Neurological Wellness

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We expect the ability of our joints and lungs to slowly decline as we age, but the thought of our minds doing the same is intolerable. Here are some top prevention tips worth their weight in wits, plus a few to forget. Do something! Scientists are starting to think that regular aerobic exercise may be the single most important thing you can do for the long-term health of your brain. While the heart and lungs respond loudly to a sprint on the treadmill, the brain is quietly getting fitter with each step, too. For mental fitness, aim for at least 30 minutes of physical activity every other day.

Too much or too little energy throws a kink in the brain’s delicate machinery. A low glycemic diet — high fiber, with moderate amounts of fat and protein — is broken down more slowly in the body than high glycemic foods, such as sweets and white starches. A steady pace of digestion in the gut gives a more reliable flow of energy to the brain, likely optimizing the organ’s long-term health and performance. While overindulging can make the brain sluggish and lead to long-term detriments to your brain, too few calories can also impair brain function. Extreme dieting can cause some diehards to feel stretches of calm — a feeling that may underlie the addiction of anorexia — but many studies have also linked dieting with distraction, confusion and memory impairment.

Largely preventable diseases — such as Type II diabetes, obesity and hypertension — all affect your brain, too. System-wide health concerns have been linked to an increased risk of cognitive decline and memory impairments. Keeping your circulatory system in working order, by, say, avoiding cigarettes and saturated fat, lessens the onslaught of age-related damage to the brain.

When we rest and dream, memories are sifted through, some discarded, others consolidated and saved. When we don't sleep, a recent study found, proteins build up on synapses, possibly making it hard to think and learn new things. Furthermore, chronically sleeping poorly in contrast to not enough is linked to cognitive decline in old age, although the relationship may not be causal.

Growing evidence suggests a caffeine habit may protect the brain. According to large longitudinal studies, two to four perk-me-ups a day may stave off normal cognitive decline and decrease the incidence of Alzheimer's by 30 to 60 percent. It is unclear whether the benefits come from caffeine or the antioxidants found in coffee and tea, but that latte may improve cognition this afternoon and several decades from now.

Some theories credit the introduction of fish into the human diet with the evolution of our tremendous cognitive prowess. Essential fatty acids, such as Omega-3, are critical to brain function and are proving beneficial for treating such brain-sapping ailments as depression. Studies on the efficacy of Omega-3 supplements, however, have had mixed results, so get doses from food sources, such as flax seeds, fatty fish and grass-fed animals.

Stress takes a toll on the brain by washing harmful chemicals over the hippocampus and other brain areas involved in memory. Scientists suspect that living a balanced lifestyle and pursuing relaxing activities such as yoga, socializing and crafting may delay memory impairment by reducing stress.

Supplements have been getting a bad rap recently, with even the familiar multivitamin now looking like a waste of money — or worse. Brain pills, such as ginkgo and melatonin, likely belong in the trash as well. Despite their "natural" origins, they are not free of potential side effects, such as high blood pressure, digestion trouble, fertility problems and depression, and among healthy individuals, ginkgo offers no brain benefits beyond that of a placebo.

Crossword puzzles and other brain teasers actually keep your brain in shape has not been well-established. However, lack of education is a strong predictor of cognitive decline. The more you've tried to learn, the better you'll be at mental sit-ups in old age. The key may be tackling something new; the challenge of the unknown is likely more beneficial than putting together the same jigsaw puzzle over and over again.

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Bilinguals & Brains

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Older adults who have spoken two languages since childhood are quicker at switching between cognitive tasks than single-language adults, a new study finds. The bilingual seniors also showed distinct patterns of brain activity not seen in monolingual participants. The findings, detailed in tomorrow's issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, suggest certain mental activities do, indeed, benefit individuals as they age. This study provides some of the first evidence of an association between a particular cognitively stimulating activity like speaking multiple languages on a daily basis, and brain function.

Recent research has suggested speaking two languages could keep one's cognitive flexibility, or the ability to adapt to new, often unfamiliar, situations, from declining, something thought to happen with age. To test the idea in an aging population, Brian Gold and his colleagues at the University Of Kentucky College Of Medicine scanned the brains of 30 healthy bilingual and monolingual adults ages 60-68. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging, which shows blood flow to brain regions in real time. An increase in blood flow to a specific brain region signals that region is likely becoming more active. While their brains were being scanned, participants completed a task to measure their cognitive flexibility called a color-shape task-switching game. The participants were shown one of two possible shapes (square or circle) in one of two colors (red or blue) at the center of a screen. In some instances participants had to name the color of the flashed image, in others the shape and in others the task switched back and forth from participants needing to indicate color to shape.

Both groups performed the task accurately, though bilingual individuals were faster than monolinguals. The brain scans suggested bilingual participants expended less energy in the brain's frontal cortex thought to be involved in such task switching. This suggests that bilingual seniors use their brains more efficiently than monolingual seniors. To find out when this cognitive benefit from bilingualism kicked in, the researchers ran the same experiment on younger participants with an average age of 31. As expected, younger adults were faster than older ones at completing the task. However, bilingual younger adults did no better than monolingual individuals on the task. These results suggest that lifelong bilingualism may exert its strongest benefits on the functioning of frontal brain regions in aging.

In fact, another study showed the brains of bilingual adults functioned better and for longer after individuals developed Alzheimer's disease; the bilinguals were also diagnosed with the disease about four years later, on average, than those who spoke just one language. Bilingualism can benefit even infants, with one study showing bilingual 7-month-olds more quickly adapted to different learning cues than babies from single-language households. The bilingual babies were spoken to in two languages by parents. Janet Werker, a psychologist at Vancouver's University of British Columbia, has found learning two languages can confer babies with cognitive advantages, such as special auditory and visual sensitivity.

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Sunrise with Ice Water Snow Reflection

Social Motivation, Reward and the Roots of Autism

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Social decisions are crucial for the success of individuals and the groups that they comprise. Group members respond vicariously to benefits obtained by others, and impairments in this capacity contribute to neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism and sociopathy. The manner in which neurons in three frontal cortical areas determine the outcomes of social decisions as monkeys performed a reward-allocation task was examined and it was discovered that neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex predominantly encoded rewards that were delivered to oneself. Neurons in the anterior cingulate gyrus encoded reward allocations to the other monkey, to oneself or to both. Neurons in the anterior cingulate sulcus signaled reward allocations to the other monkey or to no one. In this network of received orbitofrontal cortex and foregone anterior cingulate gyrus reward signaling, anterior cingulate gyrus emerged as an important link for the process of shared experience and social reward. Individual and species-specific variations in social decision-making might result from the relative activation and influence of these areas.

Social cohesion depends on vicarious identification with members of one’s group. In social situations, we are aware of our actions and their consequences, but also consider those of others, especially those with whom we might interact. We also estimate the internal states of others, perhaps by simulation, which in turn shapes our future actions. Social situations can drive observational learning, and other regarding preferences influence neural computations that ultimately result in cooperation, altruism or spite. Disruptions of neural circuits involved in other regarding processes may underlie social deficits attending neuropsychiatric conditions like autism. Human imaging and clinical studies have found critical links between social deficits and abnormal brain activity in frontal cortex and its subcortical targets.

The study implemented a reward-allocation task in pairs of rhesus macaques while recording from single neurons in three critical nodes in the decision-making network, namely the anterior cingulate gyrus, anterior cingulate sulcus and orbitofrontal cortex. The study capitalized on monkeys’ willingness to engage with a social partner via an interposed computer system while simultaneously controlling the sensory and reward environment. The study specifically matched choices for the reward outcomes directly received by the actor monkey (decision maker) and controlled for potential secondary acoustic reinforcement effects associated with delivering juice to the recipient monkey. In these conditions, study found regional biases in the encoding of social decision outcomes with respect to self and another individual. In this network of received orbitofrontal cortex and foregone anterior cingulate cortex reward signals, anterior cingulate gyrus emerged as an important link for the computation of shared experience and social reward.

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Three Primordial Principles of Matter

According to the Vedic view of creation, there are three fundamental principles that control everything: birth, life, and death. Everything has a beginning, middle, and an end. The Vedas call these three fundamental principles namely principles of creation, principles of maintaining, and principles of concluding or ending. These tendencies are seen in our personalities. Some people like to create ideas, food, or companies. Some like to manage and keep an idea or business alive. Still others have the task of removing old, broken, unworkable things, ideas or institutions. Just as food grows and stays fresh for a time and then becomes inedible, so too are people are born, live, and die. Careers begin and end.

Everything in creation is under the influence of these three laws. The secret to peace and spiritual bliss is to go beyond the three fundamental principles. What does this mean? How can a person go beyond something that controls all material existence? The answer is to switch one’s focus from material life to one’s spiritual nature. While principles of creation create all of material life, it is God who has created the three fundamental principles. In the beginning there was God, and He said, let there be creation. So God created the three fundamental principles to sustain creation and remove those things that would get in the way of maintaining it.

One may wonder how a person, who is composed of matter, can go beyond the three principles of matter. Here, we are speaking of the person as the Soul. The person is not merely the matter that houses the Soul, but is the Soul. Imagine three brothers; Sat, Roger, and Tom Goona. They want to start a computer software company named Goo-Na. It was Sat’s idea, and he did all the groundwork to get the company up and going. He got Good Ol’ Dad (G.O.D.), venture capitalists, to loan them the startup funds. But since Sat loses interest in the daily activities and likes to move on to create some more dot-com startup companies, Roger was the perfect choice to run the company. Roger doesn’t have much creative sense, so he was happy that Sat started the company; Roger’s God-gifts lie in management and organization skills. So he runs the day-to-day operation. Sat and Roger talked Tom into leaving his job at his salvage company and use his cleanup skills for their new company. Some of Tom’s responsibilities will be clearing out old computers, furniture, cell phones, cars, software, and so on, since the company must stay on the leading edge of technology and fashion to impress the clients. Tom also has the personality to compassionately deal with people when they must be let go. He is also in charge of disbanding parts of companies that their company takes over.

The people who work at Goo-Na have enjoyed their jobs, their salaries support their families, and everything runs smoothly. As the company becomes larger and more powerful, the brothers, human nature being what it is, begin to lose their idealistic focus. Roger becomes power hungry, that is to say, busy with hostile takeover attempts. Tom has become lazy and sloppy, not clearing out old inventory, not showing up for work, preferring to sit and watch plasma screen TV 28 all day and Sat, well, he spends all of his time either creating new companies or reading scripture and meditating.

As a result, corporate ethics has slipped and customers are not getting quality products. Creative ideas to serve humanity have fallen by the wayside. Other companies are being harassed where they were previously community partners, and there are even some financial scandals afoot. There remains one employee, Archie, who joined the company, and who is still inspired by its idealistic mission statement; however, he is quite upset that the company is not allowing him to truly help society. No one listens to his creative ideas. When he tries to talk to any of the brothers, they ignore him. Archie is stuck, trapped by the three brothers. The only way to get out of this predicament is to go over the heads of the three brothers. For this, he has to go to the only place that has influence on Brothers, that is to say, venture capitalists. Venture capitalists hold the purse strings and decide whether to continue funding this company. Since Archie alerted Venture capitalists about the loss of vision at the company, Venture capitalists may be able to bring integrity, ethics, and compassion back into this company by threatening to close them down; that is to say, stop funding them. As a result of Archie’s devotion to helping people, Venture capitalists succeeded in putting the company back on track.

This story gives a brief idea of how the three principles of matter work. Satwa creates life. Rajas keep things going. Tamas concludes the life cycle. To avoid getting caught up in material life and really know the eternal, non-changing Divine bliss, we are advised to go beyond the three principles of matter and to directly seek God. It may be easier to understand the value of spiritual devotion versus material ideas, through another analogy. A person can have a pile of wood, a box of iron, various tools, some plot of earth. They can even assemble these materials into a living structure. But only when a person, couple or family lives there, does the structure begin to feel like a home, a place filled with love and something beyond a mere object.

The other important point is, we need not unduly strain to achieve the results of our action, while simultaneously avoiding under-acting or being inactive. Merely sitting doing nothing, keeps one from being involved on an external level only; it does not free the mind and feelings from such desires. There is a myth that the path to Self-Realization is one of renouncing action, but this is incorrect. It is renouncing the desire for the result of action and not acting in itself. One has to release the desire for rewards of our actions culminating in Self-Realization.

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I Am Who I Am; No More, No Less

You are upset for having to have some confrontation, some choice to make, to stand up for what you feel is right, even when it means going against loved ones, family, friends, or bosses and co-workers! Although, what you think seems wise, it is not: you know no one confronts anyone. People are Souls, not bodies. Souls are eternal, bodies only house the Soul. The truly wise mourn neither for the friend nor the family. Just as the Soul remains in the body as it changes from childhood to old age. So, too, the Soul remains as we change from one body to another.

Remember that we experience physical sensations such as heat and cold, pleasure and pain through our senses. They are temporal, because they have a beginning and an ending. These experiences will eventually pass. If the mind is focused solely on ever-changing sensory experiences, it will not be possible to quiet the mental chatter long enough to realize one’s eternal Soul. That which is real, is non-changing is eternal; that which is unreal is nonpermanent. So the ever-changing world can be said to be nonexistent, because it is not permanent. Only the Soul can be said to exist, because it is the one thing that does not change. Knowing that the Souls of those you love are eternal and cannot ever die, fight this injustice.

The Soul is eternal; it always existed, and always will exist. It doesn’t move, create, or change anything. So if a person is really the Soul, how can the Soul-Person be confronted if the Soul doesn’t do anything other than exist? When clothes wear out, we don’t grieve too much about it; we simply buy new clothes. So too, the body is a covering for the Soul to wear in order for Self-Realization to have a form to realize its true eternal Soul. So when the body becomes old and unable to be a sturdy home for the Soul, the Soul casts off the old worn-out body and takes on a new one to continue the path to realize one’s true eternal nature.

Now, if this talk of Soul is too abstract, let us think from the mundane vantage; even from this view, there is no cause for grieving. From the point of view of life and death, we know that everything is born, lives, and eventually dies. So why grieve over the inevitable? If you should confront a course you feel is unethical, defending the helpless or the righteous, if you are disliked for doing your life-purpose, your God-given duties, then you shall go to heaven. If you are victorious, you shall enjoy heaven on earth. So for all these reasons resolve your mind and heart and fight the good fight knowing the true permanent nature of the Soul and the ever-changing and impermanent nature of life and see no difference between pleasure and pain, and winning and losing. Focus on the eternal, focus on inevitability, focus on duty, and you cannot incur sin. Sin is a function of the ever-changing world. It occurs when you focus on or get stuck in the relative world: this is sin. Acting beyond change, acting for eternity, takes you beyond sin. This is known as Self-Realization.

Now the spiritual kernel of Vedic philosophy is presented in the mechanics of how bondage is caused and how one can remove the bonds to realize their true nature, the eternal Soul. Let us now talk about yoga the action that merges the inner self with the universal Self, the realization of this eternal nature of Self. If you are sincere, even a small amount of time devoted to yoga delivers you from fear. For this wisdom will free you from the bondage of actions of cause and effect. Focus on your goals, or on the things that must be done without distraction. Avoid people’s words spoken or written just because they sound nice; that is, if they are the words of a charismatic person or a sweet talker. Listen to the essence or substance of what is being communicated for true value.

Some people only do good to gain fame and power. Some aim for heaven; a temporary resting place before returning to earth for continuing on the path of Self-Realization, rather than aim to realize their eternal life. Some people use knowledge as power or prestige or to gain wealth. How many people do you see worshipping knowledge above all else; above ethics, spirit, or compassion. In our modern age, intellectual knowledge is prized over common experience. The Vedic notion is that the highest, most important knowledge is Self-knowledge, because it is the only permanent knowledge. If a person does not seek this permanence, then of what value is intellectual knowledge? If this knowledge does not provide a lasting experience, what good is it? So Krishna says that even the most spiritual of books are only words unless they provide an eternal experience; that is a very profound view of the priority of one’s relationship with their Soul compared to the relevance of spiritual books.

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Facts for God

The physicist Leo Szilard once told a friend he intended to keep a diary "to record the facts for God." "Don't you think God knows the facts?" his friend asked. "Yes," said Szilard, "He knows the facts, but He does not know this version of the facts…Who has not had some confrontation, some choice to make, to stand up for what they feel is right, even when it means going against loved ones, family, friends, or bosses and co-workers? Here are just a few examples of the same situation that occurs in modern life. What do you do when you learn your company or boss is cheating the employees, the country, harming the earth or the citizens? What does a student do when their friend tells them about some mischievous plans they have to deface their school, or worse, to harm students at school? What do you do when a beloved relative, friend or teacher suddenly chooses a course you feel is unethical? What do you do when your friends tease or hurt someone just because they are different from you emotionally, culturally, or with regard to race or religion? What do you do when family or friends ask you to behave according to what are politically correct or culturally acceptable, yet you feel you are not being yourself? Do you stand up against the status quo or peer pressure and speak what you feel is right, or do what you feel is right whatever the consequence; even at the expense of being ostracized or worse? As a result of seeing this human side, we will have an anxiety attack. Unable to decide what to do, we become numb. So with the basic premise laid out, the underlying spiritual or ethical question becomes…How do you choose what is real? How do you determine what is important? Do ethics supersede relationships with loved ones? Do ethics prevail over peer pressure? Is war ever worth fighting when standing up for what you feel is righteous, gets others killed, hurt, or punished? Is there sin attached to your actions during war? Life doesn’t seem to be black and white, but rather many shades of gray. These are basic questions that people today are forced ask themselves from time to time.

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