Building better brains

As I flipped through the latest Newsweek magazine over my cereal bowl this weekend, I found the feature article asking me: “Can you build a better brain?”

We have all experienced the patient who enters the clinic laden with a grocery sack full of the latest quick fixes. Hard-earned dollars spent on vitamin B, omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and all combinations of proprietary blends promising to make us smarter. To date, reliable research has not supported the claims of dietary supplements for enhancing cognitive function.

If exercise was on your list of New Year's resolutions, like it was on mine, we are on the right track. A 2010 study found that walking as little as 40 minutes three times a week can enhance the connectivity of important brain circuits, combat declines in brain function associated with aging, and increase performance on cognitive tasks.¹ (Great—I can now add cognitive decline to the lengthy list of reasons to feel guilty on the days I don't exercise.)

In addition to exercise, Newsweek author Sharon Begley encourages readers to enhance cognitive function with mindfulness and also by engaging in complex thinking tasks, including video games or brain training programs.

For myself, I will do the physical exercise and I think my life is sufficiently full of complex thinking tasks. As both a primary care clinician and a PA educator, my patients and students keep me on my toes daily. So I am left sitting here contemplating my soggy cereal. What is mindfulness? I have engaged in yoga, visited a few ashrams and meditation centers over the years, and heard a psychologist lecture on the use of mindfulness as a treatment for chronic pain; but I can't say I have a solid grasp on the concept or the practice of mindfulness.

So I amend my resolutions for 2011, I am going to commit this year to mindfulness. To explore the meaning in more depth, to seek out someone who knows more about it than I do, and most importantly, to just be still in body and mind for a few minutes every day. In the complex role of a PA, it is the default to get wrapped up in the chaos and to just go and go and go and go. I wonder how my brain might change in the quiet, but for now I've gotta run….

REFERENCE

1. Voss MW, Prakash RS, Erickson KI, et al. Plasticity of brain networks in a randomized intervention trial of exercise training in older adults. Front Ag Neurosci. 2010;2:32.