A fascinating article about how you can improve your brain power, in the New Scientist
In summary, eat smart and sleep well, and music and exercise are vital.
My personal highlights*:
Around the age of 40, honest folks may already admit to noticing changes in their mental abilities
You are what you eat, and that includes your brain. First, go to the top of the class by eating breakfast. Beans on toast is good. Toast alone boosted children's scores on a variety of cognitive tests, but when the tests got tougher, the breakfast with the high-protein beans worked best. A smart choice for lunch is omelette and salad, followed by yoghurt.
Don't forget to snaffle a snack mid-afternoon, to maintain your glucose levels. Just make sure you avoid junk food, and especially highly processed goodies such as cakes, pastries and biscuits. Brains are around 60 per cent fat, so if trans-fats clog up the system, what should you eat to keep it well oiled? Evidence is mounting in favour of omega-3 fatty acids, in particular docosahexaenoic acid or DHA. In other words, your granny was right: fish is the best brain food.
Music really does make you smarter, though unfortunately it requires a bit more effort than just selecting something mellow on your iPod. Music lessons are the key. Six-year-old children who were given music lessons, as opposed to drama lessons or no extra instruction, got a 2 to 3-point boost in IQ scores compared with the others. After two years of music lessons, pre-school children scored better on spatial reasoning tests than those who took computer lessons.
Maybe music lessons exercise a range of mental skills, with their requirement for delicate and precise finger movements, and listening for pitch and rhythm, all combined with an emotional dimension. Nobody knows for sure. Neither do they know whether adults can get the same mental boost as young children. But, surely, it can't hurt to try.
Never underestimate the power of a good night's rest. Skimping on sleep does awful things to your brain. Planning, problem-solving, learning, concentration, working memory and alertness all take a hit. IQ scores tumble. "If you have been awake for 21 hours straight, your abilities are equivalent to someone who is legally drunk," Luckily, it's reversible - and more. If you let someone who isn't sleep-deprived have an extra hour or two of shut-eye, they perform much better than normal on tasks requiring sustained attention, such as taking an exam.
Simply walking sedately for half an hour three times a week can improve abilities such as learning, concentration and abstract reasoning by 15 per cent. The effects are particularly noticeable in older people. Senior citizens who walk regularly perform better on memory tests than their sedentary peers.
Workplace studies have found that it takes up to 15 minutes to regain a deep state of concentration after a distraction such as a phone call. Just a few such interruptions and half the day is wasted.
Music can help as long as you listen to something familiar and soothing that serves primarily to drown out background noise. Psychologists also recommend that you avoid working near potential diversions, such as the fridge.
I find it interesting, but none of it is news. I cannot believe that there are people who still cut out fat and sugars from their diets, and think diet is all about shedding a few extra pounds, and that, in doing so, it makes them, somehow, superior to Tubbies, like me.
I am the only person on my Unit who regularly has music in the workplace - earphones, of course - although I see a tiny minority of other people throughout the building doing likewise. My manager is totally cool about it (except for the one occasion that I misguidedly cranked up the volume...!) but the looks of some of my colleagues suggest that they think I am just skiving. A few months back I had my Uni scarf draped over my shoulders because I was sitting in a draft. Somebody very important - and extremely famous in Public Admin circles - bounded over to me because his daughter attends my old Uni and was quite flummoxed by my non-reaction. When he realised that I had my earphones in he was apologetic for disturbing me and not at all put out by this non-traditional behaviour. He has a reputation for trouble shooting large problematic organisations and I have no doubt that he is well aware of the theories about how music boosts performance.
I have to confess to being very stupid in my sleep management. During the week I try to get through on six hours, making up for it when I can - I had nine hours last night and would have had more but for the postman knocking the door to deliver some (v. nice) registered post for the master of the household.
Yesterday I managed to sleep through my alarm - radio and beep, and the standby of my mobile was downstairs. Fortunately I awoke fully alert at the sound of my Secretary of State discussing unit costing. I never previously realised that his is a wonderful voice to wake up to - not too soothing, but definitely not too strident. Certainly not a monotone, but without dramatic shifts in tone or pitch.
*copied and pasted with big chunks omitted and some selective paraphrasing
