Worry and Brain Fitness
An interesting article appeared in the New York Times over the weekend. The article by Katie Hafner is titled “Exercise Your Brain or Else You’ll . . .Uh . . .” You can find the original article here (registration is required, but is free).
The article recounts several incidents in which people over 50 had troubling memory problems. One man, for example, couldn’t remember his own address when he went to send a package, and a woman who couldn’t locate her cell phone later found it in the refrigerator. Do these kinds of memory lapses mean that these persons have serious memory problems? The answer is, “It depends.” One memory lapse doesn’t mean very much. But a pattern of memory problems over a period to time may mean that someone’s memory isn’t as good as it used to be. Even if that’s true, though, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a person has a serious brain illness such as Alzheimer’s disease. Only a complete evaluation by a well-trained clinician can make that decision.
One issue the article highlights is how people over 50 or so may be more concerned than younger people about memory lapses. Put simply, people over 50 are more likely to worry about brain fitness. I have the pleasure of working with several young people in the Center on Aging. I notice that they may have memory lapses, but they don’t worry about them nearly as much as some of the people who come to our Memory Disorders Clinic for evaluation of their memory. They’re young, and if they forget something they don’t automatically worry about it. For them, it’s just a lapse. For someone over 50, the same kind of lapse is ground for worry. I’m not suggesting that if you’re over 50 and you’re worried (or your spouse and family are worried) about your memory you shouldn’t do something about it. I am suggesting that people over 50 may worry more about their memories. The New York Times article goes on to talk about how worry about cognitive fitness and cognitive decline or memory problems is feeding interest in brain fitness software.
If you’re worried about your memory, the best thing to do is find a qualified clinician who can complete a screening evaluation. Tests of memory and other cognitive abilities can help you find out where you stand in relation to other persons who are similar to you. This can help you decide whether your memory problem needs to be treated. And if you have a memory problem, a knowledgeable clinician may help you find out what’s causing it. Some memory problems are caused by problems such as mood problems, stress, or other treatable conditions. Getting the treatment you need may help.
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Mindfulness meditation as practiced over a long period by experts makes clear changes in someone’s brain function. But what about those of us who don’t have a few years to sit in a monastery in the Himalayas? A new study shows that even brief meditation practice can improve attention.
Researchers at Wake Forest University studied whether just four days of training (at just 20 minutes a day) could make a difference in participants’ mood, energy, and cognition. Undergraduate students (average age 22 years) either participated in the meditation sessions or spent a similar amount of time sitting quietly and listening to an audio book.
Participants in the meditation condition showed decreases in anxiety and improvements in several mental processing tasks compared to those in the audio book group. The meditators’ performance on one aspect of a working memory task (how many answers they got correct in a row) suggested that they may have improved their attention.
This is a small and very preliminary study that extends others’ work on meditation and the brain.It shows that even brief meditation practice can make a difference. you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk to learn to still your mind and pay better attention. Paying attention may be one of the most important things you can do to improve your brain’s functioning.
Reference:
Zeidan F et al.(in press) Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental training. Consciousness and Cognition, doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.03.014
I saw an interesting blog post yesterday evening on the site of the Huffington Post about the potential benefits of meditation – or at least about what one woman thinks might be the benefits. Priscilla Warner writes about the contrast between Tibetan monks’ apparent calm, evident even on brain scans, and her own anxiety disorder. Ms. Warner says that she suffers from panic disorder, a severe form of anxiety in which a person can have multiple anxiety attacks every day, even in the middle of the night. Her post is titled “I Want the Brain of a Monk” Although most people don’t suffer from anxiety this severe, many people have symptoms of anxiety. And research has consistently shown that higher levels of anxiety are related to more memory problems.
What’s the relation to brain fitness? In my brain fitness class, I often mention the usefulness of meditation in helping reduce stress and anxiety, both of which have negative effects on memory. You don’t have to go to Tibet to get the benefits of meditation. If you simply take 10 minutes several times a day to break in to the ongoing rush of getting things done, you’ve made a start. Use those 10 minutes to sit quietly, relax your muscles, and breathe deeply.
If you do that every day for two weeks, I think you’ll notice that you feel calmer and better able to focus. And if you’re better able to focus, you will be better able to pay attention and remember things.
Although many people are excited about the potential for using computers to train their brains, we shouldn’t forget that other techniques have been used to the train the brain for many centuries. I’m thinking about the large number of techniques for meditation. While free computer software still requires an investment in a computer, meditation only asks you to sit or lie quietly and focus your mind.
A recently-published study shows parts of the brain in long-term meditators are larger than the same parts of the brain in people who don’t meditate. The article by Eileen Luders and her colleagues appeared in a recent issue of the journal Neuroimage (Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 672-678, April 15, 2009). The study showed that portions of the orbitofrontal cortex and the hippocampus were larger in persons who had been regular meditators for 5 or more years. The study is interesting because the parts of the brain that were larger are often thought to be important in helping people keep themselves emotionally balanced.
A number of strategies are likely to be helpful for meditators. There has been a great deal of interest over the last several years in mindfulness meditation. Researchers have studied how it can be used in reducing anxiety and depression. Mindfulness is based on Buddhist meditation (for a brief article, click here) but you don’t have to be a Buddhist to practice meditation. In fact, one of the most important persons who has promoted mindfulness is Jon Kabat-Zinn, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts. You can see a video presentation by him on YouTube by clicking here.
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