Dr. Kelly Lambert was full of keen insights about the brain and the power of hands-on learning in a recent podcast conversation with us.
This line jumped out:
“Our bodies aren’t just here to carry our brains to the next meeting.”
This statement was in reply to a question that asked for her suggestions and advice about how best to treat our brains. Afterall, Dr. Lambert is a renowned brain researcher from the University of Richmond.
First, she emphasized, the answer to that question is complicated. “And it’s probably not one size fits all.”
Yes, she said, crossword puzzles are good. Or playing Wordle.
Sitting idle? Not so good.
But Dr. Lambert—again, someone who focuses on the three pounds of matter inside our skulls—stressed the importance of engaging the body, too.
“My husband and I, in our old age, we’re taking dance lessons and it's really hard to, you know, be in sync with another person and learn,” she said. “But because it's difficult, I know it's good for my brain.”
Don’t retire and do nothing. “Your brain is going to go downhill,” she said.
Try woodworking. Or gardening. Or cooking. It’s a good idea whenever you’ve “done something you can share with other people and it’s good nourishment, you know, for your body.”
Dr. Lambert referred to the famous Carl Zimmer quote: “The hand is where the mind meets the world.” (Kind of a good companion thought to the Anatomy in Clay® Learning System motto, “The mind cannot forget what the hands have learned.”)
And consider, added Lambert, how critical our hands have been in the evolution of our species. “It's hard for us to even imagine a world where we couldn't go to a grocery store, or farmer’s market even, to get food,” she said.
But it wasn’t that long ago that the only food we were going to eat was what we could attract, catch, and harvest. With our hands.
As humans, we have had to interact with the environment “in very complex ways.”
The brain got bigger and better and smarter because of cooking, particularly using fire to make meat easier to digest “so we didn’t have to chew eight hours a day like some of our primate ancestors do.”
We learned to eat faster, which changed our evolution. “We didn’t need those big canine teeth,” said Lambert. But we could also get more protein—more fuel—to the brain.
However.
There is an issue today, she said, and it’s that as a species we too often “sit down on our rear ends all day.”
Dr. Lambert called it a “contextual conundrum.”
As humans, she said, “we've been so good at creating a world where we don't have to think and work and stress so much that it may not be engaging enough for our brain. So we need to be mindful of that.”
And it’s not only cooking or sewing (or even building muscles on an Anatomy in Clay® Learning System kit).
It’s getting outside.
Rats, she said, “seem to just come alive” when they are given an “enriched environment” with “dirt and sticks and stones.”
So, again, our bodies aren’t just here to carry our brains to the next meeting.
If you want to be good to your brain, keep your hands busy.
Preferably in the great outdoors.
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