Coffee Makes You Smarter

Brain scans have confirmed what many coffee drinkers already know caffeine perks them up mentally.

The caffeine found in coffee, tea, soft drinks, and even chocolate, stimulates areas of the brain governing short-term memory and attention, say Austrian researchers.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging scans performed on the brains of 15 subjects who had just consumed caffeine equal to that found in two cups of coffee showed increased activity in the frontal lobe where the working memory is located, and in the anterior cingulum that controls attention.

We are able to see that caffeine exerts increases in neuronal activity in distinct parts of the brain going along with changes in behavior, said Dr. Florian Koppelstatter of the Medical University Innsbruck.

Participants who were subjected to a 12-hour period without caffeine and a four-hour period without nicotine, another recognized stimulant found in cigarettes, were better able to remember a sequence of letters after consuming 100 milligrams of caffeine. Reaction times on short-term memory tests also improved.

Caffeine is the world’s most widely used stimulant, according to the research presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Global daily consumption of caffeine averages 1-1/2 cups of coffee. In the United States, the average consumption is 4-1/2 cups of java.

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Whole Brain Thinking and Mind Power

Do you think you have an average or perhaps an above average mental capacity?

Actually you have far more mind power than you can begin to imagine. You have close to, or perhaps even beyond, genius potential.

The past ten years could well be called the decade of the brain. Scientists have discovered some amazing parallels between the human brain and Einstein’s quantum universe. But still, trying to define our brain’s ultimate capacity is like trying to place your finger on a globule of mercury. The human mind is infinitely complex and subtle.

The Amazing Capacity of your Brain

Your brain contains a minimum 1,000,000,000,000 individual nerve cells (neurons). And each of those tiny neurons  is capable of  interacting with as many as 100,000 fellow neurons. If we tabulate the potential capacity of your brain cells to make interconnections — the resulting number  would be at least 10.5 million kilometers long.

It was once estimated that we use about 10% of our mental potential. Today neuroscience has dropped that estimate to less than one percent. And even that figure seems overly optimistic.

Your Thinking Cap
You’ve likely heard the expression thinking cap. That slang term refers to our brain’s cerebral cortex — the grey matter neuroscientists consider the source of our thinking capacity.

Your cortex is actually split into two separate sides that are connected by a dense, highly complex highway of nerve fibers called the corpus collosum. In most people, the left side of the cerebral cortex deals with logical matters — words, numbers, reasoning, and analysis. It spends a lot of time in the beta brainwave range.

The right side of your cerebral cortex, on the other hand, deals with imagination, images, color, day-dreaming, visualization, and pattern recognition. It tends to focus quite a bit in the alpha brainwave range that is so highly developed in meditators.

Build a High Performance Mind
There’s a common assumption that mostÂof us are either right-brained OR left-brained. But if that’s true, then we must assume that the great scientific genius Albert Einstein was left-brained — and the great creative master of photography, Ansel Adams, would then have been right-brained.

But examinations of the notebooks of Albert Einstein and Ansel Adams pokes huge holes in this assumption. In fact, Einstein credited his greatest scientific insights not to left-brain logic — but  to his right-brain highly creative daydreaming. And Ansel Adams credited his greatest art photographs not to his right-brain artistic eye — but rather to his left-brain detailed analytical note taking.

When you describe yourself as primarily creative or intuitive (right-brained), or analytical and logical (left-brained), you are just describing the side of the cortex you have most successfully developed.

So what’s behind an Enstein or Ansel Adams high performance mind? And is it possible to actually develop such a mind?

Yes, such a mental capacity can be built. Our most powerful and expansive mental activities are those using both sides of our cortex. And with the proper training, both sides of your cortex can flourish and develop. Such whole brain thinking has the potential to virtually DOUBLE your mind power.

If YOU seek to excel in YOUR your life, whole brain thinking is a primary key. This involves developing the electrical signals that pass through the massive corpus collosum connecting your right and left cerebral hemispheres. One way to work on strengthening the capacity of your corpus collosum is to focus on developing your creativity if you tend to be  logical, and your logic if you tend to be a creative type. This will encourage the whole brain thinking characteristic of geniuses like Einstein and Adams.

Your Brain Composes Classical Music

Over the past decade the influence of music on our cognitive development, learning, and emotional well-being has emerged as a hot field of scientific study. Now a new question has come up: Does each brain have its own unique music?

The answer seems to be yes – with the tempo and tone varying depending upon one’s mood, frame of mind, and other features of the brain itself.

Recent research shows that if the *brain music* of an emergency responder such as a fireman is recorded and played back to them, it can sharpen their reflexes during a crisis, and calm their nerves afterward.

To further explore music’s potential relevance to emergency response, a USA Science & Technology Directorate initiated a study of a form of neurotraining they are calling *Brain Music.*

The study uses music selected to mimic an emergency responder’s own brainwaves to help them better deal with common problems like insomnia, fatigue, and headaches stemming from stressful environments. The underlying concept of *Brain Music* is to use the frequency, amplitude, and duration of musical sounds to move the brain from an anxious state to enter a more relaxed state.

The job was to first capture the listener’s brainwaves while relaxed and/or productive and alert, and then replicate the rhythm of their brainwaves using music. The researchers report that the music DOES boost productivity and energy levels, and trigger the body’s natural positive responses to stress.

It seems there’s a classical genius-or maybe two genii-in all of us. The resulting two- to six-minute minute musical tracks lean toward the classical. The relaxation tracks tend to sound like *melodic, subdued Chopin sonatas* … while the alertness tracks tend to have more of a *Mozart sound.”

So this brings up an interesting thought: Is this is an indication that the great classical composers just listened to their own brainwaves to compose their music. Humm… What do YOU think…

 

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