Boosting Brain Power
With a lot in the news at the moment on cognitive enhancers it would be suitable to look at what boosts your brain performance.
First a quick look at cognitive enhancers which is quickly becoming a key phrase. The key driver behind this is, of course, good old human nature. Why on earth develop your brain if you can swallow a few pills and get the same effect? Why not indeed? Well let’s very quickly look at what cognitive enhancers do but more importantly how the brain processes information.
With a lot in the news at the moment on cognitive enhancers it would be suitable to look at what boosts your brain performance.
First a quick look at cognitive enhancers which is quickly becoming a key phrase. The key driver behind this is. of course, good old human nature. Why on earth develop your brain if you can swallow a few pills and get the same effect? Why not indeed? Well let’s look very quickly at what cognitive enhancers do but more importantly how the brain processes information.
Cognitive enhancers
Cognitive enhancers are brain stimulants, however, many drugs would fall into this category including many that are illegal. A better term may be Nootrpoic. Nootropics should:
1. Enhance learning and memory.
2. Enhance the resistance of learned behaviors/memories to conditions which tend to disrupt them (e.g. electroconvulsive shock, hypoxia).
3. Protect the brain against various physical or chemical injuries (e.g. barbiturates, scopalamine).
4. Increase the efficacy of the tonic cortical/subcortical control mechanisms.
5. Lack the usual pharmacology of other psychotropic drugs (e.g. sedation, motor stimulation) and possess very few side effects and extremely low toxicity.
Which is a tall order for any sort of supplement.
The Brain
The brain consists of 100 billion neurons each with up to 50,000 connections. And it is this which gives you the power of mental thought. What wires together fires together is an old adage in neuroscience. And more couldn’t be truer. Simple meaning if you haven’t used your brain it won’t work. So the best cognitive enhancer there is, is to use your brain that simple! Drugs and chemicals cannot replace that.
Best ways to use your brain: social interaction - this is a complex process and is incredibly health for the brain in many areas. So socialise. Better still do some exercise. Exercise is brain training pure - better still learn something new - a new sport which involves balance, coordination and socializing. A dancing course will be much, much more effective in building a powerful healthy brain than any pill you can take. Note that there has been plenty of “brain jogging” types of software flooding the market making extravagant claims on boosting mental power. The research does NOT support this - but on the positive side, it is certainly better than doing nothing. Use it or you will lose it.
Research into mediation is also unanimous. It increases synchrony and has even been shown to grow parts of the brains. Other important aspects are better control and better attention while allowing the mind to take in more information. Instead of popping a pill after lunch a few calm reflective moments may be even more powerful and definitely healthier.
Now the brain uses various chemicals to produce electricity and the various hormones that are released into your body. So yes chemicals will change the chemical composition of what is happening in your brain. But that also means that simply anything that you put into your body will influence the chemical balance. Or put even more simply whatever you eat. Again amazingly simple: eat well and you will increase your cognitive functioning. Try eating a bar of chocolate, wait 45 minutes and see how well your brain is functioning compared to eating a few pieces of fruit. After the chocolate, after the initial buzz your brain and thinking will be heavy as insulin is pumped into your bloodstream. Cognitive enhancer supreme is fresh healthy food. Boring I know, but true.
So in a very short article it is easy to see that yes, drugs can give you a boost but they will never be able to give you a healthy balanced brain. That only comes with using it and we’re maybe forgetting the 2 most common cognitive enhancers we already have, caffeine and nicotine (both of which all doctors recommend NOT using!). I’m not saying there is not place for cognitive enhancers - but rather see them as similar to headache pills - if you have a headache, a pill is fine but if you keep popping the pills something else is wrong that needs to be fixed.
So to sum up the best ways to help brain power are:
1 Eat healthily
2 Meditate
3 Learn something new
4 Exercise
5 Socialize
6 Most importantly keep using your brain, if you replace brain power with pills you will be killing your cognitive power long term!!!
And a side note is that also remember that you genes can be activated by what you do and eat. But the more important aspects are the side effects of doing the above:
a happy healthy life, with plenty of friends, varied interests, good health, less sickness & illness, reduced mental disease such as dementia and more intelligence. It’s your choice!
Tags: neuroleadership, neuroscience, intelligence