Brain Boosting
In college, I was never one to take adderal or ritalin to cram all night before an exam. That no-sleep study route sounded miserable to me. I was the unusual student who slowly and steadily worked every single day in the library towards inevitable midterms and finals. Nevertheless, increasing brain creativity and focus through exercise, meditation, drugs and supplements fascinates me.
From what I've read, brain research indicates that exercise and meditation are safe and highly effective ways to increase performance. Evidence trends towards positive performance via caffeine, electrical stimulation and tyrosine. However, each one of these must be used properly and their effects can potentially diminish over time.
Below are links to some of the resources I've found most useful while learning about ways to stimulate increased brain creativity and focus.
Exercise
- Walking improves creativity is a Stanford study that showed how creativity, as measured by high-quality, novel analogies was increased by walking in the control group.
- Why walking helps us think goes into the connection between walking, thinking and writing.
- How Exercise Could Lead to a Better Brain summarizes that over the last several decades research has pointed to the strong relationship between exercise and better brain function.
Meditation
- How to practice mindfulness meditation covers the basics on how to begin with this form of meditation. Note that the goal with mindfulness meditation is not to clear your mind of thoughts but to actually allow them to come to you and work with them.
- How meditation may change the brain covers some of the research done on how meditation can alter brain structure for the better, especially in our always-on world.
Caffeine
- How Caffeine Can Cramp Creativity goes into the link between creativity and focus and how caffeine can alter that balance.
L-Tyrosine
- Tyrosine has quite a bit of research behind its benefits compared to many other common supplements. This chart lays out how it compares with other supplements and vitamins from an evidence perspective.
- Before taking a supplement such as Tyrosine it's a good idea to check with a site like WebMD for drug interactions and side effects.
Piracetam & Choline
- Nootropics, their effects, risks and where to get them is one of the most comprehensive write ups I've found on the topic of Nootropics, which includes synthetics like Piracetam.
- Piracetam can be purchased at Cognitive Nutriton while I usually get choline from Amazon or Vitamin Shoppe.
Electrical Brain Stimulation
- Military research under controlled circumstances led to results where electrical brain stimulation beat caffeine.
Cautionary Tales and Supplemental Reading
- How Inactivity Changes the Brain goes over the flip side to regular physical activity benefiting the brain: inactivity can hamper its performance.
- The toxins that threaten our brains is an in-depth well-written article on the dangers that common substances such as lead, mercury, arsenic and ethanol present to brains, especially in children whose brains are still developing.
- My experiment with smart drugs provides a perspective from the author on his experiment with the narcolepsy drug Provigil.
- Age-related brain decline begins at 24 according to research done with Starcraft players.
- What alcohol actually does to your brain and body. Summary: seriously not good for you.