Brain Facts

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                    Brain Facts

Fact: The brain is the most amazing part of the body and it far exceeds the complexities of anything that man has been able to make - including the most sophisticated machines and computers that are in existence.

Fact: The brain remarkably communicates with every system of the body both receiving and sending information that allows the body to work in perfect harmony with the rest of the body for optimal functioning.

This includes tasks that are both involuntary (things that happen without thinking - such as breathing and your heart beating) and voluntary (things that have to be thought about) and does it all at the same time.

Fact: The brain continually performs millions and millions of functions instantaneously and it keeps on doing it throughout one's life every moment of every day.

Fact: The brain enables you to analyze, think, learn, organize, create, and plan. It also controls your emotions from laughter, fun, joy, and excitement to sadness, stress, depression, and anxiety. It controls the complexities of changing from one to another based upon information received and analyzed.

Fact: The brain controls your heart and circulatory system with such sophistication that it can cause increases or decreases in activity based upon your current bodily needs and wants. It makes sure that sufficient flow of blood, as well as lymph and other body fluids, is activated to each part of the body in order to carry needed gases such as oxygen and the various nutrients which are needed so you will be able to exercise, rest, digest your food, and see, smell, taste, feel, and hear. The list can go on and on.

Fact: At the same time the brain insures that metabolic waste products, old and dead tissues, as well as other poisons and debris both foreign and things produced in your body, are carried to the proper destinations for breakdown and/or elimination.

Fact: Repair of old and damaged tissues and new growth are brain controlled also.

The list of brain facts can go on and on and the brain is involved in it all. As you can well imagine, all of these functions go on all the time and work synergistically with each other for the overall well-being of each individual.

Example:

Here is an example using brain facts as the story line. Consider the following circumstance:

**You suddenly see your small child in the path of an oncoming vehicle. Your brain instantaneously evaluates a multitude of information that comes streaming to it from the various senses.

**It makes decisions and assesses possible actions that would be needed. It instantly calculates at what speed you will need to move when, where and how to save the child. Your blood pressure instantly increases, hormones - such as adrenalin - are released and the musculoskeletal system moves us instantly into action.

**Your brain evaluates the intensity of the situation and calculates and recalculates all of the variables as the vehicle gets nearer and nearer to your child. It doesn't miss any details.

**At the same time your hair may stand on end, blood is shunted from the digestive tract and other systems and is sent to the muscles and other tissues now activated, leaving just enough blood in those other areas to sustain them.

**Your senses are made acutely aware of the circumstances, your voice of warning is immediately activated, and you can literally hear, smell and see the skidding of the tires as you move in the direction of the child.

**These and many other bodily activities not mentioned come immediately into play.

**Of course, the car is able to stop within inches of impact and your child is safe and is oblivious to what has just happened. You, on the other hand, see and feel a myriad of changes taking place in your body as you experience gratitude, joy, and love for the safety of the child.

**What a remarkable brain to orchestrate such a scene. Every moment is a new change and the remarkable brain administrates and directs the necessary changes for that particular moment.

More Brain Facts:

Fact: Your brain has about 100 billion tiny cells called neurons - give or take a million or so. It has so many that if you were able to count them it would take you about 3,000 years, that is, if you could live that long and do it without sleep.

Fact: Each single brain neuron has from 1,000 to 10,000 connections with other neurons making up to 10 trillion connections possible.

Fact: There are billions of neuron highways which carry this information. Each neuron communicates with other neurons via chemical and electrical signals. These actions are continuous even when you are asleep.

Anytime you cry, laugh, dream, calculate, read, meditate, analyze, dance, run, play or work, countless information is sent along those highways. It is said that the neurons of the brain send and create more messages than all of the phones in the world could send if they were all activated at the same time.

Fact: Your brain can survive for 4 to 6 minutes without oxygen before it starts to die.

Fact: If you lose your blood supply to the brain you will be unconscious within 8 to 10 seconds.

Fact: There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your brain.

Fact: Even the sense organs that are distal from the brain receive and send information to and from the brain at an estimated 150 to 200 miles per hour.

Fact: The brain is able to learn new things. Whether it be a new dance step, a new sport, a challenging college course, or anything that is new to you. The brain is able to learn that new skill by creating new connections during the learning processes.

This change in brain structure happens everytime you learn and it even happens with a new thought or the creation of a new memory.

End of Brain Facts. Why are they important?

In addition to knowing about the brain facts and how the brain works, it is also important to understand that the brain has important needs if it is to keep functioning at such a remarkable level.

What Do I Need to Do to Keep My Brain Healthy? Even though these aren't exactly brain facts, they are facts that help us understand the brain.

In order to keep the brain working right you need the right nutrients, water quantities, and oxygen. Herbals, other so called brain foods, and supporting supplimentation have shown to be beneficial to the brain.

Avoid repetative micro traumas or other injuries to the brain which can cause a change in the ability of the brain to function in all of it's necessary activities.

Be sure to exercise. It has even been shown that physical exercise improves one's mood and actually releases a chemical that makes your brain more receptive to learning.

Control what you allow to come into your brain via the media in as much as it affects your positive and negative moods, fears, happiness, and your ability to assimilate realistic and new information.

Eliminate things that hamper the brain's capabilities, such as:
bad foods
sedentary or no brainer activities
drugs of any kind
tobacco
alcohol
anything else which is harmful to the brain

The list of brain facts is long. There are many more brain facts which are not listed here. But of all the things that we have said about the brain, it is only a beginning of what could be said. It just makes sense to take care of such a vital organ every single day that you are alive. If you are going to live longer by doing things naturally then you will want your brain to be the very best it can be during that time also.

Good luck and may you have optimal health and brain power naturally.

[Warph]

Six tricks to improve your memory
By Bora Chang

Published July 18, 2012/Real Simple

Having trouble with recall?  Here, experts offer techniques to enhance your memory.

1. Forgetting Boring Data

Problem: You tend to forget appointments, addresses, PINs, and passwords. Take heart―the brain wasn't designed to store such data, called declarative memories, for a long time unless you make a concerted effort to do so. This type of information, which by nature isn't special or exciting, has a short shelf life. Other declarative memories include historical dates and birthdays.

Solution: The only way to make essentially boring data part of your long-term memory is to store it properly so you can retrieve it later on. "If you don't make a conscious effort to learn your PIN, your short-term memory will flush it out immediately," says Dr. Zaldy S. Tan,  director of the Memory Clinic at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston and author of Age-Proof Your Mind. Attach some sort of meaning to it. For an important date, like your niece's birthday, give it an emotional connection (eight days after the Fourth of July). For less important information, like a dentist's appointment, don't even try to remember.

"This is exactly why God invented the PDA and the date book," says Aaron P. Nelson, chief of neuropsychology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston, and the author of The Harvard Medical School Guide to Achieving Optimal Memory. "The onus isn't on your brain to do the heavy lifting."


2. Being Distracted

Problem: You forgot why you walked into another room. You were probably distracted en route, or the item you wanted to remember wasn't noteworthy enough to be registered completely in your brain.

Solution: "Visualize what you want or need before you start walking into a room," says Tan. He also recommends linking items you want to remember with something familiar. If you want to get your summer clothes out of the basement, before you set out, think of yourself on the beach or beside a pool in your swimsuit. This system makes the items more vivid and therefore more memorable. When you forget to visualize what you want and find yourself thinking, Why am I in this room? retrace your steps mentally and, if that doesn't work, physically. "Ask yourself what you wanted before you left, whom you were with, or how you were feeling," says Elizabeth Edgerly, chief program officer for the Alzheimer's Association in Northern California and Northern Nevada.


3. Misplacing Everyday Items

Problem: You can't remember where you put your keys, wallet, or train pass. This is typically an attention issue. You toss your keys down when you walk through the door while preoccupied with something else. A few hours later, you can't remember where you put them. The act of putting them down also goes unnoticed because keys are mundane items―you probably wouldn't forget where you put a $100 bill. "If you don't perceive an event as important," Nelson says, "your memory will cast it off quickly."

Solution: Pay attention when you're putting things down, and tell yourself, silently or out loud, what you're doing: "I am putting my keys in my coat pocket," for instance. Consistency is an even better strategy. "If you put your keys in the same dish every day, you'll always, without fail, know where they are," says  Edgerly. "Having a good memory often has to do with developing good habits."


4. Remembering Words

Problem: A word, a movie or book title, or a long-lost friend's name is on the tip of your tongue, but you can't come up with it. "This is a universal problem, and it happens more as we age," Edgerly says. It also becomes harder to recall basic information when you feel stressed or are holding too many thoughts in your head at once.

Solution: First, cut yourself some slack―it happens to everyone. Then take a deep breath to clear your head. "An enemy of memory is multitasking," says Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Center on Aging, who is also the author of The Memory Prescription. Then say aloud what you think the name of the book or movie might be: "It's something like water" or "It begins with an S." Naming the actors in the movie or the characters in the book may also help jog your memory. If you're still stuck, then "substitute a word that will fit for the time being," Edgerly says, "and chances are the actual word will surface later."


5. Forgetting People's Names

Problem: You have a hard time remembering people's names. You're not alone. "When I teach preventive memory classes to healthy adults, 90 to 95 percent of participants say they're not good at recalling names," says Edgerly. The problem may be storage (you weren't paying attention when you met the person), retrieval (you can't call up the name), or a combination of both.

Solution: Most people are visual learners, which explains why you rarely forget faces but often forget names. So when you meet someone new, take a good look at the person, repeat her name to yourself at least three times, then use it in conversation. For instance, if you meet a Mary, ask, "So, Mary, where do you live?"

"You can also try to link the name with a distinguishing feature," suggests Small. So if you're introduced to a Mrs. Chambers with prominent cheekbones, think "cheekbones-Chambers."


6. Performing Automatic Tasks

Problem: You can't remember whether you've turned off the stove, the coffeepot, or the iron. When you perform an automatic task, like switching off the stove, you're using procedural memory. This type of long-term memory is used for actions like riding a bike, typing, or putting a key into a keyhole. Because the act is more mechanical than conscious, you're not fully aware of the action while you're performing it.

Solution: Most of the time you probably do turn off the stove, the coffeepot, and the iron. But if you find yourself frequently guessing or sometimes truly forgetting, make an effort to be mindful of the critical moment when you flip the switch. Say out loud, "Oven is off," "Iron is unplugged." If you still find yourself forgetting, invest in products with automatic shut-offs and leave a reminder by the front door. A Post-it on the front door with a checklist of what needs to be on, off, open, or shut is a good remedy.

[Warph]

Why Aren't We Smarter?


Albert Einstein was mind-bogglingly smart. His brain, no bigger than an average man's, somehow worked better, making unprecedented mental leaps between space and time and ultimately linking them together to form spacetime, a strange and (to most people) almost inconceivable entity. Einstein's brain saw the universe and got it.

Why can't we all be that smart?

"You have two separate lines of research converging for the first time to suggest an answer," Edward Bullmore, a neuroscientist at Cambridge University in England, told Life's Little Mysteries. He is currently writing a review article on all the related research, which indicates the following: "Brains have evolved not just to minimize cost, and not just to become as intelligent as possible, but to reach a balance between those things."

Bullmore uses brain-imaging techniques to look at how much energy the functioning brain uses. Noggins are extremely expensive, energy-wise, he noted: Though they take up only 2 percent of our body mass, they burn 20 percent of our energy.
In another line of research, neurobiologist Simon Laughlin, also at Cambridge but working independently of Bullmore, has drawn from examples in biology to show that a great deal of evolution goes into adjusting the brain's design to make it cheaper to run.

Among the adjustments is one of size: For a given species, a smaller brain costs less energy.

That explains why our brains haven't ballooned over the millennia. But it doesn't explain why we can't do more with the mental goods we have — why we can't all be like Einstein, whose brain wasn't huge, just high-functioning. (Einstein apparently never took an IQ test, but scientists estimate his score would've been about 160, or higher than 99.9 percent of the population.)

So why do most of our brains seem, by comparison, like mush? [Why We Zone Out ]

"Neuroimaging data shows that individuals with highly efficient [neural] networks have a higher IQ," Bullmore said. "Work that I and others have done shows that it's precisely the connections that confer high IQ that will be most expensive."

As it turns out, mental leaps are literally just that: long-range jumps between disparate brain regions. "For the intelligent aspects of cognitive processing — thinking hard — the network that we need in the brain is highly distributed over space," Bullmore said. "Consciously performing some difficult model task ... relies on connections forming over long anatomical distances."

As with other people possessing high IQs, Einstein's brain is likely to have been highly integrated, with many paths connecting distant regions. Navigating those long and winding paths required a huge amount of energy, however — so much that the average person's brain simply doesn't build many such paths.

"The basic idea is that the [average] human brain represents some kind of trade-off between minimizing cost and maximizing efficiency," Bullmore said.