Fire and Wire
I try to go for a run and a light workout at the neighbourhood park everyday. Just 30 minutes of exercise makes me feel energized and feeling great for the rest of the day. Even when I do not have enough sleep the night before, a morning workout session always drives away all vestiges of sleepiness and clears my mind for productive work.
If one must end up being an addict of some sort, one might as well be addicted to exercise. There are lots of research that indicates that exercise aids neurogenesis--or the creation of new neurons in the brain. It used to be thought the brain does not grow new neurons and whatever amount of grey matter we have are fixed and start dying away as we age. Research in recent years have proven this to be false. The brain can and does improve with age!
You often hear people say, 'Oh, I've already forgotten what I've learned in the university'. True, we might have forgotten certain facts of details which we cramped for our exams but I believe that we never lose the analytical skills that we learned. Personally, I feel that my brainpower has actually improved over the years. When I browse through some of my old mathematics textbooks, I realized how much better I am able to understand all the concepts written there, when during my students days I had found them mostly dry and incomprehensible.
One thing I've noticed, most people, as they grow older, become more lazy to think. You see them a lot in large corporations: people are very 'hardworking' when it comes to attending meetings; but when it comes to sitting down to analyze facts and writing concepts down on paper, everyone tries to avoid doing it.
The brain gets better the more you use it. When one stops using it, degeneration sets in. So never try to avoid difficult intellectual work. Like the body, the brain too needs regular exercise. The more your neurons fire, the more the wire together. The more complex your neural wiring, the 'smarter' you become!
If one must end up being an addict of some sort, one might as well be addicted to exercise. There are lots of research that indicates that exercise aids neurogenesis--or the creation of new neurons in the brain. It used to be thought the brain does not grow new neurons and whatever amount of grey matter we have are fixed and start dying away as we age. Research in recent years have proven this to be false. The brain can and does improve with age!
You often hear people say, 'Oh, I've already forgotten what I've learned in the university'. True, we might have forgotten certain facts of details which we cramped for our exams but I believe that we never lose the analytical skills that we learned. Personally, I feel that my brainpower has actually improved over the years. When I browse through some of my old mathematics textbooks, I realized how much better I am able to understand all the concepts written there, when during my students days I had found them mostly dry and incomprehensible.
One thing I've noticed, most people, as they grow older, become more lazy to think. You see them a lot in large corporations: people are very 'hardworking' when it comes to attending meetings; but when it comes to sitting down to analyze facts and writing concepts down on paper, everyone tries to avoid doing it.
The brain gets better the more you use it. When one stops using it, degeneration sets in. So never try to avoid difficult intellectual work. Like the body, the brain too needs regular exercise. The more your neurons fire, the more the wire together. The more complex your neural wiring, the 'smarter' you become!
