
Crosswords don’t make you clever - nitins
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/08/quick-study-neuroscience
======
peterwwillis
I went to a conference on Multiple Sclerosis with a friend who has the
disease, and one of the much-hyped research topics (this was a few years ago)
was how more and more papers are finding a link between low levels of Vitamin
D and severity of the disease. Essentially, vitamin D may lesson symptoms or
even make you less susceptible to the disease.

This is a pretty good article about natural vs supplemental Vitamin D intake:
[http://www.marksdailyapple.com/vitamin-d-sun-exposure-
supple...](http://www.marksdailyapple.com/vitamin-d-sun-exposure-
supplementation-and-doses/#axzz2cWFDNpxb)

~~~
lifebeyondfife
An example: Calcium is required for good bone strength/density. However,
Vitamin D deficiencies mean the body can't absorb enough calcium.

With regard to the "natural vs supplement" argument, some people are very pale
and susceptible to skin cancer. It may not be safe for everyone to get enough
Vitamin D through natural means alone.

~~~
Dewie
Pale skin also means that you need less sun exposure to get enough D vitamins.

~~~
peterwwillis
Source?

A very pale person may burn in 5 minutes. It doesn't make sense that your body
would speed up the synthesis of cholesterol just because your skin has less
melanin or is more sensitive to UV radiation. Also keep in mind that no matter
how much is synthesized it's up to the liver and kidney to make it into a
useful hormone.

~~~
mason55
Melanin blocks sunlight which reduces vitamin D synthesis

[http://essays.backintyme.com/item/4](http://essays.backintyme.com/item/4)

 _> The lightness adaptation enhances calciferol (vitamin D) synthesis. Too
much epidermal melanin for the latitude blocks UV penetration essential to the
dermal synthesis of calciferol or vitamin D._

If you have less melanin then more sunlight reaches the lower layers of skin
which increases vit D synthesis.

------
mathattack
I'm not sure I buy this. Wouldn't this suggest that natural athletes are
better students? My limited sample size suggests that most of the best
students I've known have not been athletes. Most have been musicians, though.
I admit this could be correlation rather than causality.

I fully admit that teasing out correlation and causality is very difficult in
situations like this.

~~~
lcedp
Meaning if you want get better at math... practice math, not crosswords and
not running. Crosswords make you better (primarily) at crosswords. Running -
at running. But the idea is that math + physical activity suppose to make your
better (at math inclusively) then math + crosswords.

~~~
mathattack
I do buy this. It would be interesting to see them quantify math * 2 versus
math + running.

~~~
ncphillips
It's been done, and math + running wins. Check out Tony Schwartz the Power of
Full Engagement. In it he talks about how you can't just go go go at the thing
you want to get good at, you have to take breaks and do completely unrelated
things, like running. If you don't, you'll burn out.

~~~
flagnog
way back in the dark ages, before the Playstation and XBox and Nintendo, I
conducted my own empirical studies using coin-operated arcade games. I found
that after a couple of hours, my reflexes plateaued, then degraded. I had to
go do something else for a couple of hours before I could come back and do
better.

~~~
rmk2
Another really easy way: I have a simply memory game on my phone, 6x4 fields.
If it is too late or if I am tired, I will make more mistakes and take longer
to memorise things. On the other hand, I can turn and solve it much more
quickly when I am fresh and well-rested. Also, if I play a number of them at a
time, they start to run together, again resulting in worse results.

------
ltcoleman
I 100% agree with this article in my own life. Went through a huge lifestyle
change, and noticed my entire life and cognitive ability grow once I started
exercising, getting out more, and really experiencing life with friends and
family. If you want to be lazy that's fine, but after having my eyes open to a
better, more energetic, more intelligent self, I would never go back to the
couch and bon bons

------
JackFr
Edit: This is odd. The link currently leads to a different article than it
initially did. Initially it was not Q & A with the author, but rather
references to literature mostly behind paywalls and the gratuitous reference
to female orgasms, none of which are in the current article. That being said,
I still believe that the bulk of this research is bullshit, but it's a little
unfair to switch the article, so my comment no longer makes sense

\-------

While the presence "neuroscience" should be enough to set off your bullshit
detector, the fact the the author couldn't go two paragraphs without
undermining his own point indicates that the title should really be "Nothing
to see here". Luckily the author throws in a gratuitous and creepy reference
to female orgasms to make sure readers won't feel ripped off having wasted 15
seconds reading this crap.

------
tokenadult
A current book review of the newly published book _Brainwashed: The Seductive
Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience_

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/brainwashed-
neuroscience...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/brainwashed-neuroscience-
and-its-perversions/)

goes into some additional detail about what we can know, and can't know, from
current neuroscience research. The best of current neuroscience research helps
us know what is flat wrong about earlier preliminary findings from
neuroscience research, while the worst of current neuroscience research feeds
on the hype hooks in the science news cycle

[http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174)

to tell us things we want to believe even if they aren't true. As always, we
have to discern what's established fact and what's speculation in reports
about new research findings.

[http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html](http://norvig.com/experiment-
design.html)

------
rickdale
In my experience, there is time for gym workouts, sun bathing, crosswords and
Mozart. What would be interesting would be studying how these four activities
affect brain waves doing them in different sequences. For example, listen to
Mozart, then workout, then crosswords, then sun bathe, reverse the order
tomorrow and then continue to switch it up and see if you can optimize
activities based on when you do them and what you were doing previous to the
activity.

~~~
jonnathanson
My guess is that the same principle applies to crosswords (for example) that
applies to lifting weights: you have to keep ramping up the difficulty in
order to realize the benefits. If you're just doing the easy/comfortable
crossword puzzle every day, you're not challenging yourself. A cognitive task
that is actually _challenging_ will probably yield a lot better results.
Learning a new language, studying a new level of mathematics, taking up a new
hobby, learning chess, etc. Every time a task becomes trivial, you need to
increase the difficulty or find another task.

As for "listening to Mozart," that strikes me as an extremely passive (i.e.,
cognitively untaxing) activity. I've always been highly skeptical of the
putative benefits of listening to music, because the brain is extremely good
at "tuning out" ambient sounds. I'd be more inclined to believe there's some
benefit if the listener actively attempts to listen _and_ perform another task
simultaneously. Trying to keep attention focused on two very complex tasks at
once is challenging; simply kicking back and letting music stream in the
background is not. I'm sure there are creative benefits to listening to
complex and stimulating music, but one needs to be actively engaged in the
music.

~~~
dredmorbius
_As for "listening to Mozart," that strikes me as an extremely passive
activity._

My lay theorizing on this: certain types of music (and much of the classical
repetoire) helps relax the mind. We spend far too much of our time being
grossly _overstimulated_ , and I've found that a great many of the typical
stimulations in a Western experience (advertising, technology, popular music,
city streets, etc.) simply _wear_ at me. Nature, nonlinear landscapes,
classical (or earlier) Western music (there is some awfully annoying non-
western music, Indonesian gamelan being very high on the annoyance list for
me) help immensely in this regard.

Just as strength training is stimulus for growth that comes during recovery, I
suspect music may be part of the downtime which helps the brain and/or
emotional / stress aspects of the body recover. Meditation or similar
practices might operate similarly.

Total armchair theory here, but it's what I've got.

~~~
jonnathanson
As armchair theory goes, it's not a bad one. Taking it one step further, I
could see how classical music might activate / operate on some of the same
brain patterns as certain sleep cycles. Sleep is well known to be our brain's
equivalent of garbage collection and recovery.

------
callum85
How does the content of this article justify the straight-up factual assertion
in the headline? This is just a thing about some guy speculating about some
stuff. The headline implies a conclusive clinical trial result. HNers should
know better than to upvote this kind of shit.

EDIT: I wrote the above when the title was "Gym workouts and sunbathing do
more for your brain than crosswords and Mozart" and the link was to a
different URL.

~~~
hmahncke
Not mentioned in the article, but since you asked:

Cognitive training outperforms crossword puzzles:
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0061624)

Crossword puzzles aren't protective against cognitive decline:
[http://portalsaudebrasil.com/artigospsb/idoso068.pdf](http://portalsaudebrasil.com/artigospsb/idoso068.pdf)
[PDF link]

------
thehme
I am glad to finally find an article that has made it into the popular media,
which will aid in debunking a lot of those false claims made by
people/companies who just want to make money out of people’s gullibility.
There are commercials on TV for some website that claim their mind games will
improve your brain, possibly knowing there is no science to back that up, but
you have people spending their $$/time sitting at a computer playing games,
rather than at the gym or exploring our world’s beautiful outdoor spaces. The
“funny” thing is that science is showing that the benefits of motherly
nurturing, exercise, social interaction (not social networking online),
exposure to sunlight, etc. are all things we all know too well from experience
and yet, there are some people/companies still trying to sell us
things/services to achieve things we can get for FREE.

------
eksith
Crosswords indirectly affect my performance.

I don't think they make me clever either, but they do calm me down and help me
settle into whatever area I'm in. That helps me take the edge off of what I'm
about to say/present. It's not quite the same as staring at a flashlight (a la
tablet/laptop).

The paper and pencil in my hands have a dramatic effect on my mood. Add a cup
of coffee on the side and I'm a completely different person after a crossword.
I'd say a noticeably more lucid (even without the added coffee), calm and
collected individual.

------
frank_boyd
"Relevant":
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Diy0RNe_c](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Diy0RNe_c)

------
radarsat1
I wouldn't say, though, these activities are mutually exclusive.

------
chrisdl
but it might help with alzheimers
[http://puzzles.about.com/library/bl021108.htm](http://puzzles.about.com/library/bl021108.htm)

------
brianbreslin
it's too bad half the links cited in this article say (paywall) behind them.
/rant

~~~
thehigherlife
It's too bad on a site that exists for upstarts and tech minded folk looking
for a way to monetize their projects people complain that good interesting
content costs money. /rant

~~~
gwern
The links to research we are talking about (as opposed to journalists trying
to summarize research for pop sci books) is stuff whose production is funded
almost entirely by entities like governments and charities, and where the
'publisher' does not do much but enjoy exorbitant profit margins thanks to
paywalls. If the publishers and their paywalls disappeared overnight, Open
Access would pick up the slack pretty well. So no, monetizing is not really
necessary here.

------
Dewie
\- Unprotected exposure to sunlight also prematurely ages ones skin and
increases the risk of skin cancer. I'm curious if there is some unique
property with sunlight that makes you smarter, or if it is just the fact that
you get D vitamins from sun exposure. If it is the latter, I can get D
vitamins from my diet instead.

Personally I've lived 61 degrees north for most of my life and I don't think
SAD has been a problem for me.

\- I've suspected and read from others that all the fuzz about classical music
is mostly the result of some kind of high culture bias - I have a hard time
believing that people have studied the effects of classical music to the same
extent as something like rock or techno. I wouldn't be surprised if studies
show that listening to your favourite music has overall more benefits compared
to listening to classical music whether you like it or not.

~~~
freyr
The cited scientific study was actually performed on nocturnal animals (rats),
and the scientists found that long exposure to _light_ caused the rats stress:

"...the brain of nocturnal rats generates a stress response to a long-day
photoperiod, contributing to depression..."

Somebody must have extrapolated from this result that, since humans are
diurnal, long periods of darkness would cause us stress and depression.

There is no direct mention of Vitamin K (or for that matter, any healthful
benefits of the sun) in the cited study.

