Thanks – The Roundup

From the Speculist – more stuff to be thankful for:

The gift of gab could boost brainpower, new research suggests.A U.S. team found that talking to another person for 10 minutes a day improves memory and test scores.

They found that “socializing was just as effective as more traditional kinds of mental exercise in boosting memory and intellectual performance,” lead author Oscar Ybarra, a psychologist at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, said in a prepared statement.

In one investigation, they analyzed data on 3,610 people, ages 24 to 96.

They found that the higher their level of social interaction, the better their cognitive functioning. Social interaction included getting together or having phone chats with relatives, friends and neighbors.

I’m here to testify.

About this time fifteen years ago, after four years of working in bars and awful temp jobs, I got my first job around smart people that talked to each other. I could …

  1. …sense how atrophied my brain had gotten
  2. …feel it starting to stretch as I talked more with my co-workers.

More:

The good news:

We shouldn’t be surprised to learn that interacting with others makes us smarter. As pleasant as having a chat with a friend or co-worker may be, there is serious mental heavy lifting taking place every time we do it. Assuming we have a standard set of social skills in place, we are constantly checking in to see if the other party is still paying attention, is following what we’re saying, is not offended by what we’re saying, etc. Just sitting around and thinking — even thinking about some very challenging subject — could be relatively easy by comparison.

So we no longer have to worry that enjoying a chat is somehow a waste of time. It is mental time well spent.

I have to assume that blogging, and reading blogs is the same.

You’re welcome!

Moreover:

These findings have profound implications for office life. Now when the boss catches you and your buddies standing around the coffee machine chewing the fat and orders you to get back to work, you have the perfect response: “Ease up, there, Chief — we’re just sharpening our wits for the rest of the day’s work!”

It doesn’t work. Move along.

The good news? The article has much more to be thankful for. So go read it.

Back to cooking.

One thought on “Thanks – The Roundup

  1. You come to crave the Challenge. The parry and thrust, give and take. Challenge what I’ve come to believe and make me think about it in a (hopefully) new light.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.