Aqil
01-17-2002, 05:09 AM
Would you like to improve your memory, strengthen your attention and concentration, train your powers of logic, and cultivate fine motor skills?
Or maybe you want to heighten your sensory capacities, turn feelings and emotions to your advantage, or stimulate extensive areas of your brain. In short, do you want to become smarter?
How one may accomplish these difficult tasks is the goal of this thoughtful little book by an eminent neuropsychiatrist.
The author, Dr. Richard Restak, who has written extensively on the brain, offers remedies based on the knowledge that everything we think and do alters our brain's physiology.
As Dr. Restak puts it: "Regular exercise of your brain's cognitive powers is the first step. The brain improves the more we challenge it."
Several fundamental principles about the brain's operation are at work here, Dr. Restak points out. One is that the brain is resilient and has a lifetime memory. "Those music and chess circuits can be revived," he writes.
Another is that the brain does not age as we grow older, but does need to be trained to stay in shape. "Use it or lose it," Dr. Restak advises, providing 28 steps to improve brain power, some more difficult than others.
The toughest ones, like circling every example of a specified number or letter within a 10-second period, were devised to improve the focus and attention of fighter pilots.
To revive the music and chess circuits, Dr. Restak recommends that one simply start playing the piano again, or engage in regular chess matches with challenging players.
Other exercises involve trying to guess the time when one wakes up at night, tape-recording casual conversations, reconstructing them in your mind, then comparing them to the tape later, and listening to Mozart to enhance "the optimal functioning of the brain."
If you are seeking a personal trainer for your brain, this book just may be it.
( Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot, Dr. Richard Restak, Harmony Books)
Or maybe you want to heighten your sensory capacities, turn feelings and emotions to your advantage, or stimulate extensive areas of your brain. In short, do you want to become smarter?
How one may accomplish these difficult tasks is the goal of this thoughtful little book by an eminent neuropsychiatrist.
The author, Dr. Richard Restak, who has written extensively on the brain, offers remedies based on the knowledge that everything we think and do alters our brain's physiology.
As Dr. Restak puts it: "Regular exercise of your brain's cognitive powers is the first step. The brain improves the more we challenge it."
Several fundamental principles about the brain's operation are at work here, Dr. Restak points out. One is that the brain is resilient and has a lifetime memory. "Those music and chess circuits can be revived," he writes.
Another is that the brain does not age as we grow older, but does need to be trained to stay in shape. "Use it or lose it," Dr. Restak advises, providing 28 steps to improve brain power, some more difficult than others.
The toughest ones, like circling every example of a specified number or letter within a 10-second period, were devised to improve the focus and attention of fighter pilots.
To revive the music and chess circuits, Dr. Restak recommends that one simply start playing the piano again, or engage in regular chess matches with challenging players.
Other exercises involve trying to guess the time when one wakes up at night, tape-recording casual conversations, reconstructing them in your mind, then comparing them to the tape later, and listening to Mozart to enhance "the optimal functioning of the brain."
If you are seeking a personal trainer for your brain, this book just may be it.
( Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot, Dr. Richard Restak, Harmony Books)