Think Smart: A Neuroscientist's Prescription for Improving Your Brain's Performance by Richard Restak Page A
Authors: Richard Restak
Tags: nonfiction
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estimation is especially inaccurate in people with diseases affecting the nervous system anywhere along the route from the peripheral nerves in the legs to the parietal lobes, where joint and position sense is ultimately processed. But even people with normal nervous systems initially find it hard to point directly at their toe with their eyes closed. That’s because we rely primarily on our eyes to relay information to the brain. When we depend on sound, touch, or position sense we don’t do as well. But that over-dependence on vision can be balanced by exercises that enhance PPS.
Tai chi provides one of the most effective long-term approaches to enhancing peripersonal space. This ancient dancelike exercise requires the practitioner to perform a series of slow motions while simultaneously focusing attention on specific body areas, especially the hands and tips of the fingers. Over time this leads to alterations in the body image, especially PPS. For example, experienced tai chi practitioners develop a tactile acuity in the fingertips rivaling that of musicians and blind Braille readers. This suggests to C. E. Kerr and his Harvard-based colleagues that tai chi may create a plasticity within the brain similar to that found among individuals who play musical instruments, read Braille, or engage in other activities that require finely honed fingertip sensitivity. “There is a strong connection between tactile spatial acuity at the fingertips and measures of brain function,” says Kerr.
In order to get the maximum brain benefit, I suggest that you find a well-trained tai chi teacher and take some lessons. If this isn’t practical, several excellent DVD instructional programs are available. But whichever path you choose, you’ll learn as you move through the tai chi form, progressing from one of the sixty or more positions, that the hands and feet must be correctly and precisely aligned. To help you do this, your instructor will periodically ask you to pause, close your eyes, and mentally form an image of the current positions of your hands and legs. After you have envisioned the precise position of your hands and feet, he’ll ask you to open your eyes and check how accurately your internal image corresponds to your body position. It takes years of practicing tai chi forms before the internal image and the external positions correspond exactly.
Other everyday examples of extending peripersonal space include alternating between a pen and a word processor; learning to play a musical instrument; purchasing a newer and lighter tennis racket that frees your swing; spending a weekend at an auto-racing camp where you can learn highspeed control skills as taught by competition race-car drivers. In these instances the pen, the musical instrument, the tennis racket, and the high-performance car extend and enhance the body’s performance by creating new functional maps within the brain. The experience is similar to what happens when the blind person becomes skilled in the use of his cane. The more time spent creating these new maps the greater your proficiency. And while you can follow my suggestions of how you can form these new maps the best approach is to come up with your own program that incorporates activities that are interesting to you. The key is to activate those neurons that construct our PPS.
After enhancing sensory memory by performing one or more of the suggested approaches, you’re now in a better position to work on ways to improve memory in general.
Augment General Memory
Science fiction writers are fond of presenting their readers with characters who no longer know who they are because their memories have been obliterated. In the 2000 movie Memento, the main character, Leonard Shelby, lives in an anxious and forebodingly eternal present; he can’t recall any of his past experiences and as a result doesn’t know who he is. But such devastating memory failures aren’t just the stuff of fiction.
A real-life
Tai chi provides one of the most effective long-term approaches to enhancing peripersonal space. This ancient dancelike exercise requires the practitioner to perform a series of slow motions while simultaneously focusing attention on specific body areas, especially the hands and tips of the fingers. Over time this leads to alterations in the body image, especially PPS. For example, experienced tai chi practitioners develop a tactile acuity in the fingertips rivaling that of musicians and blind Braille readers. This suggests to C. E. Kerr and his Harvard-based colleagues that tai chi may create a plasticity within the brain similar to that found among individuals who play musical instruments, read Braille, or engage in other activities that require finely honed fingertip sensitivity. “There is a strong connection between tactile spatial acuity at the fingertips and measures of brain function,” says Kerr.
In order to get the maximum brain benefit, I suggest that you find a well-trained tai chi teacher and take some lessons. If this isn’t practical, several excellent DVD instructional programs are available. But whichever path you choose, you’ll learn as you move through the tai chi form, progressing from one of the sixty or more positions, that the hands and feet must be correctly and precisely aligned. To help you do this, your instructor will periodically ask you to pause, close your eyes, and mentally form an image of the current positions of your hands and legs. After you have envisioned the precise position of your hands and feet, he’ll ask you to open your eyes and check how accurately your internal image corresponds to your body position. It takes years of practicing tai chi forms before the internal image and the external positions correspond exactly.
Other everyday examples of extending peripersonal space include alternating between a pen and a word processor; learning to play a musical instrument; purchasing a newer and lighter tennis racket that frees your swing; spending a weekend at an auto-racing camp where you can learn highspeed control skills as taught by competition race-car drivers. In these instances the pen, the musical instrument, the tennis racket, and the high-performance car extend and enhance the body’s performance by creating new functional maps within the brain. The experience is similar to what happens when the blind person becomes skilled in the use of his cane. The more time spent creating these new maps the greater your proficiency. And while you can follow my suggestions of how you can form these new maps the best approach is to come up with your own program that incorporates activities that are interesting to you. The key is to activate those neurons that construct our PPS.
After enhancing sensory memory by performing one or more of the suggested approaches, you’re now in a better position to work on ways to improve memory in general.
Augment General Memory
Science fiction writers are fond of presenting their readers with characters who no longer know who they are because their memories have been obliterated. In the 2000 movie Memento, the main character, Leonard Shelby, lives in an anxious and forebodingly eternal present; he can’t recall any of his past experiences and as a result doesn’t know who he is. But such devastating memory failures aren’t just the stuff of fiction.
A real-life
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