Richard Nantel

Canada AM this morning had an interview with Oxford’s Dr. Alexandra Richardson about the positive effects of omega 3 fatty acids on children experiencing learning difficulties in school. In a recent double blind study, children given a half gram of omega 3 supplements showed significant improvements in reading, writing, concentration, and behavior compared to children who received a placebo.

According to Dr. Richardson, omega 3 fatty acids are “essential brain nutrients.” These fatty acids also benefit the circulatory system and our vision, and they ward off depression. Unfortunately, hydrogenation in processed food has severely reduced the amount of omega 3 we consume. So, unless you live next to a fishmonger or sushi bar, supplements are probably a good idea.

The interview is available here.

For the last six weeks, I’ve been learning about brain plasticity theory. This has been a life-changing experience for me. Research showing that the brain can significantly change itself through learning is exciting, inspiring, and life-affirming. The promise that exercising your brain through new mental challenges can help keep Alzheimer’s disease and dementia at bay is immensely motivating.

There’s a dark side to brain plasticity, however. Research indicates that, whereas learning forges new neural connections and brain health, routine and lack of mental challenge make your brain less plastic. Less plasticity means it becomes harder to learn new skills. Research also suggests that lower levels of brain plasticity make you more rigid in your thoughts, less innovative, and less creative.

Learning keeps our brains flexible. Learning affects our brain as yoga affects our body’s joints, muscles, and ligaments. A brain subjected to an existence of routine and lack of stimulation creates a brain that can’t touch its toes.

This has significant repercussions for workforce learning. Keeping someone in the same job position doing the same tasks for years may make it much harder for a person to learn new job skills later, especially if that person does not pursue mentally challenging activities outside of the workplace.

What all this suggests is that there are significant benefits in providing an environment for your workforce that encourages learning, even if the tasks being learned aren’t applicable to a person’s job.

What could this look like?

• A library. Every brick and mortar organization should have a library. This doesn’t need to be elaborate, just a bookshelf with stimulating reading materials people can borrow and to which they can donate books they have read.

• A quiet room with sudoku, chess boards, and crossword puzzles. Give them a peaceful place to escape from the barrage of e-mails and phone calls they normally deal with.

• Language courses. Bring someone in once a week to teach a language, or purchase online or DVD-based language skills courses.

• Lunchtime Tai Chi classes. Apparently, Tai Chi has a positive effect on the area of the brain responsible for focus and concentration.

• A sound-proof room with a keyboard. Research indicates that learning to play a musical instrument provides a marathon workout for the brain.

The world’s best employers have for years been providing their employees with an exercise room or have been subsidizing their gym memberships. These companies know that fit employees are more productive, have a more positive outlook, and are less likely to call in sick.

Brain plasticity theory now suggests that providing team members with mental challenges will create a workforce capable of easily learning new job skills.

The early years are all about learning. Babies’ and toddlers’ brains are in overdrive as they learn to interpret and interact with the world around them.

When they begin attending school, children spend many hours each day learning brain-taxing skills such as math, reading, and writing.

Adolescence and early adulthood require enormous amounts of learning as well, both in school and out. People in this age group learn how to forge deeper personal relationships — no easy task. Also, many young adults enter the workforce, requiring that they learn new job skills as well as life skills for self sufficiency.

For many of us, the amount of learning in our lives drops dramatically once we have established careers and families. Learning is replaced with routine. The demands of work and family limit the amount of time we have to immerse ourselves into learning new skills or subjects. After a long day juggling work and family obligations, most of us choose to veg out on the couch watching TV over studying a foreign language or tackling calculus.

By the time we retire from a lifetime of work, we’re beat. We’ve worked hard, paid off the mortgage, and feel we’ve earned the luxury of sitting back and relaxing. Motivation to tackle something hard is at an all-time low.

But, according to many research studies, just about the worst thing we can do later in life is take it easy physically and intellectually.

According to the Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures 2007, 13 percent of people 65 years of age and older currently have Alzheimer’s disease. In the over 85 age group, nearly 50 percent have this terrible disease.

It’s easy to attribute the prevalence in Alzheimer’s to an aging population and greater longevity. Strangely, though, the rates of other age-related diseases are dropping. Between the years 2000 and 2004:

• Deaths from heart disease dropped by 8 percent
• Deaths from breast cancer dropped by 2.6 percent
• Deaths from prostate cancer dropped by 6.3 percent
• Deaths from stroke dropped by 10.4 percent

In comparison, over the same time period, deaths from Alzheimer’s disease rose by a staggering 32.8 percent.

An increasing amount of research suggests that learning reduces the risk and rate of progression of Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, a number of studies have found an association between Alzheimer’s disease and limited education experience.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association:

“The data suggest that increased educational and occupational attainment may reduce the risk of incident AD [Alzheimer's Disease], either by decreasing ease of clinical detection of AD or by imparting a reserve that delays the onset of clinical manifestations.”

If information such as this doesn’t create a population of life-long learners, I don’t know what will.

Listen to this article