Questions about Learning
Forbes magazine had a recent article "Sharp as a Tack". It has an embedded slide show called "Six Ways to Keep Your Brain Sharp". It is targeted at senior citizens, but I don't see why the recommendation would not apply to all humans. Here are the 6 suggested activities:
- Learning to play a musical instrument
- Learning a new language
- Dancing
- Playing ping-pong
- Doing jigsaw puzzles
- Juggling
Several questions immediately arise:
- Why these particular activities? What's so special about them?
- Since each of them presumably "exercises" the related brain-center, each of them should lead to more growth (more & better synaptic interconnections?) within that region of the
brain. Does that also lead to a better "overall fitness" of the brain (if there is such a thing)? - If it does increase the overall fitness of the brain, how do the activities rank in terms of improvement per unit time spent?
I am going to email the author of the article to see if she has answers or pointers to any of these. I will keep you posted.
posted by MP at 11:19 PM
2 Comments:
I must ask my grandfather about this. He was an EEG technician (measured brain waves) for many years and has always been interested in the brain (and radio, but that;s another story...)
Now he's 90 and sharp as a tack. He doesn't play ping-pong, juggle or dance much, but he's young at heart. :)
5:49 PM
Here's a line in the main article that might point to the answer: "The best activities are those that start simple and get increasingly challenging, engaging several senses at once." Makes sense to me, but I need more specific reasons about those 6 activities...
10:29 PM
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