By Simon J Evans, PhD

I ran across and interesting study recently suggesting that if we think faster we might feel better. There are plenty of anecdotes to back up this theory. People with bipolar (manic depression) disorder feel high levels of elation and positive mood during their rapid thought firing manic phases. Drugs that induce fast thinking states, like caffeine or amphetamines, also typically elevate mood. However, the new study asked whether we could deliberately improve our mood by engaging in fast thinking activities.

Researchers from Princeton and Harvard published their findings supporting this notion in a recent issue of the journal, Emotion. They recruited college students and set them up in various tasks that required either slow and careful thought or rapid fire brainstorming and then tested their mood and feelings of self-esteem right after the experiences.

What they found was that over six different kinds of experiments that manipulated thought speed, subjects in the ‘fast thinking’ group had improved mood every time. The fast thinkers also showed improved creativity, and self esteem and increased energy and sense of power in most of the tests.

These findings are easy to relate with. If you think about times when you really feel great and unstoppable, they were probably times when your mind was working clear and quickly. The cool thing about the research is that it suggests you can manipulate your mood (for the better) by deliberately doing things that require rapid thinking, like fast paced games, intense conversations or even rapid fire brain storming on your own.

Now, it’s likely that the benefit of fast thinking only applies when such thinking is beneficial. We’ve all had the experiences, lying awake at night, trying to shut off our brains and go to sleep. These times are certainly not mood elevating and are usually very frustrating. But during waking functional hours, this little trick may be a good tool to break out of negative mood states.

I think this actually ties nicely into another theory that I wrote about several months ago, put forth by Kelly Lambert from Randolph-Macon College. In her theory Dr. Lambert suggests that the lack of effort required for our survival today is partially responsible for increased rates of depression. After all, we don’t really have to work very hard to find food and shelter anymore. Dr Lambert suggests that this robs us of the rewarding feelings of success from overcoming challenges in our daily lives.

Both of these lines of research relate to quick thinking associated with problem solving. Both also point to the activation of the brain’s ‘reward centers’, controlled mostly by dopamine (which are also stimulated by many drugs of abuse).

When I look at these two lines of research I am reminded of the old adage “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” We have spent centuries developing technologies to make our lives easier, but are we really benefiting from that? Some philosophers argue that human struggle is necessary for happiness. I’m sure there are entire volumes written on this topic, so will just leave it at that.

So if we’re not going to drop out of modern society and go live off the land, what can we do? Maybe we shouldn’t always look for the easy road. That message certainly applies to your physical health. No one has found the magic pill for diet and exercise yet. Maybe that message should apply to our emotional health as well.

Reference:
Emotion. 2008, 8(5):597-612

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By Simon J. Evans, PhD

Remember the ‘monster cereals’? Frankenberry, Booberry and Count Chocula? I liked the little marshmallows in Frankenberry the best, though the chocolate milk left behind by Count Chocula was hard to beat. But can eating these types of breakfast cereals be setting us up for future memory problems?

We’ve learned a lot over the past couple of decades about how the foods we choose to eat as kids and young adults, control our risks for chronic illness as older adults. More recently we are beginning to understand that many chronic diseases are related to each other. Now, a new study published the February 2009 issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), adds a very interesting chapter, linking blood sugar control to memory decline.

Specifically the study examines the role of insulin in countering Alzheimer’s disease progression. But before we get into that, let’s connect a few dots.

We know that high sugar foods, if eaten on a regular basis, increase our risk for insulin resistance and diabetes. What does this mean? When you eat high sugar foods your blood sugar rises quickly and your body brings it back down by releasing insulin. However, if you continue to do this on a regular basis, your body will become less sensitive to its own insulin and require more and more of an insulin release to do the job. This is called insulin resistance and is a step toward diabetes.

In recent years, we have learned that insulin acts in the brain as well. Brain cells rely on this hormone to keep a regular supply of energy so you can think clearly, remember where you parked your car and why you went into the store in the first place. Insulin resistance in the brain may lead to mood and cognitive problems. While this is a young area of research we know that diabetes increases your risk for both depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

The new study gives us some insight into why this might be true. One feature of Alzheimer’s disease is an accumulation ‘tangles’ from a protein called amyloid-beta. It turns out that small pieces of this protein can attack certain cells in your brain that are responsible for making and storing memories. If these attacks get bad enough – boom, Alzheimer’s disease.

What the new study shows us is that insulin helps protect these ‘memory’ cells from attack by amyloid-beta, but only if the cells remain sensitive to insulin. This sheds light on why diabetes puts you at increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease. If you have lost sensitivity to insulin (become insulin resistant) then you may be more susceptible to attack by amyloid-beta proteins and the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

In their study, the researchers were able to ‘help’ insulin out using a diabetic drug that increases insulin sensitivity, and this is promising news for development of therapies to help people going down the Alzheimer’s road. But are there other ways to increase our insulin sensitivity. The answer is emphatically, yes!

First of all, exercise is known to boost insulin sensitivity, even if you are already diabetic. Getting your muscles working helps them regain their sensitivity to insulin and do a better job of maintaining blood sugar. Second, eating a low-glycemic diet, with high fiber and low sugar, help regulate blood sugar and boost insulin sensitivity. Third, sleep is an emerging factor in improving insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control.

Again, this returns to the fundamentals. Exercise more, eat better and get enough sleep. Understanding all the cool neuroscience on why these things help is great, and hopefully provides you with a little extra motivation. Sometimes connecting a behavior to a real change that you can put your finger on can give you that extra sticking power, which is why we write these summaries. But the decision is yours. You know what to do, now can you do what you know?

Reference:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). 2009, 106(6):1971-1976.

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By Simon J. Evans, PhD

The benefits of green tea have received a lot of press lately. Several studies have shown that green tea drinkers perform well in several measures of health, including some of those relative to brain fitness. But can green tea also help you lose weight? Researchers asked that question recently and found some interesting results.

A study published in a recent edition of the Journal of Nutrition, evaluated exercise-induced weight loss in 132 overweight and obese adults who also drank green tea extracts during their weight loss regime. All adults in this study participated in exercise programs and half were given a caffeinated beverage with green tea extracts (catechins, pronounced kat-i-kins) while the other half drank equal amounts of a caffeinated beverage without the green tea.

All participants in the study lost weight due to the exercise program, however those drinking the green tea extract containing catechins lost a little more. The interesting thing about this is that the fat lost by the green tea extract drinkers was specifically belly-fat. Other areas of fat loss were fairly even between the two groups.

Why is this important? Recent research has discovered that belly fat is particularly bad for your health. Excess belly fat releases hormones that have all kinds of negative effects, including reducing sensitivity to insulin, which is a major problem. Insulin sensitivity controls many aspects of brain and body health, including risk for diabetes, and maybe even depression and late-life dementia.

So it’s very cool that the catechins found in green tea helped folks in this study lose more belly fat in response to their exercise programs since it will probably feedback on many other systems in their bodies to improve their health. In fact, those in the green tea group showed better improvement in measures of triglycerides and total cholesterol as well.

Some societies have known about the health benefits of green tea for centuries and use it as a regular part of their diet. Western science is really just catching up to explain why this beverage is a powerful component of your overall approach to health. And the best part is there are no real side-effects, as long as you don’t overdo it. Remember, it is a caffeinated beverage so still should be drunk in moderation.

If you’re a regular coffee or black tea drinker, consider replacing an occasional cup with some green tea instead. Coffee and black tea themselves have been shown to have some health benefit, when used in moderate amounts of a cup or two per day, but green-tea seems to beat them both for overall health. As in any health plan, the enjoyment factor is huge, so don’t try to adopt strategies that you really don’t like. But if you’re not a regular green tea drinker, why not try a cup or two to see how you feel.

Before signing off of this particular article, it must be pointed out that everyone in this study was exercising, and green tea just made the exercise a bit more effective. You’re not likely to lose that body fat with green tea alone, you still have to move.

Reference:
Journal of Nutrition (2009) 139:264-270

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By Simon J Evans, PhD

Why is it that some people freak out when presented with challenges in their life while others handle them calmly and responsively? This is a question that psychologists have pursued for years and it essentially boils down to your coping skills. Now, a new study suggests that these skills may also help protect you from developing dementia in your later years.

We all freak out occasionally, but we’re talking about stress so consuming that you become temporarily unable to deal with life. Some people experience this kind of stress on an almost daily basis, while others rarely let life push them out of control. Most of us fall somewhere in between.

Related to this personality trait, researchers in Sweden followed 506 older people (average age of 83) for several years and looked for things that predicted who would develop dementia over the course of the study. They honed in on a couple of things that were important when considered together. First, was their level of social activity and second, their level of neuroticism, which in this case can be thought of as coping skills to reduce stress.

The new study found that those folks who were less socially active and had poor coping skills had twice the risk of developing dementia. In this small cohort, either social isolation or poor coping skills was not enough to increase risk, but the double whammy was significant. However, prior larger studies have found negative effects of each of these independently.

Previous research has shown that social isolation puts folks at higher risk for dementia and that poor coping skills increase risk for depression. Importantly, depression and dementia seem to frequently go hand in hand in older individuals. So regardless of which is worse or how social activity and coping skills combine, it’s likely that having social support and good coping skills is good for your brain in multiple ways.

The cool thing about these is that you can do something about them. Researchers call these types of factors ‘modifiable’ risk factors, meaning you have control over them. You can increase your level of social activity and improve your coping skills through a variety of techniques. If you feel isolated, unless you live in the middle of nowhere with no transportation, you can increase your level of social activity just by getting involved with your community. Over time you will make more friends and increase your social circles. As for coping skills, there are hundreds of books, classes and websites that can help you learn to handle stress more effectively.

The four cornerstones of brain fitness that we discuss in detail in our book, BrainFit for Life, will also help you develop coping skills. Specific nutrients, physical and mental activities and getting optimal sleep all control brain circuits that regulate stress and your ability to deal with it. The more you focus on these fundamentals, the more you will be surprised by the power that they have over your daily experiences and the more you will get out of life with a fit brain.

Reference:
Neurology (2009) 72, 253-259.

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By Simon J. Evans, PhD

Not too long ago, scientists believed that adults couldn’t grow new neurons in their brain. However, work over the last several years has debunked this myth. We now know that adults continue to grow new neurons throughout life, a process called neurogenesis. Yes, new growth slows down after middle age but it continues. However, there are things you can do to help keep a higher rate of new brain cell birth, which we’ll get into in a minute.

Continuing to grow new brain cells can help in a couple of ways. First, cells are mostly born into a region called the hippocampus, which is crucial for learning and memory. Maintaining neurogenesis helps maintain memory function. Second, keeping those new neurons coming seems to help with depression. The hippocampus is also crucial for stress regulation and neurogenesis is a necessary part of the way anti-depressants work. So, new brain cell birth is important for cognitive and emotional functions. We have referred to these in the past as your IQ and your EQ.

It’s also been known for some time that exercise increase the rate of neurogenesis. Many studies show that lab animals who are allowed to exercise increase the rate of new neurons born into their hippocampus, relative to those animals that don’t get to exercise.

Although these studies are difficult to do in humans (for technical reasons) several studies suggest that the same thing is going on. In human trials that compare groups who exercise to control groups, the exercisers consistently show improved cognitive skills and increased function of specific brain areas, including the hippocampus.

A new study by Wu et al. published in the September 18th, 2008 edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology also shows that exercise may increase the connectivity of new neurons. It’s not enough to make new neurons. You also have to wire them up to other neurons to get them fully integrated into brain circuits so they can do their thing.

On average, every neuron in your brain makes about 10,000 connections. It’s no good if a neuron is just sitting there talking to itself. It must become part of a network to have real value. When you learn things, you actually increase the connectivity between neurons, and that’s what’s most important.

In fact, the number of connections in your brain is probably much more important than the number of brain cells when it comes to retaining cognitive function. The new study by Wu shows that exercise increases both. It increases the number of new neurons being born and the amount of branching that each new neuron forms.

Neurons are shaped kind of like trees. The more branches they have, the more connections they can make. In Wu’s study, exercise increased the number and length of branches on new neurons.

Finally, the most important part of the new study looked at how exercise affects the rate of new brain cell growth and amount of branching as we age. Essentially, the researchers confirmed that the rate of neurogenesis declines as we age and that exercising in early middle age has a large affect on boosting the rate of new brain cell birth. Exercising in older age also increases neurogenesis, although to a lesser degree.

However, here is the interesting part. In their experiments, the sedentary rats had about the same length of neuron branches in middle age and in old age. But the exercising rats had much longer branches. In fact, the old exercisers had longer neuron branches than the younger sedentary rats. This is great news since many studies show that branch length and connectivity may be a better indicator of cognitive health than the number of new neurons born.

We know that life-long learning is one way to promote more neuron branching and connectivity. Now this new study shows that exercising can also do this for older aged adult brains.

The bottom line: physical exercise is a great way to keep your brain fit.

Reference:
Journal of Applied Physiology (2008) 105:1585-1594

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By Paul R. Burghardt, PhD

Sleep affects our brain fitness, including our mood, our ability to learn and our physiology. While it’s clear to most folks that sleep-loss messes with our minds, the damage to our bodies is sometimes less obvious. Over the past couple of decades, researches have been investigating how sub-optimal sleep can be detrimental to our health. Recently a group from the University of Chicago published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing the importance of slow-wave-sleep for blood sugar control during the day.

Our sleep progresses through different cycles, or phases, which have different roles in controlling our brain and body function. In a recent study, Tasali and colleagues were able to selectively disrupt slow-wave-sleep while leaving the other phases of sleep undisturbed. At the start of the study, the healthy volunteers had normal control over their blood sugar levels. Following 3 days without slow-wave-sleep, however, these people substantially lost blood sugar regulation while they were awake and actually started to look diabetic. This should be pretty disturbing that only 3 days of sub-optimal sleep could push healthy people into a pre-diabetic state.

If that wasn’t enough, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported an increased risk of heart attacks during the spring when we lose an hour of sleep thanks to the daylight savings time shift! For the three days, that’s right THREE DAYS (sounds familiar right?), following the shift in the spring (when we lose an hour of sleep) researchers in Sweden found an increased risk of acute myocardial infarction. In addition, a German group recently published a study in the journal Circulation reporting an increased risk of stroke for the two days following the shift in daylight savings in either fall or spring.

Kind of makes you want to sleep in tomorrow, doesn’t it?

Incidentally, older individuals as well as obese individuals have reduced sleep quality and duration. Which is the chicken and which is the egg is still being sorted out, but it is pretty clear that sub-optimal sleep at least adds to the problem. Hopefully, this drives home the importance of sleep for your health. The importance of this for brain fitness comes into play when we consider that blood sugar control and circulation can influence mood and cognition.

For a long time, it was thought that we could make up for sleep loss during the next bout of sleep. If you’re talking about total sleep deprivation (not sleeping at all for one night), that is somewhat accurate. However, a big and sneaky problem is that cheating ourselves out of a couple hours of sleep every night can have major effects on our brain and overall health. But it takes a while for these negative health effects to build to a point where we notice them. We’re really just starting to see how big of a problem this is.

Sleep is an important part of our physiology, but is usually one of the first aspects of our lives that we cheat ourselves out of, whether we know it or not. So make a point of protecting your optimal sleep, and would someone please get rid of daylight savings time!

References:

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008, 105(3):1044-9
New Engl J Med (2008), 359(18):1966-1968
Circulation (2008), 118(3):284-90

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