Can certain smells boost brain power? Let’s first take a look at what else certain odors can do:

• Stores are now using special odors to make customers buy things and spend more money
• The leathery smell of a new car is an artificial odor sprayed on to enhance buyer satisfaction
• Casinos are using odors to make people gamble more

Your mental energy and ability to concentrate depend to a very large extent on the types of food you eat. Unfortunately, most people fall short when it comes to understanding how to best feed the brain. Here’s a short tip you may find helpful:

Is the brain like the muscles in your body? Can it be trained with cognitive exercises to improve mental agility and sharpness as you get older?

Quite a bit of research has come out lately indicating that the answer to this question is a resounding ‘Yes’.

One of the main benefits of stimulant drugs (such as cocaine, ephedrine, and amphetamines like Ritalin) is their ability to dramatically increase mental energy and concentration. They can make it easier to focus on your work and studies for prolonged periods of time.

How is this achieved? Basically, it’s thought that psychostimulants increase catecholamine

Can college students pull an ‘All-Nighter’—staying up the entire night to cram for a test—and have their brains function close to normal the next day? The majority, of course, think so …

But several studies clearly show brain function takes a big hit after an all-nighter. Memory systems and

Over the past 4 years, I’ve eaten a lot of dark chocolate, and some of the world’s best bars have made their way through our kitchen. Amedei, Valrhona, Michel Cluizel, El Rey, Domori, Bonnat. The nice thing about chocolate is that it is a very affordable luxury. You can grab yourself the world’s finest bar for less than $20.

One of the greatest misunderstandings people have about the brain is their belief in “free energy”.

Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words…

(Noever, R., J. Cronise, and R. A. Relwani. 1995. Using spider-web patterns to determine toxicity. NASA Tech Briefs 19(4):82. Published in New Scientist magazine, 27 April 1995.)

Snoring can be one of the signs of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a relatively common disease that affects children and adults. There’s been quite a bit of press lately about it- and for good reason: sleep apnea, which tends to be greatly underdiagnosed, can have a tremendous affect on your brain power.

Does listening to Mozart make you smarter? According to a landmark neuroscience research study out of the University of California, Mozart’s sonata for two pianos K448 (which you can listen to below) can increase your spatial-temporal IQ scores by 9 points

Today I received an email from someone who runs a memory and learning improvement internet business. It was the kind of email that gets blasted to thousands of inboxes simultaneously. Although I’ve never purchased any of their products, I always got the impression it was fairly reputable.

In the 1950s, apparently all kids in England got daily cod liver oil capsules at school.

Not sure when this stopped, but a

Ritalin, Adderall, Strattera, Concerta, Metadate, Dexedrine, Focalin, Cylert, Attenade. All are stimulants used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD). They are also all drugs that have been tried or used by 15-30% of college students to get ahead academically.

Now a

Many are using Nintendo’s Brain Age game to boost their brain power.
Here are two more powerful tools, however, you can add to your brain
gym:

• Dance Dance Revolution
• In the Groove

[Two videos follow at the end of the article]

As pharmaceutical companies come out with newer, more effective brain boosting pills (see an earlier post on ampakines), more and more people will be chiming in on the ethics of brain enhancement.

A recent Harvard University newspaper article suggests that many Harvard students casually rely on prescription

A new study published in the European Child Adolescent Psychiatry seems to indicate that pine bark extract is effective for treating attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The extract is called Pycnogenol, which is derived from the bark of the French maritime pine.

A study out of the University of Adelaide, to be published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, shows that

Ampakines are a class of proprietary drugs that are being developed by Cortex Pharmaceuticals and its partners. These compounds are thought to be potentially useful in improving memory and concentration in people who have ADHD and Alzheimer’s disease. Many are hopeful that the drugs will help improve cognition and performance in those that are normal and healthy.

I’ve been asked several times if studying can be made more productive by having music playing in the background.

While going through college and medical school, I’ve met quite a few students who insisted they study better and learn more with this method.

Many turn to soft drinks loaded with sugar for energy. These drinks are everywhere; you can’t leave your house without passing a coke or pepsi vending machine. The common belief is that the sugar bolus gives you that extra mental energy boost.

Not too long ago, I posted how over the long term, meditation can actually increase the size of the brain. Specifically, it thickens the cerebral cortex in areas important for attention and concentration.

I came across another study, though, that shows meditation over the short term can also

About 2 weeks ago, I posted how an “empty stomach” can improve memory and boost brain power via a stomach-made hormone called ghrelin.

Ghrelin travels to the hippocampus, the memory engine of the brain, and causes new connections to form between brain cells.

Now, a study has been published that shows

This helpful bit should be of use to college students, busy executives, and anyone else who is dependent on high levels of concentration and brain power.

It turns out there is a growing body of research that shows, amazingly:

• Exposure to green outdoor settings (parks, trees, grassy backyards, etc…) can

In the last several years, several small studies seem to indicate that chewing gum can help reduce stress and improve short- and long-term memory.

Is it the sugar or the chewing?

One study out of the University of Northumbria on 75 healthy volunteers found the improvement was present even when the gum was sugar-free.

The results from this recent study out of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center are very unsettling:

After just 3 months of use, Ritalin has been found to significantly damage children’s DNA (Cancer Letters 2005;230:284-91).