Boost Your Brain (7 page)

Brain Reserve in Action

You know when your brain isn’t functioning well. And when it is. In peak shape, your brain can perform with incredible efficiency and effectiveness—recalling memories quickly and accurately, solving problems, and thinking creatively. Each part of the brain chugs away independently while at the same time communicating and coordinating with other parts of the brain in a way that’s as beautiful as it is mysterious.

A brain operating at its worst, on the other hand, isn’t a pretty sight. It makes poor decisions, is stumped by challenges, and lacks creativity. The results are far-reaching. Your brain, after all, is behind every function your body engages in. From each breath you take, to the words you speak, to the complex decisions you make each day. Your brain is at work when it tells your arm to lift your toothbrush to your mouth; it’s at work when you choose to pour milk, instead of orange juice, on your cereal; it’s at work when you decide to hold your tongue rather than blurt out a snarky comment about your boss’s work habits.

At every stage of life, how well your brain functions will affect how well you function—at home, in relationships, at work, at play. There’s a circular aspect at work, too: a poorly functioning brain might make decisions—on what to eat, how much to sleep, how active to be, or how much alcohol to consume—that reduce your ability to make good decisions. The result: more bad decisions.

If you’re not yet convinced, consider these two drastically different variations of a day in the life of Martina, a mid-level manager working for a large insurance company.

In the first scenario, we have a seriously brain-drained Martina, whose unhealthy lifestyle has left her chronically sleep deprived, overweight, short on physical activity, and perpetually trying to catch up.

On this day, Martina oversleeps by a full thirty minutes, courtesy of her insomnia and anxiety over a work problem, which have kept her awake on and off throughout the night. Groggy, frustrated, and short on time, Martina rushes her children to the bus stop and then races to her car, choosing by default to skip breakfast at home in favor of a muffin from her favorite coffee shop. Stopping for coffee puts her a little further behind schedule. Frazzled, she decides to take a “shortcut” to work, forgetting that road construction is under way and will make her even later. Gripping the steering wheel tightly, she silently seethes, blaming her predicament on her husband’s failure to help around the house. She would have been on time, she thinks, if he’d taken charge of prepping the kids for school.

By the time she gets to work, she’s annoyed, stressed, and feeling already behind schedule. She sits down at her desk and opens an e-mail from a coworker who tends to butt heads with others. Irritated, she forwards it to a friend with a sarcastic comment about the original sender. But instead of hitting forward, Martina has actually hit reply. She realizes her mistake immediately and spends the rest of the morning trying to undo the damage. Feeling distracted and disappointed in herself, Martina attempts to prepare for a presentation she must give but finds herself lacking the creative juice the task requires. Hoping to complete it anyway, she skips lunch and spends the hour writing and rewriting the same four paragraphs.

The rest of the day doesn’t go much better. At 3:00
P.M.
she fields a teary call from her daughter, who’d rushed out of the house without the cleats she needed for after-school soccer. Feeling guilty, Martina dashes home, then to school to deliver the shoes, and then back to work. Hours later, Martina is rushing again, this time to make it home in time to feed the family. On the way, she picks up pizza and a six-pack of sugary soft drinks.

Ahead of her is another two hours of work, which she completes on her laptop while lying in bed. Then she’s in for another night of interrupted sleep. The next day will unfold much like this one, with Martina feeling perpetually behind the ball, mentally fuzzy, and uninspired.

Now, let’s imagine Martina under a different set of circumstances, leading a life that has boosted her brain. Martina sleeps soundly and awakens on time, feeling refreshed. In fact, she has the time and energy to cook a healthy breakfast for herself and her children. Before she leaves for work, Martina remembers to pack her daughter’s cleats and then walks her children to the bus stop. On the way, she enjoys their childish chatter and snags a hug and kiss from each.

In the car, Martina remembers that road construction has made her usual shortcut anything but short, so she opts for another route instead. She arrives at work on time and ready to tackle the day’s challenges. Opening an e-mail from that annoying colleague, she keeps her frustration in check and responds with a professional reply. In her interactions with colleagues, she’s upbeat and savvy. She remembers to ask a coworker about his father’s recent surgery and to call a client by the nickname he prefers. Her positive energy won’t go unnoticed by her boss, nor will her creativity and problem-solving abilities, which will help propel her up the corporate ladder.

At lunch, she heads out of the office for a thirty-minute power walk and returns feeling energized. In the midafternoon, she takes a break for ten minutes of breathing exercises, followed by a cup of herbal tea. She finds herself feeling revived at 4:00
P.M.
and sends a flirty text to her husband. Glancing at her planner, Martina notes that she has to leave the office at 5:30
P.M.,
so she can get home in time to cook a brain-healthy meal and then arrive on time for a monthly book club meeting. She powers through a stack of paperwork. At 5:32
P.M.,
she slips the key into her car’s ignition.

At home, Martina’s husband and kids share the details of their day over a meal of salmon, spinach, and brown rice. Then Martina’s off to her book club meeting. She’ll be home in time to cap off the evening with her husband and will be fast asleep by 10:00
P.M
.

Of course, even the fittest of brains can fumble on occasion, so the Martina of the second scenario isn’t in for a life that’s completely error-proof. But she’s clearly running on a full eight cylinders, performing at her cognitive peak with results most people would envy.

How does she do it? Martina’s enhanced cognitive performance is no accident. Achieving it took a concerted effort—boosting BDNF, increasing oxygen flow, and promoting healthy brain activity in ways that fueled the core four of brain growth.

How can you do it? You’re about to find out.

Epigenetics: Nurture Alters Nature

You probably know someone who is remarkably good at remembering trivia. Or who can juggle numbers with ease, and without a calculator. Or who can grasp the meaning of complex notions well before his or her peers.

Some people are better at understanding and learning how to play a musical instrument; some are better at athletic pursuits; some are better at expressing themselves through language. Some are quick thinkers; others are not.

In part, these skills are based on the genes you inherited from your parents. That’s nature. And it’s important. Nature, which accounts for the color of your eyes or your blood type or whether you’re male or female, also accounts for some of the basic cognitive abilities you’re born with.

But perhaps even more important is nurture, or your environment, which affects how your genes express themselves—a phenomenon called epigenetics.

To understand how epigenetics works, imagine the brain of a violin prodigy. If we could examine it, we’d likely see that the part of her brain that handles music is more developed than it would be in the brain of her non-musical peer. She was likely born with an affinity for understanding music—that’s nature—but as she developed her musical skills with regular and intensive practice, the parts of the brain responsible for playing the violin also developed and grew more (hello, nurture) than if she never had practiced.

Our violinist can put nurture to work growing other parts of her brain, too. For example, practicing memorization skills will make her better able to recall the names of composers, or her friends’ phone numbers, or even her credit card number. Even though she was not born with any particular genes related to exceptional memory, she can still become a memory champion.

CHAPTER THREE

Creating Your Twelve-Week Plan

I
F YOU’VE PICKED UP
this book, you’re probably on a mission. You want to think more clearly and boost your memory and creativity, now and in the future. To do so, you’ll need to look at your brain in a new light—as a vital organ that needs the same care and consideration you give your heart, your skin, even your teeth! Your ability to grow it rests on maximizing factors that grow the brain (coming up in part II) and minimizing factors that shrink the brain (coming up in part IV).

I see patients much like you at my Brain Center. Some are young and relatively cognitively healthy but in search of ways to sharpen their thinking. Others are older and hoping to ward off Alzheimer’s disease. Still others are already struggling with persistent memory problems or mental slowness or with the cognitive effects of a serious condition, such as a traumatic brain injury, stroke, or depression.

Almost all—even the relatively healthy ones—are surprised to discover the extent to which they’re shrinking their brains through their lifestyle choices. They have no idea of the true cost of the donut they had for breakfast, or the five hours of sleep they consistently survive on, or the high-stress career they’ve chosen. They’ll soon learn all about such brain shrinkers. And they’ll also learn exactly how to
grow
their brains—by adopting prescribed habits that range from walking five days a week, to daily mindfulness, to enriching their diet with brain growers, such as DHA or resveratrol.

Many are eager to enroll in my twelve-week brain fitness program. Once I’ve explained to them the dynamics of growing their brains, I hand patients a pocket-size booklet they’ll use to track their progress. We call it a “passport.” It’s a fitting reference because this passport not only traces a person’s journey to a bigger brain, but it is also his or her entrée to a new world of brain fitness. This book is your passport. Through it you will create your own customized twelve-week plan, outlining in detail the exact steps you’ll need to take each week to arrive at your destination—a bigger brain and the enhanced memory, clarity, and creativity that come with it.

Each step of the plan is based on my experience in seeing thousands of patients and on my in-depth research into the latest discoveries in neuroscience. The goal is creating a thicker, denser, healthier cortex and hippocampus—by boosting BDNF, increasing oxygen flow to the brain, and maximizing healthy brain activity.

I’ll begin where I start with all my patients: getting them—and now you—into the mind-set to sculpt a bigger, stronger brain in twelve weeks.

Get in the Zone (and Aim High!)

From my very early years, my father assured me that I would one day be successful. In fact, he sort of demanded it. “You are going to be a prominent scientist, a professor who is known worldwide. You will speak seven languages. You will win the Nobel Prize,” he would boldly declare.

These were lofty goals, but he said them as if he believed them. And he made believing them a part of my life. When I was a kindergartner, he would lead me out of our home to his sky-blue Volkswagen Beetle, open the door for me and, with a sweeping arc of his arm, usher me into the backseat. “After you, Dr. Fotuhi,” he would say, signaling to me the future I might expect if I achieved my goals. I would clamber into the backseat and he would gently draw a comb through my hair, straighten my collar, and brush imaginary lint off my imaginary suit jacket. In that moment, I
was
on top of the world, at least in my mind’s eye.

The Nobel Prize is still a part of my dreams. But I did go on to become a doctor, speak five languages, and lead the sort of life my father had envisioned for me. What got me there? Was it luck? Maybe. But a large part of achieving those objectives was setting clear and specific goals and having the passion and motivation to propel myself ever forward toward them.

You can do the same.

First, you’ll need to set goals. Then you need to become excited about them. Think about why you want to grow your brain. Do you want to be more effective at work so you can get a promotion or advance your career? Do you want to stop forgetting names so you feel more comfortable in social situations? Or think more clearly so you’re more effective in juggling your family’s schedule? Are you worried about Alzheimer’s disease and want to ensure you’re mentally sharp enough to beat your grandchildren at their computer games? Whatever your goals may be, they’re far more likely to be achieved with a bigger brain. I assure you that, once you complete your twelve-week plan, you
will
have better memory, clarity, and creativity.

With that in mind, write down three chief goals in your life (be specific):

1.______________________________

2.______________________________

3.______________________________

Now it’s time to find that passion. Look two years down the road. Imagine that every day you are boosting blood flow to your brain, churning out BDNF, and chugging along in optimal brain wave territory. Picture yourself greeting each day with energy and tackling your tasks with more creativity, clearer thinking, and a better memory. You’ve changed your lifestyle—and boosted your brain. Picture yourself remembering everyone’s name at the office Christmas party. Or finally feeling fully on top of your children’s ever-changing schedules. Or winning your dream job. Imagine yourself at eighty taking a college course, just for the fun of it. Or at seventy writing a book, just because you can. Picture yourself healthy and strong and thinking like a man or woman ten years younger.