[rael-science] Want to boost your brain? Take a tip from Mother Nature‏

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The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/want-to-boost-your-brain-take-a-tip-from-mother-nature-8411932.html


Want to boost your brain? Take a tip from Mother Nature

Time spent away from electronic gadgets can stimulate creative
abilities study finds

THURSDAY 13 DECEMBER 2012

Wandering lonely as a cloud high o’er vales and hills may be the best
way to recharge your batteries - so long as you leave your
conventional battery-powered devices at home.

What writers have known for centuries, scientists are now endeavouring
to prove – that contact with nature can boost creativity and problem
solving skills.

Backpackers who spent four days in the wilderness without access to
electronic devices scored 50 per cent better on a creativity test at
the end of the trip, according to researchers.

The backpackers – 56 in all – joined one of four separate expeditions
run by the Outward Bound organisation and took a ten item “creativity
test” at the start and end of the hike. On average they got four out
of ten questions right at the start and six right at the end.

The researchers used the Remote Associates Test, a standard measure of
creative thinking, in which participants are given three words and
asked to supply a fourth that is linked with the other three. For
example the answer to SAME/TENNIS/HEAD might be MATCH – because a
match is the same, tennis match and match head.

Earlier studies have shown that going for a long walk can improve the
accuracy of proof-reading, the ability to perceive an optical illusion
and the capacity to repeat a list of numbers backwards.

Yet the time people spend outdoors and in contact with nature is
diminishing. Children spend only 15-25 minutes daily in outdoor play
and sport and the average teenager spends more than 7.5 hours a day
using mobile phones or computers and watching TV, according to the US
researchers.

Psychologists from the University of Utah who led the study said:
“Our modern society is filled with sudden events (sirens, horns,
ringing phones, alarms, television) that hijack attention. By
contrast natural environments are associated with gentle soft
fascination, allowing the executive attentional system to replenish.”

“Executive attention” is the ability to switch rapidly among tasks
which is important in a modern society but is overtaxed by the
constant demands from a technological environment.

However, the authors of the study, published in the online journal
Public Library of Science (PLoS) One, say they cannot be sure if the
effects they observed were due to exposure to nature or withdrawal of
electronic devices – or a combination of both.

“We show that four days of immersion in nature, and the corresponding
disconnection from multimedia and technology, increases performance on
a creativity, problem-solving task by a full 50 percent,” the
researchers conclude.

The participants had an average age of 28 and took part in treks in
Alaska, Colorado, Washington State and Maine.

The results were controlled for age differences between the groups
that took the test, because “as you get older, you have greater verbal
abilities,” the researchers said.

“This is a way of showing that interacting with nature has real,
measurable benefits to creative problem-solving that really hadn't
been formally demonstrated before,” said David Strayer, a co-author of
the study and professor of psychology at the University of Utah.


“It provides a rationale for trying to understand what is a healthy
way to interact in the world, and that burying yourself in front of a
computer 24/7 may have costs that can be remediated by taking a hike
in nature.”

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WARNING FROM RAEL: For those who don't use their intelligence at its
full capacity, the label "selected by RAEL" on some articles does not
mean that I agree with their content or support it. "Selected by RAEL"
means that I believe it is important for the people of this planet to
know about what people think or do, even when what they think or do is
completely stupid and against our philosophy. When I selected articles
in the past about stupid Christian fundamentalists in America praying
for rain, I am sure no Rael-Science reader was stupid enough to believe
that I was supporting praying to change the weather. So, when I select
articles which are in favor of drugs, anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, racist,
revisionist, or inciting hatred against any group or religion, or any
other stupid article, it does not mean that I support them. It just
means that it is important for all human beings to know about them.
Common sense, which is usually very good among our readers, is good
enough to understand that. When, like in the recent articles on drug
decriminalization, it is necessary to make it clearer, I add a comment,
which in this case was very clear: I support decriminalizing all drugs,
as it is stupid to throw depressed and sad people (as only depressed and
sad people use drugs) in prison and ruin their life with a criminal
record. That does not mean that there is any change to the Message which
says clearly that we must not use any drug except for medical purposes.
The same applies to the freedom of expression which must be absolute.
That does not mean again of course that I agree with anti-Jews,
anti-Semites, racists of any kind or anti-Raelians. But by knowing your
enemies or the enemies of your values, you are better equipped to fight
them. With love and respect of course, and with the wonderful sentence
of the French philosopher Voltaire in mind: "I disapprove of what you
say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.

There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history, 
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.

On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.

Rael
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