 10 hours + a night, eh? - and the more I get the more tired I seem to be the next day?
Physical exercise:
The way you feel after lifting weights is amazing too - confidence in the extreme. A man and proud.
Attention seeking:
Don't stop or you'll go to sleep!
Neurofeedback:
Try slowing your heartbeat right now. It's pretty easy. Just think absolute calm and slow breathing.
Budda was still right. Nearly everything exists in the mind first so that's where the battle is done.
Diet:
Fish Oil immediately solves all head related problems for me. If I'm feeling gummed up I'll have one at the expense of heavy metal from contamination (filtered oil too expensive).
A blog I run for the wealth
During ketosis the brain cells are calmed down enough to prevent epileptic seizures. The electrical activity of the brain, as measured on an electroencephalogram (EEG), is found to improve in regularity and intensity. Ketones, being acids, also tend to sterilize the urine against infection. They even dissolve certain types of kidney stones.
The ability of the brain to use ketones was only once exploited for therapeutic purposes. In the early 20th century, French neurologists proposed fasting as a treatment for epilepsy on grounds that it was the result of 'intestinal intoxication'. A Wisconsin osteopath, Hugh Conklin, subsequently successfully treated some epileptic children with a diet of only water for 30 days. Russell Wilder, of the Mayo Clinic in the United States, proposed that the beneficial effects of starvation in epilepsy could be produced by a high fat/low carbohydrate diet, thus creating the "ketogenic diet". In one study, 150 severely epileptic children, averaging 400 seizures per month, on a mean of 6.2 antiepileptic medications were placed on a ketogenic diet consisting of 4 parts fat to 1 part protein, with almost no carbohydrate. Thirty percent of the children had a greater than 90% decrease in seizures and 3 became free of seizures. But two problems arise in such ketosis therapy. First, eating even small amounts of carbohyrate causes the release of insulin and an immediate drop in ketone levels followed by seizures. Second, cholesterol increased from 168 to 220mg/100ml, with a decrease in high density lipoprotein, an increase in low density lipoprotein and elevation of total triglycerides, putting the children at slightly greater risk of atherosclerosis. In practice, this diet is rarely used in patients over 17 years of age. In one form of epilepsy resulting from a genetic decrease in GLUT1, the major glucose transporter across the blood/brain barrier, ketones provide an alternative energy substrate, compensating for the decreased glucose transport, and hence ketosis therapy has been used. The ketogenic diet has been used extensively in the treatment of obesity, and like most other therapies, is only transiently effective at best.
and beans on toast for breakfast? it certainly never would have occurred to me. no wonder I get stupider every day.
I'm so totally turned on right now.
Please, please, please, Rude Turnip, be a girl...
By the way, Dr. Amen has a little article on him in the most recent issue of MIT's Technology Review.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
This may seem offtopic, however I assure you it is not. This is pure speculation and the twelfth step should be applied.
I'm convinced all the vitamins and minerals are found in the little crumbs at the bottom of the package. You know the ones that no one ever eats? They are tossed to the trash in their protective little nonbiodegradable bags. Each company has hired poor children from fictional poverty stricken countries to gather their respective bags from the trash dumps. The crumbs are then used in new product.
However, this isn't the whole story. Oh no. I keep hearing on the news about how the poor children from fictional poverty stricken countries are becoming very healthy and taking all our jobs to their homelands. Be careful with your crumbs, lest ye be oppressed by your own bottomfeeders..
Don't read slashdot. Especially the comments.
:wq
Darn, I used all my mod points yesterday. Luckily, I had swallowed the home-brew ale before I read that, or my laptop would smell like ale.
I don't have time to go and set in a class somewhere, so I
have been spending my spare time studying for the Network+ and Cisco CCNA exams.
I take a lot of practice exams, and even write my own study questions. You know, I
could waste time doing puzzles or playing games, but I figure I can kill two
birds with one stone if I make these exams a type of fun personal challenge. Not
only am I keeping my brain active...but it really looks good on a
resume.
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
Okay, straight whiskey it is.
When are the irresponsible reporters going to stop hyping this drug? ... that is a blatant and dangerous lie.
The brain-miracle theory is simply *not* true.
And being awake for over 40 hours without any ill effects
For inducing greater intelligent or concentration caffeine still rules.
While some mathematicians still swear the correct amount of beer makes them perform better.
I've noticed matein specially seem to have a better effect on the brain.
So there is no rule for everyone.
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say n' more, SMACK!
The brain runs on glucose mainly. While I believe you need protein for energy, and this also has an effect on your brain too, but I don't know the exact connections. You might like to know a couple of factoid anecdotes I've heard and tend to believe.
1. A banana or two in the morning may be the best way to get your brain up to speed quickly and maintain that until lunchtime. This is because bananas contain three different kinds of sugars that are digested at different rates, so that as the first one peaks and starts to lose concentration in your blood stream the next one peaks, etc. 2. A soft-boiled egg is the fastest way to get protein into your bloodstream. (Told to me by my Dad a doctor). 3. Pasta better than rice as far as lasting longer in the blood which means it doesn't spike and then crash like chocolate. (Which by the way is good for you too). 4. Though not taught in school, you definitely can develop new mental skills. For example, take when I was learning Japanese characters (kanji). First, it is totally doable to power down 25 per day at a steady rate if you use a low-tech system where you write them down many times by hand and focus on hard ones, then keep testing yourself. I developed a "scratchpad" in my head that I could store a kanji in that I saw on a sign but wanted to look up later (now I lost that skill). If you work at it you can scan and get meaning in a gestalt - in kanji it means you can read a newspaper article without sounding out the words in your head but just as if you were a video camera sweeping across the article (used to be able to do that, when I was wide awake). In English, you can "scan" for keywords and "skim" for summary information parts of books very quickly. I learned this in a special class in middle school, which is around 25 years ago, but it still strikes me as extremely useful and not widely taught. Also the use of a ruler to measure page heights, things like that are interesting tricks.
You can teach yourself mnemonic techniques which are extremely effective. For example one famous Greek (socrates? dunno) would attach parts of his speech to a mental image of bits of his house, and then as he spoke mentally walk through the house, picking up topics. I am no expert on this stuff but I can tell you one that works, maybe someone can post a link to a good site for this kind of stuff
You build a chain of mental images linking visual and audible cues, using humor, immediate association of images, linking to a bodily sense or to your home. I've used it to remember arbitrary sequences and also to remember people's faces to names (which I'm pretty bad at). A single word is remembered by thinking of a mental image that rhymes, forexample if you want to remember "supermarket" maybe an image of superman would be good. When you go to the supermarket you think superman, or maybe you have made a strong mental picture of superman standing in the supermarket door so when you get to the supermarket, you "see" superman there. The next word, what you have to buy at the supermarket, is say milk. Now imagine an image that strongly associates/mashes together superman and milk. Maybe it is superman with a pitcher of milk over his head, or maybe he's carrying jugs of milk. You could imagine milk bottles sticking out from his nipples, whatever. Then you make an image that links milk to then next item, say it is jam. You could imagine a traffic jam where the cars are all milk bottles, caused by the focus of the jam, an accident with two milk bottles crashed into each other, glass everywhere. Anyway you keep going like this, maybe you hang the number five all over the milk bottle to remember five and people looking like the number five are rubbernecking at the accident, then think five is like a hive, then you have a beehive sitting in a pot because pot i
I've worked out a new tactic for getting modded up on /.. Anytime there is a study of any kind you just type up a statement similar to the above. It's worked for the last 5 years why shouldn't it work again?
anything that the resident slashdot experts know about coenzyme-Q10 and its benifits with respect to the brain. i've read that the three limiting factors in ATP production are ribose, creatinin and q10... Its the best thing since tinfoil hats ;)
Something I think that is really missing from our diet is plain and simple water. Just good old tap water. Two liters a day make a huge difference in my physical and mental condition.
;) I started drinking water. I noticed a difference right away.
For the longest time, I got my beverage fill from soda and coffee, then after *MUCH* insistance from my female counterpart (Wife, not Mom
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
I reckon they got taken in by this BBSpot spoof which I remembered from ages ago: http://www.bbspot.com/News/2001/01/exercise.html
Or maybe BBSpot somehow stumbled on the truth?! If so, truth really is stranger than fiction!
I've emailed the author at BBSpot, although it's four years on,