This week, as I scanned the brain health headlines for blog ideas, I debated between two stories – one involving the clinical trials of a “promising” new Alzheimer’s prescription drug and the other about how dishwashing (yes, you read that right) can help your brain with focus.
The clinical trial headline (Novel Alzheimer’s Drug Slows Cognitive Decline) was more exciting than the actual story. The study was small, the difference in cognitive scores only marginally better, and the drug had to be administered intravenously every four weeks up to 72 weeks. The proposed medication is another stab at reducing beta-amyloid plaque, a road that’s been unsuccessfully travelled by other pharmaceutical researchers seeking to diminish the cognitive destruction of Alzheimer’s Disease. Admittedly, I’m a skeptic when it comes to fixing a complex disease like dementia by medication. I’m hopeful that effective treatments are on the horizon but, in the meantime, we need to do as much as possible to keep our own cognitive gears whirling.
So I’m going with the dishwashing story that caught my eye with this headline: Why These Neurologists Want You To Wash Dishes For Better Brain Health (Really!)
The story concerns two neurologists, Dean and Ayesha Sherzai, who singled out attention as the “gatekeeper of consciousness”, noting that without attention, brain abilities like memorization and learning new information become more arduous tasks. Since the ability to focus naturally wanes with age, utilizing strategies to employ attention are paramount.
But the Sherzais also point out that enhancing focus doesn’t have to come from brain games and puzzle-solving. It’s better developed by incorporating into everyday endeavors.
Take the dirty dishes that are languishing in your kitchen, for example. When you wash dishes, you're completely focused on the task at hand. It's difficult to try to multi-task, like responding to texts or phone alerts, with soapy fingers. Remember, multi-tasking (attempting to do several things at once) is a myth – it means that you are merely doing many things badly. The brain is unable to split attention. Over time, attempting to multi-task erodes the ability to discern between what’s relevant and what’s not.
Think of the act of dishwashing as a ritual when you are paying attention to what's in front of you and focusing on the task from beginning to end. The neurologists liken it to a Japanese tea ceremony. The important consideration is not about brewing and drinking the tea but the act of going through the process in detail, while in a state of meditative focus.
If dishwashing is not a part of your everyday life (lucky you), other common activities that can get your mind into that mental state of calm alertness might be drawing, gardening, knitting, or folding the laundry. In my brain health classes, I ask participants to quickly sort playing cards into suits or to separate beads by color to speed up the processing part of the brain and learn to allay the distractions around them.
I love the simplicity of this brain health lesson – it’s so easy to become distracted by a noisy world, internal thoughts and the endless serenade of pings and ringtones. Righting the brain by reigning in focus is as near as your kitchen sink.
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