Page 33 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

24 HOW THIS BOOK WORKS

Taking your thinking to a higher level.

The School Sisters of Notre Dame are dedicated to education and believe the
idle mind is the devil's workshop. So they have vowed to keep their minds
active. When not doing their educational work or worshiping, many of the good
sisters play games, do puzzles, follow current events and such.
A number of years ago this group came to the attention of the medical science
world, as they were outliving the general population and showing fewer signs of
Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. A study was begun to monitor their
living habits, and upon their deaths many have been donating their brains to
science. Some very interesting discoveries have been made. One such
revelation is that many of the sisters do in fact have Alzheimer's. But because
of their diverse and dynamic mental activity, it is believed, they have greater
healthy resources in other areas of the brain to often take over for some of the
performance when the weakened portions lose functionality with age.
Although what researchers call "the Nun Study" represents the largest brain
donor population in history, this phenomenon is not unique to this group. But
the community's closed population and unique commitment to education
makes for interesting study. As of this writing, 678 Sisters are participating.
Many close to this phenomenon agree that an active mind throughout one's life
puts the individual in a better position to "manage" the onset of mental aging,
so that, when certain neurological pathways begin to dry up (neurons, dendrites,
synapses, etc.), other healthier pathways can often assume their work.
The conclusion for the context of this book is that diverse mental activity is not
just a way to come up with ideas and solve the problem du jour. It is also a
good strategy to ensure that your brain maintains peak performance in general.

If you'd like to learn more on this fascinating topic, enter "Nun Study" into a
search engine and find a comfortable chair.

A BOOK YOU DON’T HAVE TO “READ”

I have built a number of self-navigation elements into this book (as
though you weren’t going to do just as you pleased anyway). It started
with the Creative IQ test you probably just took. After taking this
quick little quiz, the order of the chapters in this book has already
changed—from a priority perspective, at least. (You already may have
read half of this book. See what I mean?)