Why Social Interactions Are Imperative For Brain Wellness

December 5, 2009 · Filed Under Health Related Article 

As the working hours get longer and as communication scientific knowledge improves, folks are socially communicating less. We are just awfuly busy to make new friends let alone construct authentically meaningful bond. At the end of the day, who needs face to face communication when you could do it in Twitter, Facebook and the numerous online talking services?

This seclusion trend is unfortunate at best because your brain, in addition to brain food, craves social interaction to function at its top. So critical is that it is on our health that a few specialist in the field believe that the amount of social interaction an individual had is one of the golden guide of health and independence in an individual’s old age.

How come social interactions so essential to a healthy brain?

Because your brain is able of neurogenesis (the procedure of developing brand new brain cells). Nevertheless neurogenesis results only when you sufficiently challenge your brain.

Well, communicating with other individual is one of the ultimate challenging task that an individual can take on. As Lawrence Katz once said, “There is a lot of evidences that another person is the ulmost uncertain things you can encounter. So activities that have you communicating with another human beings is an awesome way of brain exercise.”

As you turn into more isolated, you are thus using less of your brain. As reported by Hebbian Learning principles, you lost what you don’t use. Thus brain cells die off and synapses breaks down as you grow older.

Unfortunately, people who are older also tend to live a more lonely life - thus starting a vicious cycle of mental decline. Sure, making new friends can be challenging and as any worthwhile relationships, you require plentiful energy to make it extraordinary.

“As soon as you become bound in your flat or your armchair, you’ve got a problem,” says Michael Merzenich, PhD, a neurobiologist at University of California, San Francisco. “You become taken out from the possibilities for excitement, for learning, and for employing your brain with entertainment and surprise. Your brain requires you to go out and have those 1000 daily surprises.”

Provided that you are having trouble looking for social interactions, here are a few of my suggestions to improve brain health.

1. Attend a class learning different forms of art, such as simple dance or playing a musical instrument. Not only will you have a chance to make new friends, these courses are also cognitively challenging, hence boost neurogenesis.

2. Offer to do something at your own local community center. People who volunteer had been demonstrated to live a happier and more accomplished life. You will of course also had the opportunity to interact with lots of people.

3. If you really despise social interactions (like I was), then have a cat. A few studies had shown that pet owners have lesser possibility of developing deadly diseases and develop cognitive failure later than non-pet-owners.

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