GQ: Brain exercise

Good news for couch potatoes - new research suggests you can think yourself fit, and think yourself psychic. Psychology professor Ian Robertson of Trinity College Dublin reports that just thinking about strenuous physical activity can hone the body as well as the mind. In his book Mind Sculpture (Bantam Press, £16.99), he describes research into mental mini-workouts, where volunteers were asked to imagine they were constantly flexing and tensing one finger on the left hand. After four weeks of daily training the virtual muscle-builders' finger strength increased by an average 22 per cent. Professor Robertson remarks: "This is good news for the sluggards among us, who would prefer to do our training on the couch than on the track or in the gym." It's an important piece of research for athletes too, because the mental gym never closes. If you're injured, stuck on a 16-hour flight, suffering from 'flu or simply unable to afford the swimming pool ticket, take some exercise in your head instead.

Javelin expert and British Olympic medallist Steve Backley described how he coped after twisting his ankle four weeks before the competitive season began: unable to walk without pain, he seated himself in a firm chair and imagined throwing the javelin 1,000 times in each of the world's major stadiums. At first, even to think of physical exertion caused his ankle to scream in pain but, by tranferring his thoughts to the uninjured side of his body, Steve quickly generated a smooth rhythm in his mind. Two weeks later he was able to restart his physical programme, and found his loss of strength and fluency was negligible - even though he should have been hopelessly out of practice.

So turn that equation around, and ask: how does the brain benefit when the body gets busy? Professor Robertson, one of the world's leading experts in rebuilding brains damaged by strokes and car accidents, says: "Learning sculpts the brain. It crochets
intricate new patterns in the trembling web of connections between neurones." The business of developing a physical skill also causes the brain to develop and grow. You make yourself more intelligent, more brainy, by using your body. One clear-cut example comes when children learn a musical instrument - "we now know," says Professor
Robertson, "that a part of the left half of the brain known as the 'planum temporale' is bigger in musicians than in non-musicians." Because the planum temporale is also a vital part of the brain that processes words and verbal memory, young musicians literally have a head start over their unmusical friends. Brain scans show that the students with the best developed minds were not necessarily the best musicians but the ones who began to learn earliest.

The guru of natural health, American medic Andrew Weil, holds that the simplest exercise can heal our brains. His own teacher, Dr Fulford, an osteopath in his nineties, often instructs patients to stimulate their natural healing powers by crawling like babies. Crawling sends similtaneous signals to both sides of the brain - first the right hand and left knee move, then the right knee and left hand. "This cross-patterned type of movement," says Dr Weil, in his book Spontaneous Healing, "generates electrical activity in the brain that has a harmonizing influence on the whole central nervous system." Since it's difficult in most social situations for an adult to crawl without embarrassing explanations and crushed fingers, Dr Weil recommends a less eccentric form of cross-patterned exercise - walking. Walkers swing their left arm as the right leg steps out, then mirror the movement. Dr Weil believes so completely in the importance of this that he pares his advice of exercise down to just one word: Walk!

Other researchers are coming to the same conclusions as Robertson and Weil. Dr Rune Timerdal of the University of Malmo in Sweden put 909 people into three different exercise programs. One group of 303 adults did aerobic work-outs, the next 303 did weights and muscle-building, and the last 303 did nothing. Brain scans which tested 16 types of mental function were administered before and after the six month programs. The results were mind-blowing - different
exercises boosted different brain skills. Jogging, bicycling, skipping rope and aerobics had a substantial impact on left-brain activity, such as ability in mathematics, logic and language. Weight training, push-ups and general body-building activated the right side
of the brain, associated with more intuitive, abstract and even psychic skills.

Exercise for the mind:
You are stepping out onto a diving board. Imagine yourself raise your arms above your head, pressing the palms together. Feel the tendons stretch warmly. Bounce on the balls of your feet, feeling the springy board whip beneath your feet. Dive down into the water. It is cold, and thickly heavy. This is not ordinary water. It moves as slowly as mercury. As your head emerges into the air, droplets roll slowly over your face and hair. You kick your legs hard against the dense water. You thrust your arms forwards and drag them around in a breast-stoke. The water resists every movement. You persevere, and the solidity of the water becomes a pleasure - totally safe and buoyant, resistant but not impossibly draining. Your muscles are pulling hard, and your body is generating heat that makes the chill of the water a blessing. At the poolside, you grip the hard tiles and launch yourself up into the light air. Every movement seems suddenly unfettered and easy as thought, without the slow drag of the thick cold water. You run lightly up the steps of another diving board, facing the first, and step out. The fantasy begins again. Imagine ten lengths of the pool this way. After three weeks of virtual exercise, you may notice a corresponding strength in all your body - swimming is the best all-round toner of any sport. You may also experience better brain-power in both hemispheres, with quicker reasoning skills and even, possibly, enhanced psychic powers.

Confessions of a Psychic and a Rabbi, by Uri Geller and Shmuley Boteach,
is published by Robson Books.
Uri's new five-CD collection of inspirational music and words can be
ordered direct on 0500 829262
Visit him at www.urigeller.com and e-mail him at urigeller@compuserve.com