Скачать или смотреть Biohack Your Brain by Kristen Willeumier

Biohack Your Brain by Kristen Willeumier
The French philosopher Descartes thought the human brain was like a hydraulic machine. Later, scientists likened it to a telephone. Later still, it was compared to a computer.
American neuroscientist Kristen Willeumier, by contrast, says the brain is more like a high-powered sports car. If you want your brain to fire on all cylinders, you need to give it regular maintenance and top-quality fuel.
The brain isn’t a machine, of course. It runs on blood and sugar; it thrives when it’s hydrated and shrivels when it’s deprived of water. But the metaphor is a useful one.
To get the most out of this remarkable organ, she suggests, we need to look at what’s going on under the hood. That’s the best way to spot issues, make timely repairs, and prevent blow-outs further down the road. And that’s just what we’ll be showing you how to do in these blinks.
Along the way, you’ll also learn
· how walking can make you more creative;
· what blueberries and sardines have in common; and
· why taking a deep breath or five prevents brain damage.
The brain is as complex as it is essential to human life.
The human brain is a mind-bogglingly complex thing.
Every second, billions of messages are sent between brain cells called neurons. This neuronal activity generates real electricity – enough, in fact, to power a low-wattage light bulb. Give it 70 hours and the brain could charge a smartphone.
The brain also stores vast amounts of data. On average, it holds the equivalent of 2.5 million gigabytes of digital memory. If all that storage space were taken up by recordings of television shows, you could watch TV continuously for three centuries.
The brain isn’t just a passive storage device, though. It regulates every part of your conscious and unconscious life, from the loftiest thought down to the tiniest twitch.
The key message here is: The brain is as complex as it is essential to human life.
The adult brain contains 100 billion neurons. Each one of these brain cells is connected to around 10,000 other cells. Neurons transmit, or send, messages to each other through this network using gaps known as synapses. All in all, there are about 100 trillion individual connections between neurons.
To put that into perspective, that’s more than 1,000 times the number of stars in our galaxy. As physicist Michio Kaku puts it, the brain is the “most complicated object in the known universe.”
Now, the brain’s neuronal activity regulates all the things you do – all of your physical, mental, and emotional operations.
Some operations are intentional. What you say and how you say it, for example, are deliberate cognitive acts. Others are automatic. You don’t consciously regulate your heart rate, but it happens anyway. Both kinds of operation are possible because neurons are firing messages across synapses.
The brain coordinates these operations by “translating” sensory stimuli.
Eyes, ears, noses, and tongues pick up information from the external world, but the brain controls what you see, hear, smell, and taste. This data is relayed from the body to the brain through the spinal cord, which is the second component of the central nervous system (the first component is the brain itself). Once this information has been processed, new messages are generated that allow your body to perform conscious and unconscious operations.
The brain, in short, is a vital tool, which is why you need to look after it. Like a knife, it works best when you keep it clean, sharp, and well-honed.
So how do you do that? That’s just what we’ll be exploring in these blinks.
Good blood circulation supports brain growth throughout life.
The brain isn’t set in stone – it’s constantly changing.
Adults lose thousands of brain cells every day as part of the natural aging process. Some people lose more than others, though. Stress, drugs, alcohol, and disease all speed this process up.
That’s the bad news. Here’s the silver lining.
Scientists used to think that lost cells couldn’t be replaced, but the latest neuroscientific research shows they were wrong. Adults, it turns out, generate new brain cells well into their sixties, seventies, and even eighties. That doesn’t happen on its own, however – you have to help this process along.
The key message here is: Good blood circulation supports brain growth throughout life.
Our understanding of the brain has come on in leaps and bounds in recent decades.
Take neuroplasticity. We now know that the brain’s structure changes throughout life in response to our experiences. If you practice the violin every day, for example, new neuronal circuits form in the parts of the brain associated with fine hand movement.
Then there’s neurogenesis – the creation of new brain cells. This growth occurs in the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped structure in the brain’s inner regions that regulate memory and learning. Fascinatingly, simple changes to everyday habits can stimulate neuron growth.