MAKE THIS THE WEEK YOU...
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understand that we can live longer, but there is not enough emphasis, generally, on how we are going to arrive at old age mentally. I believe you can do lots of things not only to prevent brain ageing, but also to slow it.’
His programme identifies the aspects of your brainpower (such as cognitive speed, memory and concentration) that need boosting and then offers the therapies to do just that.
First, he assesses me using some computerised tests. there’s a lot of matching of shapes, reminding me of nonverbal reasoning exams at school and inducing the same sort of low-level panic. I have to strike a rectangle on the screen when a circle close by turns yellow.
Other tests involve prodding the screen when a sequence of numbers appears, then remembering sequences and placing shapes on the display.
I’m absolutely terrible at all the remembering exercises. My excuse is that it’s last thing on Friday, it’s been a long week and I have a splitting headache.
HavIng been at the clinic for 24 hours, I am also caffeine-deprived (this may have something to do with the headache), and a part of me is thinking: ‘Is there actually any point to this?’ What with being a fiftysomething mother of four children, the youngest aged 16, I generally have so many things to remember (passwords, keys, lenses, whereabouts of said children) that my brain is simply not prepared to take on anything that doesn’t have at least a red alert level. Random shapes just don’t make the cut.
Fortunately for me, Dr Ribeiro says: ‘We all have the potential to improve our brain activity. there are things we can do to act against our genes.’
since I’m convinced my genes are not very good (my grandmother, I keep thinking, was definitely very confused in the last years of her life), I am relieved to move on to the next thing, which is the brainwave imaging with John McEnroe-style headband.
We move to the clinic’s plush cinema and, while I watch emperor penguins, a wolfstalking caribou and polar bear cubs sliding along the ice, Dr Ribeiro measures the alpha and Beta waves that these images generate in my brain.
the waves reflect different types of electrical activity: the alpha ones, he explains, reveal my levels of relaxation; the Beta how much I am concentrating.
I turn out to be OK at relaxing and concentrating while watching Planet Earth, which I am pleased about, but not really surprised by, because it’s very good.
afterwards, Dr Ribeiro tells me I have no phobias and that I am not worried about my children (although, actually, I am always worried about my children).
then, astonishingly, he says I am scared of heights. this is true. But I hadn’t consciously registered any heights while I was watching.
I am impressed. Dr Ribeiro now lets me ‘play’ while still wearing the headband. First, I have to concentrate on the screen hard enough to make my Beta waves — the ones that are emitted when we are alert, agitated, tense or afraid — reach a height at which they explode a barrel of gunpowder on the screen. I focus on one point for 45 seconds and, sure enough, the gunpowder ignites. But it’s hard work.
then I have to do the same thing with the alpha waves, to make a balloon on screen float upwards.
the alpha waves can be strongly detected when we are in a state of mental and physical relaxation. I manage it once, but then the effort makes me tense. the harder I try, the worse it gets.
But he has proved his point. We can consciously alter our brainwaves. We are capable of changing the mysterious subconscious activity of the cerebral cortex; mind over grey matter, if you like.
this is important, because a balance of these two types of brain activity is essential for learning new things.
the meditative practice known as mindfulness is one way of boosting your Beta waves and achieving the calmness required to learn new facts and remember old ones. Research suggests deep relaxation releases hormones that help create mental clarity, sometimes lasting for hours or even days.
sure enough, I am sent off to a mindfulness class.
THE human brain is, for most of its life, a remarkably adaptable thing. Dr Ribeiro tells me about a study carried out by researchers at University College London on black cab drivers, who famously have to ‘do the Knowledge’ — memorise 2,500 streets, often over a period of several years, to get their licence.
MRI scans of the drivers before and after their training found that, by the end, the cabbies had more grey matter in the hippocampus area of the brain than when they first started.
the cab drivers continued to increase the size of this area of the brain and their memories were better.
But the cabbies weren’t as good at navigating their way around unfamiliar environments as others who dropped out or who did no training at all.
In other words, what we do with our time changes our
Science has taught us how to live longer physically. Now we have to learn how to live longer mentally
brains. Dr Ribeiro strongly recommends developing a new skill to improve the flexibility of your brain.
If learning a language or taking up an instrument (both long thought to protect against dementia) seem rather intimidating, Dr Ribeiro suggests learning to dance.
In the meantime, he gets me to download a brain-training app on to my phone. (He works with the widely available online programme lumosity.com.)
The SHA clinic puts heavy emphasis on the relationship between mind and body, nutrition and health, so it’s not surprising that the next area for action is diet. Dr Ribeiro is absolutely insistent — I can’t put this too strongly — that those of us with ageing brains (which is all of us, really) need to eat more oily fish.
All very well, I object, if you live next to the Mediterranean, which is still pretty well-stocked with sardines. Herrings used to be a staple diet in London but, these days, they aren’t as available as they should be.
In that case, he says, I should definitely be taking omega 3 and vitamin B supplements.
He also advises wholegrains at two meals a day and lots of vegetables. No surprises there, but still easier said than done. I ask Dr Ribeiro why people should come to SHA for their brain workout.
There is the obvious advantage, of course: all of his 40-odd patients so far have combined his programme with other spa activities.
And I must say that, when I was getting a bit irritable with the mismatching shapes, the thought of an underwater massage helped enormously.
SHA’s international clientele — businessmen and women, bankers’ wives and celebrities — pay a staggering £4,079 for a week’s stay, with cognitive rehabilitiation priced at an extra £1,000. ‘We try to have the best diagnostic and therapeutic tools currently available anywhere in the world, which we know won’t harm any other part of your life,’ says Dr Ribeiro.
‘Another reason is that all of my patients have shown improvement in cognitive and memory tests, and in their ability to control their brain activity after a week.
‘Importantly, there is a very strong connection between the body and the brain — which is, after all, another part of our body.
‘If we take care of our bodies, our minds have a better chance of being in good shape. At the very simplest level, when you exercise, you pump blood to the brain.’
I would also add, as reasons to come here, the near-perfect climate; the sheer luxury of the clinic, with flowers tumbling off its white balconies; and the views of the mountains, sea and the village of Albir below.
It is clear, now, what I have to do: exercise my brain as much as my body, eat oily fish (or, more probably, take supplements), get off the sofa more and learn a variety of new things I’ve never done before.
I am sent to the clinic’s personal trainer for a cardiac and weights regime, as well as the nutritionist, so I will have no excuses.
BRAIN science is still in its infancy, but there are some encouraging signs. In a recent book, the late American health journalist Barbara Strauch reviewed the latest neuroscientific research and concluded that memory — particularly memory for things such as names — does decline with age. The senior moment is not a myth.
Speed of reaction also declines. I will never, now, be a fighter pilot. (To be honest, it was never really on the cards.)
But Strauch also found a wealth of evidence that the middle-aged brain goes on being very good at other things, particularly at empathy and making connections and accurate judgments.
It looks as though the Ancient Greeks might have been on to something when they decreed that citizens could become members of a jury only when they were over 50.
We may yet find a biological basis for the idea that older people are wiser.
Meanwhile, back at my stuttering synapses, my husband texts: ‘Is your memory any better yet?’
The answer, I fear, is no. Not quite yet. There is a lot of oily fish at the clinic, and I am eating all of it. But the fact is, I have been wearing contact lenses since I was 18 and I left them at home. That is quite some lapse.
Still, at least I know now what I have to do.