Your brain: Use it or Lose it

A participant in my Brains and Balance Training class at The Club at WestPark in Del Webb asked a valid, common question...."Why do I need to do this vision training"?  

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM'S USE IT OR LOSE IT:
TRANS-NEURONAL DEGENERATION

The answer is simple: USE IT OR LOSE IT.  

We already know that if you don't move a body part, you lose the ability to move it. 

You know if you don't strengthening your legs, your legs get weak and you're more likely to fall. 

The same "USE IT OR LOSE IT" principle applies to your brain and nervous system called "TRANS-NEURONAL DEGENERATION"

A healthy brain needs fuel and activation.  If you don't activate the entire brain, neurons die.   

Activating your senses is the only way to "use" your entire brain.  Not playing crossword puzzles and brain teasers.  You need to stimulate your senses.

 

Vision is the #1 input to the brain and vision is a brain-wide event.  In other words, when you do vision training, you activate all the lobes of the brain in order to see and process what you see.  

The cool thing about sensory training is the neurology rule, "Neurons that lie together, fire together".  This means that as neurons die because of lack of fuel and/or activation, the dying neurons influence the ones next to it.  The good news is this lie together/fire together principle works the other way, too.

As you activate neurons through sensory input, the neurons positively influence the neurons next to it.     "Hey, I'm moving, move with me", said the vision neuron to the pain inhibitor neuron.  IN other words, when you activate the visual neurons, they activate neurons that turn off pain!

If you're in chronic pain, get your eyes moving.  

As for improving your balance, the eyes muscles are innervated by nerves that go directly into the brainstem; areas of the brainstem that affect posture and balance.  It's complicated but what you need to know is that training the eyes activates neurons that DIRECTLY influence upright posture and balance. 

The moral of this blog: 

"If you don't train the sensory systems, half of your brain is dying"~ Kelly Ward

 

If you want to move, stay balanced, prevent a fall, have great vision and live independently, you'll do drills to activate the most neglected and least understood part of the brain; your sensory cortex.