Wait, I can actually grow my brain?

In my Aging and Adult development class, we talked about a subject that caught my attention. The fact that the brain can actually grow and change in physical structure. This was found by imaging the brains of London cab drivers. These drivers are required to memorize every street of London before they can become a driver. They study for four years before they take the test. Their brains were imaged before studying, during studying, and after taking the test. It was found that their hippocampus had actually physically grown in size. Their brains had adapted to be able to match the required task at hand.

This brain is able to grow new neurons to be able to do what it is being conditioned to do. This behavior is very healthy for the brain, and is correlated with living longer and healthier. Many things have been found to grow neurons and help the brain live longer such as exercise, but the specific thing I am currently addressing is media intake.

They have found that watching television does little to help the brain stay healthy. It is sad to me that the average American watches five hours of television per day because there are much better things that we could be doing to our brain. One of those mentioned in my class was reading. Because of this, I have tried to spend more of my time reading in this past week and focusing on that as my main media intake. I have read the scriptures, school books, and leisure books. My current leisure author is Brandon Sanderson. Ever since I started reading his works, I have felt much happier and healthier, and I would not be surprised if my brain actually is healthier. My personal thought of why reading could be healthier than television is that while reading, the brain has to create its own image of what is happening, and that requires much more brainpower than when that image is just being presented to the sensory receptors.