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Your
cortex, the thinking part of the human brain, is endlessly fascinating
and loves its job of maintaining the “You” of you. When it emerged
2.4 million years ago, the big issues were dodging dangers, locating
mates, finding and killing food. Among the most recent changes
in cortical design are the ability to perceive patterns among
events, social skills like altruism and emotional control, planning
ahead and writing language. Such cortical skills are the last
to develop in infancy, the first to decline with age.
Learn More About Your Brain |
Concentrating takes effort. In fact, most memory
complaints have nothing to do with the actual ability of the
brain to remember things. They come from a failure to focus properly
on the task at hand. The brain is wired to tune out inputs that
don’t spell S-U-R-V-I-V-A-L. Remembering the name of your girlfriend’s
cat is not the first thing on your mind. So stop, concentrate,
link it to someone or something with the same name.
Everyone
who spends part of the year in a cold climate knows that it’s
not unusual for people to feel a little more “down” in the winter
than in the summer — an experience some have described
as a kind of “emotional hibernation.” But for others winter can
bring on a much more acute form of the common winter blues, a
condition that triggers severe depression and sometimes even
suicide. It has recently acquired a name: Seasonal Affective
Disorder, or SAD.
