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8 Introduction
11 Executive & Social 15 What
part of your brain causes you to respond as a unique individual? 23 Your
right frontal lobe registers negative emotions. 29 How
to read deceit. 33 DHEA may make the aging feel
young. 37 A type of logic puzzle that often applies
to real-life situations. 41 How to make yourself
feel happier without drugs 43 The night a middle-aged
man tackled his bureau in his sleep. 47 How self-conscious
are you? 51 If you're immoral and lazy, you may
not be able to blame your parents. 59 A genetic
clue to personality. 65 Physical exercise helps
the brain grow.
69 Memory 73 "Memory" is,
in fact, many processes that occur in different parts of
the brain. 77 Imagine a memory-enhancing drug that
would make you remember everything. 83 You can still
use some kinds of knowledge even if you don't know you
have them. 87 A major cause of forgetting. 91 If
you want to remember complex data, visualize it. Geniuses
do. 99 Background noises, including talk, affect
your ability to recall. 103 Why are stories easier
to recall than lists? 109 A little stress helps
memory. 115 "Now where did I put my Prozac?" 117 Can
challenging mental activity forestall age-related cognitive
decline? 123 As they age, most people tend to notice
problems with their "working" memory. 129 Normal
decline of very short-term memory shows up in some tests
of older people. 133 New hope for those at risk
for Alzheimer's.
137 Emotional 141 It's
cheaper than gin. 143 How distracting thoughts destroy
effective mood-control. 147 Self-illusions are good
for you. 153 How the brain recognizes fear. 157 "Watch
two Marx brothers movies and call me in the morning." 161 Would
you choose to be more sanguine if it were as easy as taking
an aspirin? 173 Why are women more affected by seasonal
fluctuations in day length? 177 What is the brain
so busy doing, and not doing, while we sleep? 185 Verbalizing
unpleasant experiences helps physical health. 189 Your
immune responses and your brain are linked together?
193 Language 197 Injuries
help to map the brain's language regions 201 A new
language area. 205 Women are more linguistically "balanced" than
men. 209 Cortisol - as destructive to the brain
as cholesterol is to the heart. 213 How a child
first begins to speak. 217 Educating babies. 219 Around
the turn of the first year. 221 The critical window
of opportunity. 225 The forbidden experiment. 229 The
tragic case of Genie from L.A. 235 New technology
for testing theories about language processing.
239 Math 243 Are
human infants born with number skills? 246 "Idiot" savants. 249 Brain-changing
nutrition and the post-lunch dip. 253 Lack of sleep
reduces problem-solving skills. 257 The genius who
thought in pictures but expressed his ideas in math. 261 The
magical number 7: How it limits us, and how we can overcome
it.
265 Spatial 269 Seeing
both the forest and the trees: Different parts of the brain
are specialized for different visual tasks. 273 Facial
recognition depends on visual-spatial processing by the
right side of your brain. 279 A gene for visual-spatial
ability. 283 Nicotine improves spatial memory, learning
and information processing. 289 "Blindsight," a
surprising finding, and other curiosities. 293 Seeing
without understanding: Visual object agnosia. 297 A
circadian rhythm and sunlight tell when to sleep.
301 Solutions
315 References
320 Credits
Take a nap. “Some of our most creative insights occur in our dreams,” says
Allen D. Bragdon, co-director of The BrainWaves Center
in Bass River, Massachusetts,
and co-author of Building Mental Muscle.
Exercise your brain. See how many
green vegetables you can name in 30 seconds (warms
up your memory–you
should get between 12 and 20). Count backwards by
7s without making a mistake (wakes up your concentration,
focus, and the left-hemisphere of your brain). Visualize
a route you take regularly and see how many turns
and
road signs you can remember (strengthens your visualization
process and the right hemisphere of your brain).
“The brain is basically lazy,” says Bragdon.
“You can’t do anything unless you focus.”
- exerpt from article in Modern Maturity, March
- April 2000
Media Commentary 1999 (page 2)
According to Allen Bragdon, director
of the Bass River, Massachusetts-based Brainwaves
Center, studies show that
exercises dubbed neurobics can actually keep your brain
healthy and prevent mental atrophy. Whenever you encounter
a new situation or challenge, you activate new brain
circuits, enhance neurotransmitter production, and
lengthen your neurons’ functional life span. Bragdon
has devised
brief cognitive exercises to stimulate activity between
your ears.
- featured in Across the Board magazine, March
2000
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