A recent study supported by the National Football League indicates that Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) or related conditions involving memory deficits appear to occur more frequently in the league’s former players significantly more than the general population. Indeed, the study indicates former players suffer dementia 19 times more often than the normal rate for men ages 30-49.

The study conducted by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research is consistent with previous studies pertaining to NFL players and the effects of head injury. The study found that 6.1% of players age 50 and above reported that they had received a dementia-related diagnosis or 5x higher than the cited national average which is 1.2 %. Players ages 30 through 49 evinced a rate of 1.9% or 19 times that of the national average which is documented to be .01%.

Critics of the study question its methodology that reportedly used telephone surveys. However, research beyond the NFL consistently lists head injury as a risk factor for AD even though the exact mechanism for this relationship is not yet known.

Perhaps a more significant issue that the NFL/Dementia study underscores is the cumulative effect of head injury which likely begins with the sport of football well before any single player enters the NFL. Fortunately there are now sophisticated assessment protocols that provide each player in high school the opportunity to have his or her cognitive skills measured, thereby providing a baseline of their cognitive status. In the event a concussion occurs the player can obtain another assessment to measure the impact of the head injury that helps to keep the player off the field until his or her cognitive status returns to baseline.

It is most likely not a good idea to engage in any activity that has persistent striking of the head to any degree. Head injuries occur in football, hockey, and perhaps even soccer. The fact that the latter sport does not permit use of head bands or some type of head gear is amazing! The current study should alert the nation to re-consider youth sports as the cumulative effect of striking the head across the lifespan most likely contributes to the results reported. Equally significant is the idea that any child would be exposed to a potential head injury when his or her brain is undergoing critical development.

Most everyone remembers the wonderful drama Wizard of Oz in which two of the characters, the Tin Man was searching for his heart and the Scarecrow for his brain. It is interesting to consider how cultures from the beginning of civilization have perceived the human body.

Egyptians buried their royalty after removing every organ from the body but the heart. Shakespeare and others have published classic writings on the heart and the emotions associated with this organ. Indeed, our social language has concluded that the heart is the epicenter of human existence and that our fundamental and deep emotions are housed and expressed there.

Stepping back from a deliberate and conscious consideration of this belief is a cold reality that the heart is a pump that perfuses blood throughout our system. The cold truth is that the heart never deserved to be considered the epicenter of anything! We do not feel, move, or think with the heart anymore than we do with the lungs or pancreas. Amazingly, our culture is so smitten with the heart that we even express ourselves in nonsensical ways such as “I love you with all my heart,” “you broke my heart,” the Steelers played their hearts out,” “the Heartbeat of America.” We even have a holiday dedicated to the heart called Valentines’ Day in which you will observe some (typically men) walking around with red boxes shaped like a heart!

While this is a bit fun we should pause and consider a serious fact that the human brain is the system that provides our emotional, motor, and cognitive abilities. Indeed, our brain is our epicenter and it defines our existence and interaction with the world around us. True the heart is critical for pumping the blood to the brain, but love, grief, laughter, fear, hope, mobility, memory, imagination, creativity, language and so much more are outcomes of the miracle that is our brain.

A basic understanding of this fact helps us to appreciate how wrong our thinking has been since the beginning of time. Fortunately, some of this foolish thinking has actually led to sound and effective policy regarding cardiac health (did you ever notice little red hearts next to foods in your grocery stores or on the menu?). We simply need to take an objective understanding of the facts on the human brain and how important it is to our very existence and begin to apply practice and policy that promotes the health and expansion of the human brain.

Maybe the brain will get its own holiday!!

Brain health begins with your learning the basics of your brain and how environment influences the structure and function of your brain. It is important to understand that you have the ability to promote healthy development of your brain that can not only influence the health of your brain, but also affect aspects of your life in a positive way.

Consider the following examples of how a proactive brain health lifestyle that includes (1) physical activity, (2) mental stimulation, (3) nutrition, (4) socialization, and (5) spirituality can make a positive difference:

1. Increased communication skills with your partner and peers at work. We incur divorce and financial loss at work because of communication problems.

2. Control over the inner voice that sabotages nearly every diet plan. This is an issue of inhibition, discipline, and reward that results from thoughts and action.

3. Leadership through enhancement of empathy and accurate perception of the emotions of others. Presidents get elected with such skills and our best leaders likely have this skill.

4. Relationship building and limiting unnecessary tensions. This is a big one for family dynamics.

5. Achieving success in life by setting concrete goals and developing the mental path to meet these goals. Thoughts are electrical, chemical, and perhaps magnetic with influence over behavior and outcome.

6. Creation of a better sense of self.

7. Gaining control over inner tension, stress, and our psychophysiology that can alter our longevity and quality of life.

8. Slowing time and developing an appreciation for the here and now.

9. Understanding the enormous power and consequences of our words and messages to others, particularly children.

10. Promoting neuronal development through learning and exposure of our brains to the novel and complex such as Fit Brains www.fitbrains.com

No worry, this is not a list of leadership skills or how to become the best CEO in the world! Rather, you may not even realize you have your own “Executive System” that sits in the region of your brain known as the frontal lobe. The largest and youngest member of your cortex, the frontal lobe is a very interesting part of you. It facilitates many important and distinct skills that are used everyday. Examples of such skills include planning, organization, analytic, sequencing, multi-tasking, inhibition, creativity, attention and discrimination, fluency, emotional expression and perception, ethics and social grace, and judgment. Even your personality is the product of frontal lobe function!

We refer to the frontal lobe as the “executive system” because it serves the role of executing the multiple intentions that arrive from other parts of the brain. It is the CEO of the brain or the grand Maestro of the behavioral and cognitive symphony of the brain. Clearly, the frontal lobe—executive system is critical to your neuronal health.

Some practical tips to stimulate and exercise your executive system include the following:

1. Organize your day, organize your room (good one for the teenagers in the house!), and help to organize an event or even your child’s schedule.

2. Participate in planning a vacation, trip, or some future event.

3. Practice expressing different emotions and then perceiving emotions on the faces of others.

4. Practice stating aloud the alphabet, but alternate between letters and numbers in a logical order. Any time you can alternate between two distinct categories is a workout for your executive system.

5. Give yourself some free time to imagine and create.

6. Pay attention to ethics and decision making that involves good or poor judgment.

7. Watch how typical personality traits can change with stress, mood, and alcohol. These chemical triggers alter the frontal lobe and can also alter one’s personality for a temporary period of time.

8. Express as many words as you can in 60 seconds that begin with different letters.

9. Draw 30 small circles on the page and write words of different colors under each circle. Then color the circles with a color that is different than the word you wrote under the particular circle. Now, state aloud the color of the circle, not the written word for each of the 30 circles as fast as you can. See how many you can correctly state in 30 seconds.
10. Go to www.Fitbrains.com and play the following games to exercise your executive system:

• Wonder Juice Machine
• Sum Snap
• Travel Quest

Good luck with your workout!