“The Playful Brain: The Surprising Science of How Puzzles Improve Your Mind,” written by neuroscientist and neuropsychiatrist Richard Restak and with puzzles by Scott Kim, runs through everything from Sudoku to mazes to how pickpockets operate in order to explain the beneficial effects of puzzles on memory, perception and cognition. We chatted with Restak recently. Here are edited excerpts: So what kind of puzzles can help us? I don’t distinguish between a puzzle and a riddle or other things in daily life that make you think. Someone gets up and has to figure out all these things he needs to do in the day, and to do so in a way that’s efficient. We have puzzles around us all the time. Challenging work — that’s a puzzle if you will. You’re molding your brain all the time by the activities you’re doing and what you value.Find the rest of that interview, here.
The Huffington Post recently mentioned the author, as well:
The virtual world may be creating a virtual brain. In the virtual world, we see spoon-fed menu options as opposed to free-ranging inquiry. Contracted text messaging lacks the verbs and conditional structures that are essential for complex thinking. Our children have not learned to think linearly or conceptually nor in a layered way. They are right-brain geniuses; but they are akin to idiot savants in the limited capacity of their left brain operations for the "fine grained analysis," as Richard Restak says, that is important for thinking logically and conceptually. Nine-tenths of the writing today takes place in the business world, and it is done on a computer. The computer, like television, consists of a mosaic of images, back lit screens and near instantaneous speed. These attributes engage the right hemisphere. Yet, when we are reading or writing printed material, we are employing language, which engages the left hemisphere. Restak posits that when we use words on the computer -- reading or writing -- both hemispheres are stimulated, but not in an integrated way. Rather, the hemispheres are conflicting -- even competing -- with one another. To the brain, reading and writing on a computer is an entirely different activity -- neurologically disorganizing -- than reading and writing using paper, which is a neurologically organizing activity. (And, in spite of my being no good at reprogramming television glitches, my brain has apparently re-framed itself into 21st century capability sufficiently such that I am writing these words, thinking about them, organizing my thoughts, as I am looking at my computer screen. It took a while for me to retrain my brain to think in this way since I acquired my first computer 30 years ago, but I have thankfully succeeded.)You can find that post, here. See also: The Playful Brain: Venturing Limits of Neuroscience
, Making the Brain Body Connection: A Playful Guide to Releasing Mental, Physical & Emotional Blocks to Success
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