Famous inventor and physicist Nikola Tesla was often flexed toes. Every night he repeatedly “squeezed” fingers 100 times on each foot, according to writer Mark Cypher. Although it is not clear that even included his exercise, Tesla himself said that it helps him to stimulate brain cells. What other strange habits can be scientists? More than 10 hours of sleep and reluctance to put on socks — is that enough to think like a genius?
The most prolific mathematician of the 20th century, Paul Erdos prefer a different kind of stimulant: amphetamine, which he used to conduct 20-hour calculations. When a friend bet him $ 500 that he will not be able to stop taking amphetamine for a month, Erdos won the bet, but complained: “You threw the math for a month ago.”
Newton, meanwhile, boasted of the advantages of celibacy. When he died in 1727, he forever changed our understanding of the natural world and left 10 million words in notes; according to the General belief, he also remained a virgin (Tesla, by the way, also keep celibacy, although claimed to have fallen in love with the dove).
Many brilliant minds in science was fantastically strange. Pythagoras hated beans. Benjamin Franklin took “air baths” naked. The path to greatness strew very strange habits.
But what if these surface facts lies something more profound? Scientists are increasingly aware that intelligence is less dependent on genetic luck than we tend to think. According to the latest compilation of evidence, about 40% of the differences between thinkers from fools to take on the expense of the environment, habitat. Whether we like it or not, our everyday habits have a strong influence on our brains, form their structure and change the process of our thinking.
Of all the great minds in the history of this benchmark combination with the eccentric genius was albert Einstein. Why not study his habits, to try to move them? He taught us how to squeeze the energy out of atoms, maybe he can teach us how to squeeze all of our weak mortal brain? Could in sleep, food and even clothing choice Einstein to be any secrets?
10 hours of sleep and second sleep
It is known that sleep is good for your brain and Einstein belonged to this advice more seriously. They say he slept at least 10 hours a day — almost one and a half times more than the average man today (6.8 hours). Is it possible to sleep up to genius status?
The writer John Steinbeck once said, “it is well Known that the problem, which was a difficult night, decided the morning after her work on the Committee of sleep.”
Many of the most powerful breakthroughs in the history of mankind, including the periodic table, structure of DNA and the special theory of relativity, they say, came to their creators in dreams. Einstein realized his theory when he had cows that got zapped. But is it really?
In 2004, scientists at the University of lübeck in Germany tested this idea in the course of a simple experiment. For a start, they trained volunteers numbers game. Most of them gradually improved in practice, but the fastest way to improve was to reveal the hidden rule. When students were tested after eight hours, the ones who are allowed to sleep, are twice more likely to have found the hidden rule than those who stayed awake.
When we go to sleep, the brain enters into a series of cycles. Every 90-120 minutes, the brain moves from light sleep to deep sleep and the state, which is associated with dreams, the phase of “rapid eye movement” (REM). Until recently it was believed that it plays a leading role in learning and memory. But that’s not the full story. “Non-REM sleep has always been a bit of a mystery, because we spend 60% of their nights in this phase of sleep,” says Stuart Vogel, a neuroscientist at the University of Ottawa.
Non-REM sleep is characterized by bursts of rapid brain activity called “sleep spindles” because of the spire prominent zigzag that appears on the EEG. Normal nights sleep will include thousands of these, each of which lasts no more than a few seconds. “This is really a gate in the other stages of sleep — the more you sleep, the more such events you will have,” he says.
Sleepy spindles begin with a surge of electric energy produced by the rapid activation of structures deep in the brain. The main culprit is the thalamus, the area of an oval form, which acts as the main “switching center” of the brain, sending the incoming sensory signals in the desired direction. While we sleep, it acts as an internal earplug, impermeable to external information, so you don’t Wake up. During sleep spindles burst comes to the surface of the brain, and then returning, completing the cycle.
Interestingly, those who have more sleep spindles, have a “moving intelligence” — the ability to solve new problems, use logic in new situations and identify patterns — which Einstein was fluent in. “They seem to be not associated with other types of intelligence, the ability to remember facts and figures, therefore, specific cognitive abilities,” says Vogel. It goes perfectly with the contemptuous attitude of Einstein’s formal education and advice, “never memorize anything you can look.”
Although the more you sleep, the more sleep spindles you have, it does not prove the benefit of sleep. This is the scenario of chicken and egg: some people have more sleep spindles, because they are smart or they are smart because they have more sleep spindles? The answer is no, but recent research has shown that night sleep in women and a short snooze in men and improve the skills of reasoning and problem solving. Importantly, the dispersal of intelligence associated with the presence of sleep spindles, which appear only during nighttime sleep in women, and daytime sleep in men.
Meanwhile, sleepy spindles in General should help, but Vogel believes that it may be something to do with areas that are activated. “We found that the same regions that generate the spindles is the thalamus and cortex support the problem-solving skills and apply logic to new situations,” he says.
Fortunately for Einstein, he allowed himself to take a NAP regularly. According to one legend, to make sure he doesn’t oversleep, he took the spoon in hand and put an iron tray or dish in front of him. As soon as he was out for a second — BAM! the spoon fell to the tray and Einstein was awakened by the sound of impact.
Daily walks
A daily walk was sacred to Einstein. When he worked at Princeton University, new Jersey, he went back and forth for three miles. In this he was following in the footsteps of other diligent walkers, including Darwin, who every day went to the three 45-minute walk.
These rituals were important not only for the form — there is a lot of evidence that walking can improve memory, creativity and problem solving. For creative people walk on the street is very important. But why?
It would seem, what’s the point. Walking distracts the brain from more Central tasks and makes more focus on how to put one foot and not fall down accidentally. Add “transitional hypofrontality”. This strange term refers to a temporary easing of activity in the Central parts of the brain. In particular, the anterior lobe, which is involved in higher processes like memory, reasoning and language.
Lowering activity, the brain adopts a completely different style of thinking that can lead to new insights, in everyday life comes rarely. There is no evidence in favor of walking, but the explanation above seems tempting.
The love of spaghetti
What geniuses eat? Alas, history is not known than Einstein harbored his unusual mind, but the Internet rumor has it that it was spaghetti. He once joked that Italy loves “spaghetti and math of Levi-Civita,” so just take him at his word.
Although simple carbohydrates a bad reputation, as always, Einstein was right. It is well known that the brain is a voracious entity that consumes 20% energy of the body, though it occupies only 2% of the mass (Einstein and less of its brain weighed only 1,230 grams, while the average is 1400 grams). Like the rest of the body, the brain prefers simple sugars, such as glucose. Neurons require constant reinforcement and turn to other sources of energy only when absolutely necessary. And that’s the problem.
Despite his love for sweets, the brain is unable to store energy, so when the level of glucose in the blood falls, the brain weakens. “The body can use its own glycogen storage reserves, releasing stress hormones such as cortisol, but they have side effects,” says Lee Gibson, Professor of psychology and physiology at the University of Roehampton.
This may include ease of consciousness and confusion that we feel when we skip lunch. In one study, it was discovered that low carb diets reduce the reaction time and spatial memory — but only in the short term (few weeks the brain adapts to energy extraction from other sources such as protein).
Sugar can give your brain valuable momentum, but unfortunately, it does not mean that the passion for spaghetti defines us geniuses. Excess hydrocarbons may cause damage to thinking abilities, contrary to popular opinion.
Smoking pipe
Today the risks associated with Smoking are widely known, therefore, stick to this habit would be unwise. But Einstein was an avid pipe smoker, and the smoke permeated all of his theories. He is extremely loved up, pigovaeva that it “promotes a calm and objective judgment in all human Affairs”. He even collected the cigarette butts on the street and shook them in remaining tobacco into the tube.
In defense of genius we can say that about the dangers of Smoking, or rather on its link with lung cancer and other diseases, was not known for sure until 1962 — seven years after his death.
Today, the risk has ceased to be a secret — Smoking stops the formation of brain cells, reduce cerebral cortex and leads to oxygen starvation of the brain. We can say that Einstein was smart in spite of this habit, not because of it.
There is another mystery. Analysis of 20 000 adolescents in the United States, habits and whose health was monitored for 15 years, showed that regardless of age and education, more intelligent children have started Smoking earlier and more often. Scientists still don’t know why so, despite the fact that this is not everywhere in the UK smokers have the IQ was lower.
Without socks
No list of strange things Einstein would not be complete without mentioning his passionate aversion to socks. “When I was young,” he wrote in a letter to his cousin, and later wife, Elsa, “I learned that the big toe always makes a hole in the toe. So I stopped wearing socks.” Then, when he couldn’t find his sandals, he wore shoes of Elsa.
As it turned out, support hypstercom movement nothing Einstein did not help. Unfortunately, there have been no studies directly examining the influence of “Beznosova”, but the preference of casual wear, in contrast to the more formal outfit, tied up with poor results on tests of abstract thinking.
And it would be best to finish the Board from the star article. “It is important not to stop asking questions; curiosity has its own reason for existence,” he told the magazine LIFE in 1955. However, you can try to poraskinut toes. Who knows, maybe this secret will work.
Strange habits of albert Einstein: what can we learn from genius?
Ilya Hel