Sort Your Brain Out. Адриан Вебстер
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improve your skill you must take care to perform the desired mental function:
Regularly (ideally daily)
Intensively (tackle challenges that stretch your abilities)
Over long periods of time (keep up the training over many weeks)
This essentially describes what is popularly described these days as “brain training.” It might sound terribly impressive and you might even have been misled into thinking that you need some special kit to do it properly, but that really isn't strictly necessary.
With a whole bunch of useful brain teasers in an easily portable package, brain training applications on various devices could make brain training more convenient. This convenience might even improve your devotion to self‐improvement. Market‐leading companies may well have millions of subscribers for their particular games, but popularity doesn't guarantee effectiveness. Just remember that you are training your brain whenever you engage in anything that taxes your grey matter regularly, intensively and over long periods of time.
Working memory
Working memory is what you use to keep a phone number in your head for long enough to dial the number. You also use it any time you plan what you're going to do with your day or try to solve a problem. Sights, sounds and any other relevant pieces of information can be held in mind on the “Hold Line” (see Outward‐Facing Brain Tube map in the Appendix) for just long enough to perform a mental task effectively.
Experiments investigating brain training have found that certain exercises increase working memory capacity (e.g. the “Dual N‐Back” training task) and being able to simultaneously hold more information in mind supports many other useful cognitive capabilities. In fact, if we can improve our working memory, our IQ score will increase thanks to its positive impact on “fluid” intelligence.
As you improve at any skill, hobby or mental ability you are engaging in brain training. There is no evidence so far to suggest some kind of magic ingredient in the commercially available games – just convenience. The convenience might make a difference in helping you to keep going for long and hard enough to have a tangible impact in how your brain functions, in those games, at least. Sadly, any hard evidence that improvements in the games can translate into benefits in everyday life is suspiciously minimal. To gain the full benefits of “brain training” you'd probably be better off taking up a few new hobbies instead.
The key to doing enough mental work to actually make a physical difference to how your brain functions is finding “Flow.” Flow is a psychological phenomenon made famous by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “six‐cent‐mihal‐i) with a specific meaning that has been bandied around so much it has lost most of its original simplicity.
The average capacity of working memory is seven items. By regularly practising to hold more items of information than that in your mind (e.g. phone numbers, shopping lists or credit card numbers) for long enough to do something useful with them, you can increase your working memory. That in turn leads to improvements in your problem‐solving abilities.
To remember what Flow is all about, just think about Goldilocks. She wanted her porridge to be “not too hot, not too cold, but just right.” Flow comes when you challenge your brain with some kind of absorbing mental task that is “not too hard, not too easy, but just right” – it keeps you keen to keep on going and creates a state of mind where time just seems to fly by.
If it's too easy for you, keeping your head down for a solid half an hour might be no problem, but your brain will only invest resources in changing its connectivity if it is pushed out of its comfort zone. If, on the other hand, the challenge is too hard, you might end up feeling stupid, convincing yourself that you're getting nowhere and that the task is futile. That's no good because you'll only end up feeling all frustrated, wound up and looking for something less productive to do instead.
This, incidentally, is something that some of the new brain training games tend to be very good at – successful computer game designers are masters of finding this sweet spot: where the gaming experience is challenging but without leading to despair. At the same time, they are also extremely adept at getting people addicted to their products, so bear that in mind too!
Whatever brain training you do choose to do, whether it's getting to grips with a new software package, memorizing some useful numbers or perhaps learning how to cook a new dish – it will change your brain most efficiently if you manage to find Flow. This is because Flow keeps you at it for long enough to trigger brain changes. Having found Flow you'll no doubt have also experienced enjoyment from the process and taken away some real satisfaction from your achievements, so you'll likely be greeting the prospect of doing it again with enthusiasm rather than dread. Finding Flow in the next challenge will be key to ensuring that your self‐propelling belief keeps you going in the right direction and that your brain continues to invest in whatever rewiring is required.
You can't do that!
At the age of 43, I published my first book – Polar Bear Pirates and Their Quest to Reach Fat City. Despite the fact that I had been told on more than one occasion that I would never be capable of writing a book, it became an international bestseller.
– Adrian
Chapter takeaways
By doing brain training that improves your working memory – as far as your IQ is concerned – the only way is up.
If you want to make progress in developing new skills, you'll first need to learn to learn again. Do a little bit every day and you'll soon feel comfortable being out of your comfort zone, just like you did as a child.
To discover the positive effects of neuroplasticity and continue to improve at something, you need to do it regularly, intensively and over long periods. That's all “brain training” really is!
Step beyond set‐pieces. Stretch yourself. The easiest route in the short term is rarely the best path in the long run.
Remember the Goldilocks Rule as applied to “Flow” – set yourself goals that are not too easy, not too hard, but just right!
Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
Cyber Heads
Brain for sale – no longer needed
Is technology good or bad for our brains? With around 4.5 billion active internet users, 41 million text‐based messages sent every minute and many people now spending more time gaming online than they do sleeping, are we all becoming mindless zombies, unable to interact with each other on a face‐to‐face basis? Or are people getting all worked up about nothing, worrying unnecessarily about the potential consequences of digital immersion that, in reality, pose no major threat to the future of the human race?
The more Facebook friends a person has, the greater the grey matter density in brain areas involved in social interaction.
The truth is it all depends on what type of technology you're talking about. It also depends on how intensively the technology in question is being used. And it depends on the specific person using the technology. As with most things the rule of thumb is this: Everything in moderation.
The main threat of many technologies is that many games and applications are often specifically designed to encourage overuse. The twin problems associated with using a certain technology for many hours every day are: 1) you will probably be diverting time away from other activities that would yield greater benefit for your productivity and well‐being and 2) you could well be triggering neuroplasticity that leaves your brain worse at meeting many of the