2023-07-23 10:52:19
Because the digital culture has hardly strained the muscles and shifted the work to the screen, the brain and the eyes are increasingly being used. It is therefore worth taking care of this organ, just as athletes need to take care of their muscles and joints if they want to be successful in competitions. Especially since an impairment of an area of the brain has much more sensitive consequences than a sore muscle or a broken leg.
Unlike most other organs, the brain is connected to every part of the body. Therefore, disorders of brain function can also affect other organs and parts of the body. The increased focus on the biological system of the brain, which probably has ten billion nerve cells, also means that we have to take a closer look at the fuels for brain work, such as glucose and many other nutrients.
The brain as a biological system
The digital culture puts particular strain on the brain. Like a muscle or the gastrointestinal tract or the skeleton, it is a biological system that needs to be cared for. Last but not least, because it sends control impulses to all parts of the body, it requires special attention. The brain is also the central clock for the peripheral bodily functions. If it gets “out of step”, health problems such as burnout occur if, for example, the adrenal cortex no longer receives the adequate stimulus from the brain to form the activity hormone cortisol, of which we need 50 mg a day. When we get up, we can feel whether enough cortisol has been formed, when we feel fresh and energetic.
In the medium term, we also notice an increase in inflammation and poorer energy supply if there is a lack of cortisol. Inflammation can be triggered by the brain not only through injuries, bacteria and viruses, but also as so-called silent inflammation, for example as a reaction to excessive stress.
These are just two of many body reactions triggered by the brain. Therefore, it is worth understanding as much as possible regarding this organ in order to be able to deal with it well. Coffee can neither replace cortisol on an equal footing, nor are drugs able to replicate the many control impulses with which the brain directs our body. We can’t let it work continuously like our mobile phone or notebook. As a biological system, the brain has to regenerate itself regularly and needs sleep before all other organs.
Current flows through nerves
The brain is an electrical biological system through which current flows. This is a biophysical process in which electrochemical gradients, most importantly the sodium-potassium gradient, are maintained across the cell membrane with high energy consumption. Therefore, unlike a wire through which current flows, this system is fatigued. Since billions of nerve cells, which are connected to each other by up to 10,000 dendrites, have to be supplied, the brain’s energy consumption is very high. It consumes 20% of the body’s total energy.
sleep and rest breaks
Regeneration mainly takes place at night. In the first half of the night, the metabolic waste is cleared away and eliminated. In addition to its sleep-promoting function, the sleep hormone melatonin also plays an important role here. In the second half of the night, fuel, hormones, messenger substances and much more are formed in the brain and in the entire organism, which the body needs during the day. If the adrenal cortex no longer receives the impulse to produce cortisol around four in the morning because the biorhythm has gotten out of sync, you are much less productive during the day and need more time for most work. If this condition gets out of hand, burnout occurs. It’s not just a feeling, it’s a biological state of the body. Of all the organs that all have to regenerate themselves, sleep disorders put the greatest strain on the biological system, the brain.
The brain is constantly developing
Not only is sleep essential for preparing for daytime activities, it also develops the brain as a thinking apparatus. When earlier generations came to the realization that “his own have God in their sleep”, then brain research can meanwhile explain this. The nocturnal release of growth hormones not only serves for repair, regeneration and growth, but also promotes the networking of nerve cells through the formation of neurites, dendrites and synapses. The memory function is also promoted during sleep by growth substances in the brain. What you learn during the day is converted into knowledge. In this way, knowledge is developed “overnight”. Even if a project, a design, an article or a film is to be created, neurons connect. What is only stored as charge on the computer’s hard drive is “wired” in the brain. We can therefore access it much more directly than a photo, a line of text, a melody that we have stored on the hard drive.
All of our thought processes need sleep, because we can only fall back on progress in thinking and learning when what we have learned has become knowledge. Therefore, learning successes in the course that were acquired at the expense of sleep fizzle out. Because what you have learned can only be used in an exam if it is also available at the moment of the question or the written task. To do this, it must have been transformed into long-term memory.
proteins and vitamins
In addition to the energy suppliers, structural substances and hormones, the brain needs other signaling substances whose starting materials, the so-called essential amino acids, the body cannot produce itself. The transmission of signals from one cell to another is prone to failure and associated with the risk of psychiatric disorders. Essential vitamins, especially the B vitamins, vitamins C and D, are also a prerequisite for the brain to work effectively. Further articles on these topics will follow in the new series “Health in the digital world. *
dr Eckhard Bieger SJ
*publicatio – the association for the promotion of freedom of expression and young journalists – primarily wants to support the training and further education of (prospective) journalists and authors, but also offer theologians, philosophers and other humanities scholars the opportunity to deal with the topic “Healthy in the digital world”. Therefore, it will be on the portals in the coming weeks and months www.kath.dewww.explicit.net and www.hinsehen.net Contributions to the new series of topics related to maintaining and strengthening physical and mental health.
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