Get Smart: 6 Brain-Boosting Activities to Add to Your Day

I have two uncanny skills: catching items that come flying my way, and remembering names. I take a certain pride in the latter, and can even recall the names of people whom I haven’t met but who played a part in an anecdote—my husband’s new intern, Sophie, my mother’s Move & Groove teacher, James. Somehow, though, I recently found myself at a dead stop in the middle of a story I was telling. It had to do with a woman with whom I’d been volleying emails about our sons’ coming shipbuilding extravaganza, and I simply blanked. Not just for a moment, but long enough to warrant fishing out my phone to search “pirate” in order to find her name. It was terrifying.

Getting older certainly doesn’t help matters. While 65 was long thought to be the starting point for cognitive decline, a new study out of Harvard shows that women experience memory loss several decades before that. The modern condition of being perpetually overworked and low on sleep does little for the health of the brain, that precious 3-pound organ responsible for processing sensation, thought, movement, and behavior. Some people try memorizing poetry, others swear by crossword puzzles, and there are those brain-training games that advertise on classical radio stations (not to mention brain gyms, where members congregate to play supposedly beneficial video games).

If only the mind could be sharpened like a Japanese knife! A recent review of many studies of brain training exercises found that there is no compelling evidence that engaging with them improves anything besides our ability to play them. Rather more dispiritingly, Dr. John Krakauer, professor of neurology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, says that hammering away at any single task, no matter how high-minded, is not going to cut it. “If you practice at anything, be it French or playing squash, you get better at it, but that is all,” he says. “If you do crossword puzzles you will only get better at crossword puzzles.” He says this even applies to the game of chess. “If you look at the top players, there is no correlation between their IQ and their master status. Once you’ve reached a threshold of IQ, the top players are very good at chess, but they’re not more intelligent than the lesser players.”

And yet, I’m not willing to abandon my fantasy of reaching early cocktail-hour Dorothy Parker levels of wit. While the field of neuroscience is still rife with mystery, there is enough new research coming out to help us boost our brain health. So how to stay sharp? Here, a few bright ideas.

Exercise
If there is one thing you can do for your brain, it’s break a sweat. The evidence for exercise’s measurable brain benefits is likely the soundest and most robust of any in the field. Not only does it improve the figure, but exercise boosts blood flow to the brain, and has been linked with brain growth as well as creativity. One experiment showed that people who were walking came up with twice as many creative ideas than when they were sitting down. Physical activity has been proven to spur the growth of new brain cells and boost their interconnectivity. Novelty helps brain function, too, so if you already have an exercise routine, try a new class.

Embrace good stress
Much as we are urged to meditate our way to optimal health, not every day can be perfectly serene—nor, as it turns out, need it be. Just as new forms of exercise can benefit our brains, “moderate levels of stress, properly handled, can actually boost brain function,” says Dr. Ian Robertson at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas. “Stress triggers the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which, like many of the brain’s chemical messengers, has a sweet spot whose levels above and below the brain underperforms,” explains Robertson. Before you sign up for three job interviews, bear in mind: It’s best to seek stress that comes with a challenge rather than a threat, so this might translate to trying indoor rock climbing or striking up a conversation with a colleague you normally just nod hello to.

Get enough sleep
As anybody who has staggered through a day on three hours of sleep can attest, a lack of rest will not oil your mental engine. And as it turns out, sleep deprivation can confer long-term effects too. A study out of University of California, Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab linked a deficit of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep with the memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The study found that beta-amyloid, a protein long thought to be associated with this form of dementia, collects in higher concentrations in the brains of people who regularly sleep poorly. Scarier still, as the deposits grow, people become less able to sleep well—which might exacerbate the condition. (Nota bene: Dr. Krakauer warns against jumping to the conclusion that extra sleep will make you smarter.)

Eat well
What we eat affects the body, brain included. Multiple studies have shown a correlation between a diet high in refined sugars and impaired brain function—as well as mood disorders. Last year a study out of Deakin University, The Australian National University, and University of New South Wales showed that low-nutrient food associated with lower volume of hippocampus, the portion of the brain associated with memory. There is some evidence that certain foods can aid memory. In 2014, a study out of Columbia University showed that people aged 50 to 69 who regularly drank a beverage high in cocoa flavanols performed better—or as well as people one or two decades younger—on a memory test than those who didn’t consume cocoa. (But don’t get carried away—to state the obvious, a healthy, nutrient-rich diet is going to do your brain more good than one that’s high in Kit Kat bars.)

Consider a high-tech treatment
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) are two forms of a radical yet increasingly popular treatment that uses an electric current weaker than those used in electroconvulsive therapy. Rather than completely disrupt a brain’s activity, the electric current in brain stimulation seems to make existing neurons more or less likely to fire. Typically used to treat depression and chronic pain, it has been shown to confer cognitive benefits. The exact mechanism remains mysterious, and is the subject of numerous studies currently underway.

Live well
There are no magic bullets, just growing evidence that there are ways to live smarter. “The one solid connection is what we’ve always known,” says Dr. Krakauer. “Get sleep, exercise, and lead a varied mental life. It might be boring, but there is no shortcut.” He points out the extended life spans of people who socialize and maintain friendships. “There’s evidence that isolation leads to depression, which can shorten life expectancy. So read novels, do crossword puzzles if you like them, but good lord, talk to your friends.” It’s not such a bad prescription, at least for those of us who are good with names.

 

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