How BrainFit is the man in the big red suit? Does old St. Nick adhere to the four cornerstones of brain fitness to take good care of his egg’s noggin? All in all he seems to do a fairly good job, but let’s take a closer look.

First off is Nutrition. I’d guess that the diet up in the north pole has to be similar to the Eskimos. Even though they eat a lot of fat from whale blubber, they get huge doses of omega-3s from all the fish. I’ve heard that Santa enjoys a lot of ice fishing during his downtime. So even though he goes on a once a year milk and cookies binge (or bourbon and cookies in some places), he probably does fairly well the rest of the year.

Second is Physical Activity. Cleaning out reindeer stalls and chasing elves around to make sure they get their jobs done must be physically exerting. Plus, just maintaining a huge workshop operation has to have a fair amount of physical activity on a day-to-day basis. So I’d have to give Santa a good score on the physical activity cornerstone as well.

Third is Mental Activity. This is where Santa really shines. Remembering all the kids’ names and associating all the different requests with everyone one of them is quite a feat and indicative of a strong memory. Not only that, but his sense of direction to remember where they all live shows incredible spatial abilities. Finally, some of the toy designs he comes up with these days are very creative. I have to give him top marks on this cornerstone.

Fourth is Sleep, Rest and Relaxation. Santa probably doesn’t do quite as well here. Even though he only pulls an all-nighter once a year, he strikes me as a type-A personality and is on the go all the time. I bet he’s up to the wee hours working hard most of the year. In fact, lack of sleep has a known correlation with obesity and I’ll bet this contributes to his portly mid-section.

Overall, however, Santa does fairly well in three out of the four cornerstones so let’s see how that translates into his EPIC performance (Emotional, Physical and Intellectual Cognition).

Emotionally, he seems to be in good shape. He’s always laughing (HO, HO, HO) and shows a lot of patience with all those kids constantly climbing on him. I’ve never heard anyone call Santa a jerk, so you have to figure that he does a good job managing his stress levels.

Physically, he could lose a little weight but still seems to function very well. It must be tough getting up and down all those chimneys but he gets it done. I don’t know how his blood pressure or immune function are doing but he’s probably OK.

Intellectually, he’s a star. As I discussed above, memory, creativity and problem solving skills are all sharp. Although he did seem to forget about that Lava Lamp that I requested for about 10 years in a row, but he finally came through.

So is Santa doing what is necessary to stay BrainFit? I’d have to say yes.

A couple of new reports came out this week addressing sleep in our culture. Everyone knows that they feel a little cranky when they don’t get enough sleep. It’s therefore no surprise that sleep affects your mood. What may be surprising, though, is that scientists know very little about why that’s true.

We understand quite a bit about why sleep disrupts your immune function, your metabolism and your ability to learn and remember things. I have discussed each of these in past articles over at our sister site, the Brain Code. But we don’t know much about how sleep regulates mood. An interesting new study published in Current Biology by Michael Walker, sheds some light on this subject.

A loss of reason

A complex brain circuit that involves both higher thinking centers and reactive centers controls your emotions. It’s the higher thinking centers that separate us from other animals. We have the ability (although we don’t always use it) to evaluate our responses thoughtfully, before just reacting impulsively.

In the new study, volunteers were either deprived of a good night’s sleep or allowed to sleep normally. Researchers then looked at both their higher thinking and their reactive brain centers after presenting them with some emotionally negative images to stir their reactions.

They found that specific reactive centers of the brain acted the same whether or not the volunteers had slept well the night before. But certain higher thinking centers responsible for keeping those reaction centers under control, were much less active in the sleep deprived group.

The interpretation of this is that our ‘gut reactions’ are not really that affected by lack of sleep (at least in this situation) but our ability to reason and monitor those reactions is weakened, which can have all kinds of downstream consequences.

Is a longer workday productive?

Why is this important? Other studies show that we are getting far less sleep today than we did a century ago and throughout history. The advent of artificial light has extended the length of our daily ‘productivity’, but many argue that this is actually counter-productive. By not getting optimal sleep, we are decreasing our ability to function efficiently the next day, and actually getting less done.

In fact, another study just released shows exactly that. In this one, researchers, Patricia Murphy and Scott Campbell, showed that napping is actually productive. First of all, midday napping did not cause people to sleep less well at night, as many believe. Second, midday napping improved performance on math, decision-making and reaction-time tests. This increased performance was true after the nap and lasted all the way into the next day, following the nap.

Many of us are so busy that we steal hours from our sleep to attempt to get more done. But science argues that we are not getting more done this way. We are actually reducing our ability to be creative, make decisions, work efficiently and cooperate with other people. Perhaps a little more time invested in our rest could dramatically improve our career and personal relationships.

References:

The human emotional brain without sleep — a prefrontal amygdale disconnect Current Biology 78(20) R877-878

Nap Now, Sleep Tonight — And Think Better Tomorrow http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071027172903.htm

Living healthy not only affects you, it affects your potential offspring…and yes, fellas, this applies to us too. But isn’t this something we already knew? It is true that we inherit our genes from our ancestors (parents, grandparents, and so on) and our genes impact how you develop and influence your vulnerability to disease….but there is more to the story.

A recent episode of NOVA titled, “Ghost in Your Genes”, gave a fantastic overview of some research investigating the influence that our ‘epigenome’ has on our lives, and in turn, the influence that our lives have on our epigenome.

You have more control of your genes than you think.

Your genome is the total set of genes that you inherited from your parents and your epigenome (literally translating as “on top of” or “in addition to” the genome) is partially inherited and partially created by your experiences. Your epigenome is a collection of physical modifications of your genes.

How is epigenetic control different from genetic control over our lives? Well, both the genome and the epigenome control how genes turn “on” or “off” to influence the health of our brains and bodies. One of the main differences is that your epigenome changes throughout life, while your genome is relatively unchanging from the time your were conceived.

This means that the genetic factor is more influential early in life, assuming that everyone has reasonably nurturing parents. But once we get past the early stages of development we gain some control over our genetic destiny.

Think about it kind of like driving a car. Early on, you are safe if your parents are good drivers, but once you get your own license your safety is in your own hands.

One of the most striking examples of epigenetics comes from studies in identical twins. Even though identical twins come from the same egg and start with the same genes and initial epigenome, their experiences throughout life alter their epigenetic makeup. This ultimately affects how their genes turn on and off and how this controls their health and longevity.

When are you absolved of your responsibility?

Now, keep in mind that these epigenetic changes are inheritable…..meaning you can pass the changes that you make to your offspring. So, how many generations can these effects last for, you ask? So far, researchers have data suggesting that epigenetic alterations can have effects on several generations down the line.

Since the epigenome can also be influenced by lifestyle choices (i.e. diet, smoking, exercise) and environmental factors (i.e. pollution) the choices we make today can influence several generations to come.

So aside from the birthday cards, hand-knit sweaters, and rolls of pennies, your grandparents may have also given you epigenetic predispositions for increased or decreased odds of getting diabetes and several other diseases. What kind of grandparent do you want to be?

The silver lining in all of this is that even though we start with a set of genes and an epigenetic fingerprint, we have the ability to influence our epigenome by the lifestyle choices that we make. And, since the epigenome can turn genes on or off, we ultimately have some control over our genes. So even if you don’t care about your health, think about how you might be influencing the health of your grandchildren.