X-Message-Number: 4213 Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 21:35:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <> Subject: SCI.CRYONICS - Brain deterioration This posting comes with a thank you to Mike Darwin for sharing some thought-provoking (not to say terrifying) photos and scans of brains. The ability of the brain's blood vessels to function under adverse conditions; the ability of the brain's blood vessels to maintain their health while aging (and avoid strokes, etc); the ability of the brain to maintain elastic blood vessels and high blood flows, and thereby reduce loss of circulation to cells, and thereby reduce loss of cells, and thereby reduce loss of memory, loss of function, loss of personality, etc Perhaps all these are related. Perhaps therefore the yogis are right to recommend daily headstands, a kind of enforced stretching exercise for the brain's blood vessels, with a subsequent relaxation, and therefore the maintenance (or even enhancement) of elasticity and high blood flow capabilities. Because of Mike's worrying photos, I have returned (after a long interval) to daily 5-minute headstands. The first couple of times you do headstands, you feel an enormous pressure in the head. This does not occur after a few headstands, which to me is indicative of the brain being better able to deal with changing requirements (i.e. it becomes a healthier and more responsive organ). Yoga teaches that the benefit of headstands does not begin until after the first three minutes. As with all yoga teaching, it is based on inference from experience and observation, with data accumulating as lore (not religious lore, because not divinely-inspired, and always open to new advances in understanding; and not folklore, because too rigorously analyzed and debated). It is not scientific, in the sense of repeatable double-blind experiments; and I do not think it is all valid; and I do not adhere to the yogic world-view. But the observations are worth considering. I would not recommend that people beginning headstands begin with 5 minutes; begin with doing a headstand (against a wall is easiest, but does not develop balance, body-awareness, and other muscles to the same degree); don't continue a headstand for more than say 10 seconds with a powerful feeling of pressure in the head (but expect that that feeling will go away with practice); and build the length of time slowly. One modification of the headstand which I believe has originated in California is to strap the feet into boots which can be hoisted into the air upside down: this requires simple apparatus (but still higher-tech than just standing on your head) and usually an assistant; the advantages are all the benefits of the regular headstand, without resting your body on your skull and forearms; and it stretches the spine, rather than compressing the upper spine with greater weight. But no matter what we do, I guess we can expect some inevitable downsizing of the brain.... As I teach management skills, and claim to be an optimist, I can regard this with a certain amount of equanimity: it provides an opportunity for restructuring, greater efficiency, increased productivity, all summed up as "doing more with less". After all, why not? Don't we all agree that "Age and treachery can always defeat youth and energy"? Why shouldn't there be a physiological basis to the idea that you can learn to think smarter? Besides, if the brain (which is so vital to our evolutionary advantage) should prove to have - let's hypothesize - triple redundancy, then we can live with a lot of loss: whether age-related, dying-related, freezing-related, or whatever. (So cheer up Mike! Everyone feels like this when they turn 40! Happy birthday!) Always optimistically, Robin HL Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4213