We use our brains every moment of our lives, but a lot of what we accept as fact about our brains is really just folklore. Now cutting-edge scientific techniques are helping us unravel the secrets responsible for everything from creating and storing memories to avoiding jet lag and senility. The truth behind common myths…
MYTH: You can’t reverse memory loss.
Some of the memory erosion that comes with aging can be slowed or even reversed. For example, when aging cells in the front part of your brain, known as the prefrontal cortex, shrink, it causes a loss of “executive function,” skills that let you multitask and focus intently on what you are doing. But you can improve executive function through physical exercise, which increases the blood flow and the availability of oxygen and glucose to your brain cells.
To do this, you need at least 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise, such as aerobics or fast walking, three times a week. Even if you have been sedentary for a while, your ability to focus can improve markedly within a few months of starting an exercise program.
MYTH: We use just 10% of our brains.
This myth is based on the erroneous and simplistic view of the brain as a single unified structure, like a computer hard drive. The brain actually consists of various parts, and you use every part every day. There are no large, unused or unexplored reserves of gray matter waiting to be tapped.
MYTH: Alcohol kills brain cells.
Chronic heavy drinking can cause your brain to shrink, and that is associated with many disorders, ranging from an inability to concentrate to a form of dementia in which you lose old memories and can’t form new ones. But the shrinkage isn’t caused by brain cells dying. Heavy drinking shrinks dendrites, the microscopic, highly branched connections between brain cells. The distinction is important because, unlike brain cells, dendrites are capable of expansive regrowth. Alcoholics who give up drinking can improve their cognitive abilities.
A more relevant question for most people is whether moderate drinking damages the brain. The answer is no. In general, men can have up to three drinks a day and women up to two without adversely affecting brain function long-term. In fact, the widely held belief that red wine is beneficial for your brain’s health as you age is true. For example, as little as one glass every three or four days decreases stroke risk.
MYTH: When you are speaking on a cell phone in a crowded room, you’ll hear better if you stick your finger in your opposite ear.
We think that our brains have trouble focusing on sounds coming at us from different directions at the same time. However, our brains actually are very adept at “source separation,” which is the ability to distinguish voices all around us. (This is why you can be in the middle of a cocktail party but still catch the mention of your name on the other side of the room.)
Our brains get confused when attempting to separate two sounds coming from the same place. Getting a phone call during a party is difficult and confusing because when you answer the phone, the party noise starts to leak in through the phone’s mouthpiece. It mixes in the phone’s circuitry with the voice of the caller so that you’re actually hearing both the party noise and the caller through the phone’s earpiece.
Sticking your finger in the other ear doesn’t alleviate this problem. It’s better to cover the mouthpiece with your hand. This prevents the party noise from entering the phone circuitry so that you hear the caller more clearly.
MYTH: Jet lag can be cured only by time.
When you travel across time zones, it often takes several days to feel normal again. Meanwhile, you’re falling asleep at 7 pm or waking up at 4 am. This is because the internal clock in your brain, known as the circadian rhythm, needs time to resynchronize.
There’s a reliable way to speed up this process. Doses of bright sunlight can resynchronize your internal clock more quickly than time. Rule of thumb: Plan ahead to determine the best arrival time for light exposure. On the first day at your destination, it is optimal to get as much bright sunshine as possible. This fools your body into speeding up its circadian rhythm. For example, if you fly east — say, an overnight trip from the US to Europe — get bright light for a few hours after you arrive. Exposure to sunlight around noon will help you get up more easily the next day without feeling so sluggish.
MYTH: Listening to classical music makes babies and children smarter.
The origin of this popular misconception stems from a 1993 study of college students who improved their performance doing tasks that involved paper folding and cutting after listening to a Mozart sonata. Neuroscientists have not been able to replicate the results, but that hasn’t stopped parents from trying to use the “Mozart Effect” to foster their children’s intellectual development.
If you really want to improve a child’s intelligence, have him/her learn to play a musical instrument. Children who take music lessons have better spatial reasoning skills than those who don’t take music lessons, perhaps because music and spatial reasoning are processed by similar brain systems.
MYTH: Blind people have sharper hearing.
The blind are no better at detecting faint sounds than sighted people. However, the blind do have much better spatial memory because they can’t rely on vision to tell them things, such as “Did I set the glass down on the counter?”
The blind also are better at recognizing where sounds originate, which is another way of keeping track of where things are.
