Your Brain Doesn’t Like Cynicism

It’s easy, maybe too easy, to make fun of those dudes skating around the park, chugging Mountain Dew and saying “awesome, bro” to each other very five seconds. Make fun of the way they dress, the pointlessness of their past-time, what brominated vegetable oil is doing to their kidneys. Best of all, make fun of the way they talk. Is it really “awesome” to ollie into a 50-50 and then kick-flip to manual? What would Oprah say about “awesome?”

But your brain really does prefer it if you shed the superiority and give yourself, a little to something greater than yourself. This is not a call for your religious conversion, this is simply a note on how finding “awe” can make you a better person.

What does “better” mean? How about behaving more altruistically? A research paper out of Stanford University in 2012 found that people who experienced awe were “more willing to volunteer their time to help others” and also “experienced a greater boost in life satisfaction.”

The experiments defined awe as “the emotion that arises when one encounters something so strikingly vast that it provokes a need to update one’s mental schemas,” which is subjective, to be sure, and lesson one in reserving judgment if a person claims to find something awesome. Maybe you can’t tell a kickflip from a pop-shove it, but to our skater friends, watching someone do something amazing is as much about self-reflection as it is about respect

The result of the Standford experiment found that people who experienced awe expanded people’s perception of time, which itself is very telling. We live at breakneck speeds in the modern world, and none of us feel like wwe have enough time as it is. Stopping to smell the roses is a luxury few of us can afford.

And yet, it takes time to claim others are wasting theirs. So eschew the hypocrisy of cynicism, humble yourself to something awesome, and feel your overall happiness improve. Its infectious.

Thinking Outside Your Brain Box

It's about eight in the morning, and I hear the front door of our office open. I hear the click-clack sound of the derailleur of a co-worker's bicycle, and then the bean grinder in the office kitchen, and then sound of the cofee mahcine itself warming up. And then a face appears in the doorway of my office. we've got about five minutes before the coffee is ready.

Idle small talk (how was your evening, good, how was yours, good, did you see the game, etc) for a few seconds until a key word is hit upon. Today, it's happens to be "cat." We begin to discuss how cats are, more or less, pointless. And yet, so essential to the human experience. That thing about strapping a piece of buttered toast to the back of a cat comes up- the idea that, since cat's always land on their feet, and buttered toast always lands butter-side down, you can break the laws of physics by creating a floating, spinning, cat-toast machine.

From there we consider Schroedinger's box, the thought experiment where a cat is placed in a box along with a poison that is triggered by a randomly decaying isotope. So long as the box stays closed and unobserved, that cat is both alive and dead. We, my coworker and I, decided this is not a silly metaphor, and that if we trap out floating cat-bread machine in such a box, the cat will be both alive and dead and right side up and upside down at the same time.

Then we start talking about USB plugs, and how there should be a fifty-fifty chance of getting them plugged in correctly on the first try, but it always takes three tries. We realize that if we were to attach such a cat to a USB plug, since it would be at all times both right-side up and upside down, it would balance out the three-times plug phenomena, and the order of the universe would be restored.

Because things are always in the last place you look for them, simply because once you find them, you stop looking. If you start making a practice of still looking for something after you find it, the law of averages would start to swing towards your eventually finding things in the first place you look. You'd have to keep looking, but you wouldn't have so much anxiety.

By hooking up a Schroedinger's cat-bread-box to a usb plug, we'd be essentially tipping the law of averages back to getting the plug right the first time— the cat would do the spinning we'd have to do to ensure the average was always on our side.

Then the coffee machine went ding, and we were ready for work. Had an incredibly productive day. Socializing, Creativity, Caffeine: all are excellent ingredients to a super-productive brain.

The Once a Week Brain

We freely admit we may not be getting enough sleep. We certainly don’t feel as creative as we used to. But then, back when this blog started a few months ago, we were very excited. The excitement has died down. And here’s a bit f rationalization: we’re glad it’s died down. Now we can let dedication to the subject at hand be our prime motivator.

Rationalization, but it’s out story and we’re sticking to it. While The Great Brain Robbery was once a twice-a-day blog, and then once a day, and then four times per week or so, we’re switching to once per week. We have not decided what that day is (yet—maybe it should be Tuesdays) but we’re hopeful that it will result in better-written posts. Or at least more thorough. More discerning?

In the meantime, here’ what’s we’ve been reading about lately:

• Wake Up: “6 Ways a Poor Night's Sleep Messes with You”
• Meditate: “Why You Should Meditate: Become a Multitasking Master”
• Eat Breakfast: “Eat More of These Four Things For A Stronger, Healthier Brain”
• Get Some Exercise: “35 Year Study Finds Exercise Reduces Risk of Dementia”
• Don’t Think Too Hard: “Mental fatigue impairs physical performance in humans”

We know you’ll forgive for this small change, since forgiveness is good for your brain anyway. Thanks for reading and keep looking forward to more!

 

Alcohol and the Brain

Alcohol is good for your heart, they say. It’s also good for your brain. Sort of.

All things in moderation. A study performed by a team of Swedish researchers found that small amounts of alcohol fed to mice led to the growth of extra brain cells. They pointed out, however, that these cells may have taught the mice to be dependent on alcohol. After they were given alcohol, the mice preferred it to water. The researchers also suggested that while neurons that grew were normal, alcohol may simply have facilitated their growth through a tranquilizing effect that reduced stress.

A calm mind grows neurons more healthfully than a stressed mind, for the most part, although research has shown how certain high-stress experience can enhance particular memories. And while alcohol’s effect on growing neurons is being studied, ample evidence shows how excessive alcohol intake can be damaging to existing neurons.

As social creatures, humans have integrated alcohol consumption into a variety of activities. Getting black-out drunk is certainly bad, but even the placebo effect of feeling relaxed with a pint glass in your hand can be beneficial to the brain. This is not to say you should insist everyone must imbibe for their own good. Rather, by drinking in moderation, damage, if any, is minimized, and its possible actual physical growth can occur. In the meantime, pleasurable interaction with family and friends is good for both your brain and your heart.

And therefor it is important that drinking, even in moderation, be done in safe environments with considerable awareness for the effects it can have. If alcohol can be good for the brain, the damage it does in other ways can be mitigated by 

• Making sure you’re well fed before having a drink
• Making sure you stay well hydrated before, during, and after any drinking

Special cases aside, there’s nothing wrong with having a drink now and again. Consider the analogy of driving car: there’s always the potential of getting into a crash, but driving the speed limit and wearing your seat belt will decrease the risk to a point low enough to tolerable, allowing for all the conveniences that driving affords. Go careening around corners at high speed and wreck is inevitable, and doesn’t even afford any real convenience. 

Your Brain Wants You to Eat Dirt

What’s fun about the title to this blog post is the very idea that your brain “wants” you to do anything. As if your brain had a separate will from “your” will. It smack of Karl Pilkingtonism, from which we get the utterly wonderful quote “is my brain in charge of me or am I in charge of my brain?” 

Actually, if you Google the phrase: “Who’s in charge, me or my brain?” You’ll get millions of hits, and links to familiar news and science sites. So it’s not a stupid question at all. But the very idea of you brain “wanting” something belies a belief that your brain “knows” what’s good for it—even if “you” don’t.

Ever have a craving for something odd? Could that be your body “knowing” that a key nutrient you lack is in that food you’re hungry for? Or is that your body remembers not lacking in some capacity the last time you at that food? Is this what we mean when we sat your brain wants you to eat dirt?

No, it’s not, this time. We’re not talking about pregnancy and geophagy, where women will sometimes crave eating dirt, either because their bodies are mineral deficient or they want to boost toxin immunity (scientists aren’t exactly sure). We’re not talking about pica, the psychology (and probably pathological) desire to eat non-food items. We’re just talking about mycobacterium vaccae.

It seems that ingesting this bacteria has been shown to have a positive effect on learning and memory. Mice who were given the bacterium showed increased levels of serotonin and were able to navigate mazes faster and with less anxiety. Further tests showed this to be a temporary effect.

However, before you go outside and start adding real ground to you coffee grounds, be aware that the tests cited were not performed on humans, and that there’s no guarantee the dirt in your front yard contain the bacterium at all. You’d be better of simply go for a vigorous hike in the a natural area, and simply breathe deep the loamy aromas of the wilderness.

And what’s great about using yourself in such an experiment is that even if you don’t inhale any mycobacterium vaccae, or not enough to do anything, you’ll still reap benefits from the hike itself.

While it’s “fun” to say your brains wants you to eat dirt, we can promise your brain really does want you to exercise and immerse yourself in tranquility. So go for the hike and let us know how it makes you fell.

When in Doubt, Blame the Brain

On Sunday December 1st, a commuter train in New York derailed, resulting in 67 injured and 4 dead. The train was going 82 mph when it came upon a curve rated for only 30 mph. This is a curve trains have taken thousands of time without incident.

What happened this time? Why didn’t the train slow down? The engineer who was driving the train claims the brakes failed. If this is the case, the tragedy has to be chalked up to simple dumb luck. All machines fail eventually, which is why we have safety checks—but even those checks can’t catch everything every time. Misunderstood circumstances can lead to machine failure, and the only thing to do is study those circumstances after the fact and add findings to the checklist.

But there’s evidence that the brakes did not fail, that it was the engineer himself who was responsible. He claims he did not fall asleep, that he had a full night’s rest. No drugs or alcohol were detected, either. And safety devices on the train, such as a “dead man’s switch” would have engaged if the engineer had fallen asleep and his hands had fallen from the controls.

So, if it wasn’t the brakes, or sleep, what would keep a man at the controls but not aware of the coming curve? His brain, if course. Enter Automaticity.

You can walk without thinking about it, ride a bicycle, even tie your shoes or a hundred other seemingly complicated tasks. Ever drive a car from home to work, lost in thought, and arrive with no memory of the journey whatsoever?

Unfortunately, the engineer, having become so efficient at operating the train, was able to do so without requiring any vigilance. He simply “zoned” out, and his brain did not register the landmarks indicating the curve was approaching. He may have been lost in thought, or in a simple meditative state, both of which would allow him to be “awake” without being aware.

Can anything be done about this? Of course. Add to that checklist measures to keep the engineer engaged in his activities. Driving several hundred people with several hundred tons of steel should never be done automatically. Invest every trip with novelty and purpose, and automaticity can be thwarted.

Pink Brains vs. Blue Brains

There’s nature and then there’s nurture. Nature builds you from the ground up and leaves you there. Nurture shapes you. Nature uses blueprints that were evolved over millennia, nurture further molds you to fit your environment. If your environment shapes you in such a way that your blueprints are especially fit for the environment, those blueprints further evolve. But nature can’t make your blueprints so adaptable that nurture can make you into any old shape, nor can nurture be so aggressive that it breaks the original blueprints into something unrecognizable. More or less, no matter what nurture has done to you, you can always look back at where nature started you off.

So, at any given moment, it would be all too easy to confound nature and nurture unless we’re looking at your very beginning. A series of articles popping up all over the world today are claiming that men and women have different brains. But they’re not studying men and women at their very beginning—so is what’s being seen nature or nurture?

On the one hand, it’s a moot question. Who cares. If men and women are different, then they’re different, and no need to ask why. But the problem is, the strictest definition of one’s sex is determind by nature, at the moment of conception. At this point it’s just a label, devoid of connotations, and useful only to predict how the developing zygote, and fetus will shape itself.

But “being a man” and “being a woman” for anyone over the age of a few seconds is full of connotations, and those are connotations everyone holds in their heads… and as social creatures, we tend to reinforce those connotations on developing people i.e. children. And so we, the nurturers, shape and mold those who have been given certain natural characteristics until they are fit for their environments.

Or, not to put too fine a point on it, we reinforce existing stereotypes by using those stereotpyes to identify people with particular characteristics. We dress little girls in pink. We might be able to prove that girls are born with a natural preference for pink, but the point is, when people see pink, they treat the person “like a girl.”

Surrounding all of these articles about the differences between male and female brains are even more articles about brain plasticity, that is, the way the brain literally changes shape over time. The brain is plastic because of nature; the brain’s plasticity allows it to change by way of nurture. 

Therefore, all of these articles that are pointing out that “men and women have different brains” are essentially saying “men and women are different.” That’s as a determinant statement as ‘the word ‘man’ and the word ‘woman’ are different words.”

Another Tryptophan and the Brain Post

Happy Thanksgiving. Let’s talk turkey. Let’s talk tryptophan.

Even though you know all this. You know that for a long time people believed it was the tryptophan in the turkey that made everyone sleepy on Thanksgiving. And then folks pointed out that no, it doesn’t work like that, it’s eating all those carbs, being in a warm house, around loved ones, relaxed, after days or even weeks of the usual sleep-deprived lifestyles we lead.

None of that says what, exactly, tryptophan is, and what it does in the brain. Basically, tryptophan is an amino acid, which are the building blocks of protein. Your body does not make tryptophan itself, and therefore has to get it from foods. You use tryptophan to make Niacin (vitamin B3) which, among other things, is good for your skin.

Tryptophan also makes serotonin, and most of the serotonin in your body is in your intestines, where it regulates movement. The remainder that is in your brain regulates mood, appetite, and sleep. Thus the source of the turkey = drowsiness myth. Serotonin makes you hungry, eating more makes you happy, happiness relaxes you, eating more makes you drowsy, and together the happy/drowsy state puts you to sleep in front of the football game.

From tryptophan to serotonin, and then from serotonin to melatonin. This is the hormone that regulates the circadian rhythm of various parts of your biology. In your brain, this is the cycle that puts you to sleep at the end of the day and wakes you up in the morning—and it’s light dependent, meaning your pineal gland doesn’t make much when it’s light out.

In order to show that turkey makes you actually sleepy, then, it would have to be able to do so in the absence of other things that make you sleepy, and in the presence of other things that keep you awake. We sit down to the table, and eat a ton of food, sending blood to the stomach, which makes us sleepy. We drink wine, which makes us sleepy. We’re sleep deprived already. We’re in a safe, warm, comfortable environment. We’re a little bit bored by the football game between two teams we don’t much care about. It’s cloudy outside, the fall weather, a dark gray sky.

Reverse all that. Eat just turkey, and water, after a good month of 8-hours-per-night of sleep. Keep the thermostat at 65, bicker with your in-laws about why your college team is better than the one’s their children went to, and place a wager on the game: loser does the dishes. Make sure all the lights are on. You will be wide awake, guaranteed.

Nevertheless, your take away from all of this should be satisfaction in the knowing. When one of your in-laws tucks in and hauls out the “turkey makes ya sleep” trope: let them. No need to bicker, no need to argue or educate. Keep your cortisol levels low. Enjoy your non-tryptophan-induced nap. You’ve probably earned it.

If Your Brain Had Legs It Would Dance

Can you just imagine it? Your brain on the dance floor, doing the cabbage patch or the running man. Working up a sweat! Getting down with its bad self. Cutting a rug, as it where. Oh, if only. Exercise is supposed to be good for the brain. If only if it had legs of its own, to get out there and shake its groove thang.

But wait, it does. You are your brain, and you have legs. When you dance, your brain dances. When you exercise, your brain reaps the benefits. Aerobic exercise makes your heart stronger, your muscles stronger, reduces fat, and all the same time is improving cognition, strengthening memory, and boosting mood.

So if you can imagine it, you can do it. If your brain had legs, and it does, it would dance, so it does. So to speak. After all, you have free will, so you can choose to not dance. And if you're so inclined, you might choose to not exercise at all.

You can still improve cognition, strengthen memory, and boost mood. You can eat the right nutrients, engage in the right kinds of mental stimulation, seek out and enjoy social interaction. But what happens when you need to run faster, run further, run longer?

We live in a world where we have the luxury of rarely, if ever, needing to run fast, far, or for long. Your brain can survive without legs. It doesn't have to dance. But it does have to stay young. If it doesn't, as it grows "older," it will eventually not want to do anything.

Thankfully, the flip side is that if you do dance, or run, or swim, or do any kind of aerobic exercise, no matter how old you are, your brain is going to get better. Even if you don't want it to. But who wouldn't it to?

The irony is that, since you can choose to dance, and are not forced to, you can enjoy it for its own sake. You have to eat, have to use your brain on a daily basis, and unless you're a recluse, you have to deal with people. So your brain is going to maintain itself in those activities.

But if you dance, its just going to get better.

This is Why Addiction is a Brain problem, Not a Person Problem

This will largely be a semantic argument. If you do not like semantic arguments, you can translate this into a philosophical discussion. If you think philosophy distracts from science, then you can examine on your own experien

Moving on, a recent post on the Psychology Today blogs discusses the mess that is the DSM V’s treatment of “addiction,” and specifically, the semantic nature of this treatment. What is addiction? Is it nothing more than something that one can’t help but do? Or do we need to add in understandings of consequence, perceived reward, frequency of activity, person and public usefulness, and so on?

For the most part, the word “addiction” has a negative connotation. This can used ironically to bolster something that is “so good,” such as an “addiction to chocolate.” The idea is that chocolate is so good, one would rather have it then not have the negative consequences of eating to too much. This is the parallel drawn with, for example, drug addiction: heroin feels so good, one would rather inject it than be healthy, keep a job, maintain personal relationships, and so on.

But there’s, of course, a huge difference between eating too much chocolate and taking drugs. Ostensibly, a person who eats a lot of chocolate, when told he had become a diabetic, could wean himself off of candy bars in the hopes of prolonging his life. The drug addict can’t do this, according to the definition of the word. Therefore, the word addiction requires an understanding of a lack of free will.

Take the word addiction out of the discussion, and what do we have left. We have a person who is being forced to do things that he doesn’t want to do. Or, to be precise, does not want to want to do. You could say the person is a slave. How do we emancipate people from being forced to take drugs?

The simple answer is, to free them. Give them back their free will. Its society that responds to heavy drug use by removing junkies from jobs, from families, puts them in jail. The irony is, if the drug user does not have to choose between drugs or society’s approval, then taking drugs is not a choice.

However, heavy drug use is physically damaging, and that’s not something society can simply choose to deny the truth of. But, if addiction is viewed as a medical problem, not a social problem, then access to medical care can treat said physical damage. And in the process, help the addicted choose to be free of drugs.

This blog post is not advocating the legalization of drugs. It is advocating for the abandonment of judgmental attitudes.

ces reflect on this discussion. If you think anecdotal phenomena are irrelevant, then you can go crawl into a Skinner box and enjoy your life of pre-programmed cause and effect. We guarantee you will enjoy it, as that is how your brain, for you, literally works.

The Brain’s Five Kinds of Boredom

One of our writers writes for another blog called “Zombie For Life.”(We think that’s supposed to be an ironic title.) Today he wrote an entry called “5 Reasons People Who Listen to Surf Guitar Will Survive the Zombie Apocalypse.” And since today’s post about the five kinds of boredom, we thought it would be fun to somehow link the two.

Research performed by a handful of scientists and reported on by Science Daily suggests that boredom can be classified according to levels of arousal and valence. They describe:

• indifferent boredom (relaxed, withdrawn, indifferent)
• calibrating boredom (uncertain, receptive to change/distraction)
• searching boredom (restless, active pursuit of change/distraction)
• reactant boredom (high reactant, motivated to leave a situation for specific alternatives)
• apathetic boredom, an especially unpleasant form that resembles learned helplessness or depression. It is associated with low arousal levels and high levels of aversion.

(The above is directly quoted from Science Daily but reformatted for this blog post.)

In an effort to provide some entertainment today, which is to say, alleviate some boredom, we’d like to suggest that each boredom type, above, can be a means by which to survive a zombie apocalypse:

• Indifferent: this person will maintain a cool head when everyone else is losing control.
• Calibrating: this person will not take for granted the doomed-to-fail survival instructions provided by civic leaders, and will adapt to ever-changing circumstances.
• Searching: this person will not stay idle as things fall apart, becoming a sitting duck for that random zombie who wanders by.
• Reactant: this person will respond immediately to a zombie threat, and will not become complacent or accept a seemingly unavoidable doom.
• Apathetic: this person will be as like the undead themselves, blend in, and in doing so will avoid being eaten as the zombies chase after livelier prey.

Yes, we’ve taken a few liberties here, and made some assumptions. But then again, zombies are fictional, so taking liberties and making assumptions is de rigueur for this kind of discussion. 

On a serious note, the fifth boredom type, “apathetic” is one that has only been recently recognized, and its inclusion in the above list reveals some troubling statistics: “Because of the assumed link between boredom and depression, the research group found it alarming that apathetic boredom was reported relatively frequently by 36 percent of the high school students sampled.”

Add to that their determination: “people do not just randomly experience the different boredom types over time… they tend to experience one type” and the 36 percent number is indeed alarming. 

We’re hopeful that such studies can help catch signs of depression early so that people can seek proper treatment.

 

We’re also hopeful that for everyone else, our blog post today alleviates some of their boredom.

 

Playing with Brains

Today one of us at TGBR played a game that required memorizing strings of numbers. The game started off with just two digits, but went all the way up to 10 digits. Sometimes the number has to be memorized “backwards” which made it more challenging.

What was interesting was how even the slightest bit of familiarity aided the process. ‘206’ popped up as part of a longer string, and was easily memorized as a single entity because it’s the area code here in Seattle. Any time 7x7 occurred (737, 747, 727, etc) that, too, was held in the mind as a single digit. And strings of numbers that started with ‘19’ were easily coded as dates, So, when 2061984737 popped up, instead of it feeling like a 10 digit number, it felt like a three digit number.

Our brains, it seems, are desperate to attach meaning to things. We prefer character and reason to stark, abstract existence. This is how we, here at TGBR, choose to interpret new findings that show people with so-called “perfect” recall can be tricked into having false memories.

An article at Discover describes how scientists were able to achieve this, and for the sake of time, we won’t rehash the explanation here. Suffice it to say that no one’s memory is invulnerable to manipulation.

We’re insisting it all goes back to a terrible need to consider the question ”why?” why did that happen? What does it mean? How does that fit into the rest of the universe?

And if the universe is in our own heads, than our memories are their own worst enemies.

Giving the Brain the Gift of Giving

Today we celebrate a birthday here at the Great Brain Robbery, as one of our staff is turning 42. Or, as he likes to call it, he’s now “21s.” Last year he was “thirty-eleven.” We think he might have an issue with aging.

And apropos to that we thought we’d look at aging and the brain, but that seems like a bit of a downer. Not that there’s anything wrong with aging per-se, and if we look hard enough, we could probably find an article that shows how older brains are better at some things. But instead of that, or all the research on Alzheimer’s and dementia and the like, perhaps that other part of birthdays, gifts, is worthy of examination.

An article in The Washington Post in 2007 discusses a 2006 study which found that altruism lit up parts of the brain associated with experiencing pleasure. Basically, the theory goes that altruism is an evolved tendency, one that exists a biological component of the brain’s make-up. The specific example cited was that volunteers were asked to imagine giving money away. This was described as “volunteers placed the interests of others above their own.”

Let’s split hairs. Imagining something is one thing; doing it is quite another. Fantasizing about feeling good might be why the volunteers felt good. But, we’re only splitting these hairs to address something else the article brought up again and again: the biology of morality.

The article seemed to lump altruism in with morality, as if giving away money is somehow a moral thing to do. Examples were made of people with certain kind of brain damage who are better able to make “cold” decisions about selfish (but logical) acts of self preservation. Other examples included sociopaths who don’t have any sense of morality at all.

The problem with have with this is that it begs the question: is it moral to “do good” or is it merely moral to “not do bad.” If you were to decide to not hit our birthday boy with your car, even though he was jaywalking, is that moral? Would it make your brain feel good?

Or do you need to send him a huge gift (he’s got an eye on this jacket, for example) before your brain starts smiling?

The article does point out that theologians and philosophers are looking at this research with interest; there’s the question of whther aligning morality with brain chemistry takes away the role of free will in make responsible decisions. We’d like to suggest that what the research actually does is split the hair that needs to be split in order to define what morality actually is.

If altruism merely feels good (our birthday boy’s a size extra-large and likes the jacket in black, by the way) then perhaps morality can be defined by how we feel about it, not what it’s larger effects are. The reduces moral question to a more ego-centric approach, but our birthday boy has pointed out that, at least one day a year, being ego-centric is okay.

Trust Your Brain and Your Brain Will Trust You

The Little Engine thought he could, and he made it up the mountain. By force of sheer will, he overcame the challenges before him, and succeeded where before he had failed. 

TLE’s now retired, sitting on a sofa, watching TV. Next to him is a bowl of potato chips. He knows he shouldn’t eat them. A few are okay, but not the whole bowl. But there goes his hand, dipping and lifting the crispy treat to his mouth. “I can stop,” he says to himself. “I think I can!” And then he shoves the fistful in, and sighs as he flips channels on the TV.

We’ve all got bad habits. And we’ve all got routines and motions we go through, without even thinking about it. How do we break out of these ruts, and become the people we know we want to be? The key is confidence. It really is all about believing in and trusting yourself.

Those new-agers were right, but science can back-up some of the claims, by pointing to key areas in the brain. Consider self-control, which is occurs in the frontal part of your brain. This is an area with high energy demands, and you can literally run out of fuel necessary to control yourself (scientists call this “ego depletion”). Now consider the deeper, emotional part of your brain, the ones that want what they want NOW. You’re fighting temptation all day to the point you’re literally tired of fighting, and since the reward for staying motivated is less insistent than the reward for giving in now, you give in.

You run out of that very will that kept TLE chugging up the mountain.

Trusting yourself can replace that emotional want with a different emotion all together. This is reminiscent of the way the brain chooses to give control to the heuristics that you use for routines, and a more conscious executive decision making process. Your brain will choose the method that has the most confidence—it’s easier to drive a car to work, letting your brain handle the lefts and rights while you mental prepare the big speech for your boss. On the other hand, you wouldn’t expect to automatically drive through a city you’ve never been in before, or you’ll end up hopelessly lost.

So, if you’re confident in your decision, then making that decision will be its own reward. Instead of your frontal brain fighting against the pull of your emotions, you harness those emotions to actually push yourself up that hill.

The Little Engine that could should picture himself as a happier engine, sitting in a place where there are no chips. By choosing to concentrate on a positive outcome to his decisions, he can trust himself to execute those proper decisions. Then he can pick up the bowl, take it into the kitchen, and go back to this TV, with the bowl now out of sight.

References:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/addicted-brains/201311/the-key-quitting-self-trust-part-1
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/2013/11/12/should-habits-or-goals-direct-your-life-it-depends-2/
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2013/april-13/why-wait-the-science-behind-procrastination.html

This is Your Drugs on Brain

The writers at The Great Brain Robbery contribute to other blogs, including one that has, shall we say, a more robust editing process. The topic this week for that blog is nutrition and the brain; what foods are good for the mind, and how does one enjoy those benefits. You know, things like antioxidants from chocolate, B vitamins from fish, folic acid from legumes, vitamin E from buts and seeds. All of these nutrients make for a healthier brain.

One of the editors for that blog suggested perhaps saying a few things about nootropics, aka “smart drugs.” We’ve heard of those, of course, but we don’t know much about them. Are they for real, do they work, are they safe, is every blog that discusses them required to mention that Bradley Cooper movie?

So we grabbed our grains of salt and went looking, Turns out there’s a healthy, vibrant nootropic culture out there, ready to bring you in if you want to start popping a few pills to make yourself smarter. We are happy to report that our initial searches took us to informative websites, (as opposed to websites merely shucking tablets for profit).

The purpose of this blog post is not to be an exhaustive overview of nootropics, nor a basic nootropics 101. Rather, we’d like to point out a few things about what we’ve read so far.

1. Buying prescription drugs from other countries is illegal. We’re not trying to police you, but we do want to point out that the reason why drugs are prescribed is so that dosages can be tailored to the individual, and so that a system of liability can be in place to mitigate unfortunate consequences. Simply put, buying controlled substances online is a gamble, and not worth taking.

2. Over the counter supplements are unregulated. This means that a pill in one bottle may not be the same as a pill in another bottle. But this is case with anything that does not qualify as a “drug,” and so if you trust a certain brand, stick with that brand. Bargain shopping when it comes to supplements can be very tricky.

3. Nootropics are not cure-alls, nor are they meant to be If you suffer from poor nutrition, bad sleeping habits, undue stress, or significant psychological disorders, popping some piracetam is not going to help you. That nootropics are “supplements” should be your guide—they work best if everything else is working well. They should supplement, not replace, good habits.

The gist of all this is: when in doubt, don’t do it. Our research suggests that the people who can take nootropics with the least risk are those who probably don’t have an overwhelming need for them.

Nevertheless, we are not suggesting that you just say no to nootropics. Rather, we encourage you to do what we did: research. Take your grain of salt, look for counter-arguments to every claim you find, and decide for yourself. And in all things, moderation.

When Two Brains Lie

Over at the SciLogs blog, Michael Blume contends: HAD + TOM = Social & Religious Cognitions. Hyper Agency Detection (HAD) is what we call it when we attribute some sort of agency (or “will” if you like) behind a phenomena. The trees shift in the wind, and we say God is blowing on them. Theory of Mind (TOM) is what we call it when we start to guess why agents do the things they do. God blows on the trees because He wants to remind us He’s there.

That’s a very glib way of putting it, but it should be enough for you to get the point. Blume points out what Darwin pointed out, that assuming there’s some sort of agent behind that noise and then doing something about it is better than ignoring that growling tiger as ‘just the wind” and getting eaten. In other words, our brains were naturally selected to believe in religious things.

The Great Brain Robbery does not whole-heartedly agree. We don’t think that suggesting our brains are wired for religion dismisses worship as an artifact of survival, nor do we think that worship is promulgated by relics of survival instinct.

We contend that while TOM and HAD can create the fertile ground from which religions are grown, one more essential element is required: the ability to lie.

A study in 2002 found that increasing dopamine in skeptics resulted in their being more inclined to see faces in jumbled images. This study led to another study, which essential found a gene for believing in God. Again, a glib way to put it, but the point is this: seeing things that aren’t there is just a mild form of schizophrenia. But what if a second person is the source for HAD and TOM? What if this person tells you that the agent is called God and that He wants you to do certain things?

This is how religions are created. Not by seeing things and believing them, but by having those beliefs codified into rules of conduct. Passing false pattern recognition on to others for the purpose of control. And once it takes root, it is very easy to perpetuate: all agency is attributed to God.

But what’s not easy to perpetuate is attributing TOM. Lies require more energy from the brain than telling the truth. This effort requires a reward of some kind to compensate for the extra energy spent. But what is that reward? Is it simply survival? Being in power makes it easier to be less empathetic—are religious leaders merely making it easier for themselves to sacrifice others, this ensuring their own longevity?

Caffeine and Sleep and the Brain, a Terrible Lover’s Triangle

You’re tossing and turning. You just can’t get to sleep, but you’re exhausted.… to borrow a phrase from the kids today, double-you tee eff?

Research reported on by Scientific American and My Healthy Daily News suggests that if you’re a night person, you can drink all the coffee you want. Well, not all the coffee you want. But if you’re inclined to have a double-tall in the middle of the afternoon, go ahead.

But if you’re a morning person, best to avoid caffeine later in the day. It all has to do with your so-called chronotype (the fancy word for whether you’re a “day” person or a “night” person). Which begs the question: why do night people need caffeine later in the day at all?

As a nation, we’re all more or less sleep-deprived. While science says about eight hours is best, the average adult only gets six and half on the weekdays. Caffeine helps us get through until the weekend, when we try to pay back some of this sleep debt. 

But it’s no good if, even during your inadequate six and half, you’re not getting good sleep.

According to researchers, most people are neither “larks” nor “owls” and as such, should consider careful use of stimulants: a cup of coffee in the morning as part of a meal, not as a quick sleepiness eradicator. Remember: if you’re not awake 30 minutes after getting out of bed, you’re probably sleep deprived, and caffeine addresses the symptom, not the cause, if your ailment.

When in doubt, just eschew caffeine altogether and try to go to bed an hour early. Boring, yes, but you may find that, with enough sleep, you’re a morning person after all.

This is Your Brain in Love

Remember those commercials from the 90s, the ones where they’d show you an egg, and say “this is your brain,” and then they’d crack it open and start it sizzling in a frying pan, and say “this is your brain on drugs. Any questions?” And the question would of course be “can I get a side of home fries with that that?”

The idea was that drugs fry your brain, and so the metaphor was over extended. So, in that vein, let’s look at more ways that your brain can get fried. And since Valentine’s day is a good three months away, let’s talk about love.

First up, this study, as reported by United Academics, which points out that “Romantic love and partnership is influenced by various substances, such as oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, serotonin, cortisol and testosterone.” If you’ve been reading The Great Brain Robbery, you may recognize some of those hormones. Like cortisol, the one that, amongst other things, makes you fat and rips your brain to shreds. Ain’t love great?

And there’s this article at BrainFacts.org, discussing the same and similar research, which says “In male prairie voles, the hormone arginine vasopressin, which is involved in aggression and territorial behavior, also appears to play an important role in pair-bonding.” Did you get that, guys? Love can make you aggressive. Or being aggressive can make you fall in love.

And finally, Discover Magazine’s Seriously Science column reports on a study that shows that, for straight men, just thinking about talking to women can make their brains take a dive.

Add it all up: love makes you fat, aggressive, and stupid.

Well, of course it does.

Of course it doesn’t. Love is too complex to be reduced to a few hormones, and the brain is too complex to be similarly reduced. We encourage you to actually read the above articles and abstracts, as the question of what love does to the brain (or, not to put to fine a point on it, for the brain) is still as mysterious as it is fascinating.

But nevermind that. Nevermind being rational and cautious about approaching the science of the brain. Nevermind reading these scientific articles in the spirit that they’re offered: with a healthy dose of discernment not to take the findings and draw unsubstantiated conclusions We’ve just read the Neuroskeptics guide on how to wave away doubt. And we’re approaching jazz-hands level here.

After all, if love makes s stupid, than being stupid means we deserve to be loved, right?

The Irony of Brain Research

Taken as a whole, the very idea of brain research is pretty hilarious.

And this is true no matter what approach you take to studying the mind. Strictly biological, psychological, philosophical, spiritual: each discipline, when looking at the brain itself, is more or less clueless.

Which is not to say remarkable research hasn’t been done. Neuroscience is a very hot subject right now, precisely because of all the fascinating discoveries being made. Psychology has fascinated us for centuries, and since Freud it’s been a rich topic for discussion. And the only thing older than philosophy is religion.

But even Plato figured out that the all he could be certain of was that he didn’t know anything. A few thousand years later, Descartes updated that to knowing he exists... and that's about it. There’s an entire philosophy based on separating the brain itself from the mind. As for anatomy, some of those ancient Greeks did think the brain was the center of thought, until Aristotle came along and switched that job to the heart.

The point is, all of this noodling is being done with the very noodle being noodled. This is ironic, and therefore hilarious. But wait, there’s more: there’s a word for the brain study of laughter: gelotology. Go head, laugh at that. Laugh at Jello-tology.

And of course, what little we know about laughter and brain is… very little. We know that laughter is a distributed emotional responses, moving through several parts of the brain. We know it has social uses, as well as therapeutic uses. But next to sleep, laughter maybe one of the biggest brain mysteries yet.

The good news is: you don’t have to be a mechanic to drive a car. You don’t have to know how the brain works to have a brilliant mind, and you don’t have to know why a joke is funny to know that it’s funny.

Indeed, sometimes nothing kills a joke like explaining it.

Don’t Gamble on Brain Health

In one of Farmers’ “Fifteen Seconds of Smart,” ads, Professor Nathaniel Burke says “So you want to drive more safely…” And then he says, “Stop eating. Take deep breaths. Avoid bad weather. Get eight hours. Turn it down. And of course, talk to Farmer’s.”

Although we have no proof of this whatsoever, someone at the ad agency where they make these commercials could have handed the copy writer a list of keys to maintaining a healthy brain, and had the writer distill it down to something that could be used to sell insurance.

The essential elements to maintaining a healthy brain are: Eat smart, exercise, pick your battles, sleep, manage stress, socialize.

There’s a surfeit of research that backs up each of these assertions, and they just make sense. And we’re not even talking about good psychological or emotional health. We’re talking about the very physiology of the brain. No matter what point of view you have on human consciousness, no matter what philosophy your embrace, religion or lack thereof you adhere to, there’s no arguing against keeping your physical brain as healthy as possible.

We’ve discussed Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs before, and its interesting how these simple rules of brain health align with the bases of that Need pyramid. In our hypermodern world, we live more or less in the top two areas, esteem and self-actualization. And yet many of us, perhaps most of us, merely “check-in” with those needs at the bottom. And our brains suffer.

Insurance is, essential, gambling on disaster. You pay into a system just in case you’re unlucky enough to suffer an accident. Farmers wants you to hedge that bet, in their favor, by taking care of your mind so you don’t increase the odds of becoming unlucky. Take this either way you like—either insurance companies don’t want you injured, or they don’t want to pay you.

Either way, you are better off paying and not needing it, than not paying and needing. Same is true for brain health. Of course, if you’re lucky, you can get away with not paying and not needing it. But we can guarantee you, when it comes to brain health, you should “pay” into maintaining these basics, because you will definitely need your brain.