How (And Why) To Train Your Pre-Frontal Cortex

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Dr. Chapman’s Keys For Mental Focus

This is Dr. Sandra Chapman; she’s a cognitive neuroscientist, on a mission to, in her words, further our understanding of:

  • what makes the brain stronger, faster and last longer
  • what enhances human cognitive capacity, and
  • what enhances the underlying brain systems across the lifespan.

To this end, she’s also the founder and Chief Director of the Center For Brain Health, where she has worked on her mission for the past 25 years (clocking up hundreds of peer-reviewed publications to her name), as well as being a professor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UT Dallas.

What does she want us to know?

Get your brain into gear

When it comes to your brainpower, it is “use it or lose it”, but it is also perfectly possible to use it and lose it.

Why?

Very often, what we are using our brains for is high-strain, low-yield stuff, such as multitasking, overthinking, or overthinking while multitasking. And to make it worse, we often do it without sufficient rest.

This is the equivalent of owning a Ferrari but trying to drive it in second and third gear at once by switching between the two as rapidly as possible. And doing that for 18 hours each day.

Suffice it to say, you’ll be going nowhere quickly.

An alternative “use” of brainpower is low-strain, low-yield stuff, such as having to pay close attention to a boring conversation. It’s enough to stop your mind from doing anything else, but not enough to actually stimulate you.

This is the equivalent of owning a Ferrari but keeping it idling. The wear and tear is minimal this time, but you’re not actually going anywhere either.

Better, of course, are the other two quadrants:

  • low-strain, high-yield: consistently using our brain in relatively non-taxing ways that encourage its development
  • high-strain, high-yield: here the Ferrari metaphor definitely fails, because unlike cars, our bodies (including our brains) are machines that benefit from judicious regular progressive overloading (but just by a bit, and with adequate recovery time between overloads).

See also: 12 Weeks To Measurably Boost Your Brain

How to do the “low-strain, low-yield” part

When it comes to “what’s the most important part of the brain to help in the face of cognitive decline?” the usual answer is either to focus on memory (hippocampi) or language (various parts, but for example Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area), since people most fear losing memory, and language is very important both socially and practically.

Those are indeed critical, and we at 10almonds stand by them, but Dr. Chapman (herself having originally trained as speech and language pathologist!) makes a strong case for adding a third brain part to the list.

Specifically, she advocates for strengthening the pre-frontal cortex, which is responsible for inhibition, task-switching, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. If that seems like a lot, do remember it’s a whole cortex and not one of the assorted important-but-small brain bits we mentioned above.

How? She has developed training programs for this, based on what she calls Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Tactics (SMART), to support support attention, planning, judgment and emotional management.

You can read more about those programs here:

Center For Brain Health | Our Programs

Participation in those is mostly not free, however, if you join their…

Center For Brain Health | BrainHealth Project

…then they will periodically invite you to join pilot programs, research programs, and the like, which will either be free or they-pay-you affairs—because this is how science is done, and you can read about yourself (anonymized, of course) later in peer-reviewed papers of the kind we often cite here.

If you’re not interested in any of that though, we will say that according to Dr. Chapman, the keys are:

Inhibition: be conscious of this function of your brain, and develop it. This is the function of your brain that stops you from making mistakes—or put differently: stops you from saying/doing something stupid.

Switching: do this consciously; per “I am now doing this task, now I am switching to this other task”, rather than doing the gear-grinding thing we discussed earlier

Working memory: this is effectively your brain’s RAM. Unlike the RAM of a computer (can be enhanced by adding another chip or replacing with a bigger chip), our brain’s RAM can be increased by frequent use, and especially by judicious use of progressive overloading (with rests between!) which we’ll discuss in the high-strain, high-yield section.

Flexibility: this is about creative problem-solving, openness to new ideas, and curiosity

See also: Curiosity Kills The Neurodegeneration

How to do the “high-strain, high-yield” part

Delighting this chess-playing writer, Dr. Chapman recommends chess. Although, similar games such as go (a Chinese game that looks simpler than chess but actually requires more calculation) work equally well too.

Why?

Games like chess and go cause structural changes that are particularly helpful, in terms of engaging in such foundational tasks as learning, abstract reasoning, problem-solving and self-control:

Chess Practice as a Protective Factor in Dementia

Basically, it checks (so to speak) a lot of boxes, especially for the pre-frontal cortex. Some notes:

  • Focusing on the game is required for brain improvement; simply pushing wood casually will not do it. Ideally, calculating several moves ahead will allow for strong working memory use (because to calculate several moves ahead, one will have to hold increasingly many possible positions in the mind while doing so).
  • The speed of play must be sufficiently slow as to allow not only for thinking, but also for what in chess is called “blunder-checking”, in other words, having decided on one’s move, pausing to consider whether it is a mistake, and actively trying to find evidence that it is. This is the crucial “inhibition habit”, and when one does it reflexively, one will make fewer mistakes. Tying this to dementia, see for example how one of the common symptoms of dementia is falling for scams that one wouldn’t have previously. How did cognitive decline make someone naïve? It didn’t, per se; it just took away their ability to, having decided what to do, pause to consider whether it was a mistake, and actively trying to find evidence that it is.
  • That “conscious switching” that we talked about, rather than multitasking? In chess, there is a difference between strategy and tactics. Don’t worry about what that difference is for now (learn it if you want to take up chess), but know that strong players will only strategize while it is their opponent’s turn, and only calculate (tactics) while it is their own turn. It’s very tempting to flit constantly between one and the other, but chess requires players to have the mental discipline be able to focus on one task or the other and stick with that task until it’s the appointed time to switch.

If you feel like taking up chess, this site (and related app, if you want it) is free (it’s been funded by voluntary donations for a long time now) and good and even comes with free tuition and training tools: LiChess.org

Here’s another site that this writer (hi, it’s me) personally uses—it has great features too, but many are paywalled (I’m mostly there just because I’ve been there nearly since its inception, so I’m baked into the community now): Chess.com

Want to know more?

You might like this book by Dr. Chapman, which we haven’t reviewed yet but it did inform large parts of today’s article:

Make Your Brain Smarter: Increase Your Brain’s Creativity, Energy, and Focus – by Dr. Sandra Chapman

Enjoy!

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  • Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Saturated Fat: What’s The Truth?

    We asked you for your health-related opinion of saturated fat, and got the above-pictured, below-described, set of results.

    • Most recorded votes were for “Saturated fat is good, but only some sources, and/or in moderation”
      • This is an easy one to vote for, because of the “and/or in moderation” part, which tends to be a “safe bet” for most things.
    • Next most popular was “Saturated fat is terrible for the health and should be avoided”
    • About half as many recorded votes were for “I’m not actually sure what makes saturated fat different”, which is a very laudable option to click. Admitting when we don’t know things (and none of us know everything) is a very good first step to learning about them!
    • Fewest recorded votes were for “Saturated fat is the best source of energy; we should get plenty”.

    So, what does the science say?

    First, a bit of physics, chemistry, and biology

    You may be wondering what, exactly, saturated fats are “saturated” with. That’s a fair question, so…

    All fats have a molecular structure made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Saturated fats are saturated with hydrogen, and thus have only single bonds between carbon atoms (unsaturated fats have at least one double-bond between carbon atoms).

    The observable effect this has on them, is that fats that are saturated with hydrogen are solid at room temperature, whereas unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature. Their different properties also make for different interactions inside the human body, including how likely or not they are to (for example) clog arteries.

    See also: Could fat in your bloodstream cause blood clots?

    Saturated fat is the best source of energy; we should get plenty: True or False?

    False, in any reasonable interpretation, anyway. That is to say, if your idea of “plenty” is under 13g (e.g: two tablespoons of butter, and no saturated fat from other sources, e.g. meat) per day, then yes, by all means feel free to eat plenty. More than that, though, and you might want to consider trimming it down a bit.

    The American Heart Association has this to say:

    ❝When you hear about the latest “diet of the day” or a new or odd-sounding theory about food, consider the source.

    The American Heart Association recommends limiting saturated fats, which are found in butter, cheese, red meat and other animal-based foods, and tropical oils.

    Decades of sound science has proven it can raise your “bad” cholesterol and put you at higher risk for heart disease.❞

    Source: The American Heart Association Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations on Saturated Fat

    The British Heart Foundation has a similar statement:

    ❝Despite what you read in the media, our advice is clear: replace saturated fats with unsaturated fats and avoid trans fats. Saturated fat is the kind of fat found in butter, lard, ghee, fatty meats and cheese. This is linked to an increased risk of heart and circulatory disease❞

    Source: British Heart Foundation: What does fat do and what is saturated fat?

    As for the World Health Organization:

    ❝1. WHO strongly recommends that adults and children reduce saturated fatty acid intake to 10% of total energy intake

    2. WHO suggests further reducing saturated fatty acid intake to less than 10% of total energy intake

    3. WHO strongly recommends replacing saturated fatty acids in the diet with polyunsaturated fatty acids; monounsaturated fatty acids from plant sources; or carbohydrates from foods containing naturally occurring dietary fibre, such as whole grains, vegetables, fruits and pulses.❞

    Source: Saturated fatty acid and trans-fatty acid intake for adults and children: WHO guideline

    Please note, organizations such as the AHA, the BHF, and the WHO are not trying to sell us anything, and just would like us to not die of heart disease, the world’s #1 killer.

    As for “the best source of energy”…

    We evolved to eat (much like our nearest primate cousins) a diet consisting mostly of fruits and other edible plants, with a small supplementary amount of animal-source protein and fats.

    That’s not to say that because we evolved that way we have to eat that way—we are versatile omnivores. But for example, we are certainly not complete carnivores, and would quickly sicken and die if we tried to live on only meat and animal fat (we need more fiber, more carbohydrates, and many micronutrients that we usually get from plants)

    The closest that humans tend to come to doing such is the ketogenic diet, which focuses on a high fat, low carbohydrate imbalance, to promote ketosis, in which the body burns fat for energy.

    The ketogenic diet does work, and/but can cause a lot of health problems if a lot of care is not taken to avoid them.

    See for example: 7 Keto Risks To Keep In Mind

    Saturated fat is terrible for the health and should be avoided: True or False?

    False, if we are talking about “completely”.

    Firstly, it’s practically impossible to cut out all saturated fats, given that most dietary sources of fat are a mix of saturated, unsaturated (mono- and poly-), and trans fats (which are by far the worst, but beyond the scope of today’s main feature).

    Secondly, a lot of research has been conducted and found insignificant or inconclusive results, in cases where saturated fat intake was already within acceptable levels (per the recommendations we mentioned earlier), and then cut down further.

    Rather than fill up the newsletter with individual studies of this kind here’s a high-quality research review, looking at 19 meta-analyses, each of those meta-analyses having looked at many studies:

    Dietary saturated fat and heart disease: a narrative review

    Saturated fat is good, but only some sources, and/or in moderation: True or False?

    True! The moderation part is easy to guess, so let’s take a look at the “but only some sources”.

    We were not able to find any convincing science to argue for health-based reasons to favor plant- or animal-sourced saturated fat. However…

    Not all saturated fats are created equal (there are many kinds), and also many of the foods containing them have additional nutrients, or harmful compounds, that make a big difference to overall health, when compared gram-for-gram in terms of containing the same amount of saturated fat.

    For example:

    1. Palm oil’s saturated fat contains a disproportionate amount of palmitic acid, which raises LDL (“bad” cholesterol) without affecting HDL (“good” cholesterol), thus having an overall heart-harmful effect.
    2. Most animal fats contain a disproportionate amount of stearic acid, which has statistically insignificant effects on LDL and HDL levels, and thus is broadly considered “heart neutral (in moderation!)
    3. Coconut oil’s saturated fat contains a disproportionate amount of lauric acid, which raises total cholesterol, but mostly HDL without affecting LDL, thus having an overall heart-beneficial effect (in moderation!)

    Do you know what’s in the food you eat?

    Test your knowledge with the BHF’s saturated fat quiz!

    Enjoy!

    Share This Post

  • Moore’s Clinically Oriented Anatomy – by Dr. Anne Argur & Dr. Arthur Dalley

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Imagine, if you will, Grey’s Anatomy but beautifully illustrated in color and formatted in a way that’s easy to read—both in terms of layout and searchability, and also in terms of how this book presents anatomy described in a practical, functional context, with summary boxes for each area, so that the primary concepts don’t get lost in the very many details.

    (In contrast, if you have a copy of the famous Grey’s Anatomy, you’ll know it’s full of many pages of nothing but tiny dense text, a large amount of which is Latin, with occasional etchings by way of illustration)

    Another way in which this does a lot better than the aforementioned seminal work is that it also describes and discusses very many common variations and abnormalities, both congenital and acquired, so that it’s not just a text of “what a theoretical person looks like inside”, but rather also reflects the diverse reality of the human form (we weren’t made identically in a production line, and so we can vary quite a bit).

    The book is, of course, intended for students and practitioners of medicine and related fields, so what good is it to the lay person? Well, if you ask the average person where the gallbladder is and why we have one, they will gesture in the general direction of the abdomen, and sort of shrug sheepishly. You don’t have to be that person 🙂

    Bottom line: if you’d like to know your acetabulum from your zygomatic arch, this is the best anatomy book this reviewer has yet seen.

    Click here to check out Moore’s Clinically Oriented Anatomy, and prepare to be amazed!

    PS: this one is expensive, but consider it a fair investment in your personal education, if you’re serious about it!

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  • Military Secrets (Ssh!)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Can you keep a secret?

    When actor Christopher Lee was asked about his time as a British special forces operative, he would look furtively around, and ask “can you keep a secret?” Upon getting a yes, he would reply:

    “So can I”

    We can’t, though! We just can’t help sharing cool, useful information that changes people’s lives. Never is that more critical than now, as the end of January has been called the most depressing time of year, according to Dr. Cliff Arnall at the University of Cardiff. It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom, though:

    Today we’re going to share a trick… It’s called the “secret of eternal happiness” (yes, we know… we didn’t come up with the name!) and is taught to soldiers to fend off the worst kinds of despair.

    The soldiers would be ordered to take a moment to reflect on the sheer helplessness of their situation, the ridiculous impossibility of the odds against them, all and any physical pain they might suffer, the weakness of their faltering body… and just when everything feels as bad is it can possibly feel, they’re told to say out loud—as sadly as possible—this single word:

    “Boop”

    It all but guarantees to result in cracking a smile, no matter the situation.

    Now this knowledge is yours too! Keep it secret! Or don’t. Sharing is caring.

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  • Tell Yourself a Better Lie – by Marissa Peer

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    As humans, we generally lie to ourselves constantly. Or perhaps we really believe some of the things we tell ourselves, even if they’re not objectively necessarily true:

    • I’ll always be poor
    • I’m destined to be alone
    • I don’t deserve good things
    • Etc.

    Superficially, it’s easy to flip those, and choose to tell oneself the opposite. But it feels hollow and fake, doesn’t it? That’s where Marissa Peer comes in.

    Our stories that we tell ourselves don’t start where we are—they’re generally informed by things we learned along the way. Sometimes good lessons, sometimes bad ones. Sometimes things that were absolutely wrong and/or counterproductive.

    Peer invites the reader to ask “What if…”, unravel how the unhelpful lessons got wired into our brains in the first place, and then set about untangling them.

    “Tell yourself a better lie” does not mean self-deceit. It means that we’re the authors of our own stories, so we might as well make them work for us. Many things in life are genuinely fixed; others are open to interpretation.

    Sorting one from the other, and then treating them correctly in a way that’s helpful to us? That’s how we can stop hurting ourselves, and instead bring our own stories around to uplift and fortify us.

    Get Your Copy of “Tell Yourself A Better Lie” on Amazon Today!

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  • Sesame Seeds vs Poppy Seeds – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing sesame seeds to poppy seeds, we picked the poppy seeds.

    Why?

    It’s close, and they’re both very respectable seeds!

    In terms of macros, their protein content is the same, while poppy seeds have a little less fat and more carbs, as well as slightly more fiber. A moderate win for poppy seeds on this one.

    About that fat… The lipid profiles here see poppy seeds with (as a percentage of total fat, so notwithstanding that poppy seeds have a little less fat overall) more polyunsaturated fat and less saturated fat. Another win for poppy seeds in this case.

    In the category of vitamins, poppy seeds contain a lot more vitamins B5 & E while sesame seeds contain notably more vitamins B3, B6 and choline. Marginal win for sesame this time.

    When it comes to minerals, poppy seeds contain rather more calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and manganese, while sesame seeds contain more copper, iron, and selenium. Marginal win for poppies here.

    Note: it is reasonable to wonder about poppy seeds’ (especially unwashed poppy seeds’) opiate content. Indeed, they do contain opiates, and levels do vary, but to give you an idea: you’d need to eat, on average, 1kg (2.2lbs) of poppy seeds to get the same opiate content as a 30mg codeine tablet.

    All in all, adding up the wins in each section, this one’s a moderate win for poppy seeds, but of course, enjoy both in moderation!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Take care!

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  • Chia Seeds vs Flax Seeds – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing chia to flax, we picked the chia.

    Why?

    Both are great! And it’s certainly close. Both are good sources of protein, fiber, and healthy fats.

    Flax seeds contain a little more fat (but it is healthy fat), while chia seeds contain a little more fiber.

    They’re both good sources of vitamins and minerals, but chia seeds contain more. In particular, chia seeds have about twice as much calcium and selenium, and notably more iron and phosphorous—though flax seeds do have more potassium.

    Of course the perfect solution is to enjoy both, but since for the purpose of this exercise we have to pick one, we’d say chia comes out on top—even if flax is not far behind.

    Enjoy!

    Learn more

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    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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