Crosswords don’t make you clever

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.<p>This is a pretty good article about natural vs supplemental Vitamin D intake: <a href="http://www.marksdailyapple.com/vitamin-d-sun-exposure-supplementation-and-doses/#axzz2cWFDNpxb" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.marksdailyapple.com&#x2F;vitamin-d-sun-exposure-supple...</a>

I&#x27;m not sure I buy this. Wouldn&#x27;t this suggest that natural athletes are better students? My limited sample size suggests that most of the best students I&#x27;ve known have not been athletes. Most have been musicians, though. I admit this could be correlation rather than causality.<p>I fully admit that teasing out correlation and causality is very difficult in situations like this.

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&#x27;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

Edit: This is odd. The link currently leads to a different article than it initially did. Initially it was not Q &amp; 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&#x27;s a little unfair to switch the article, so my comment no longer makes sense<p>-------<p>While the presence &quot;neuroscience&quot; should be enough to set off your bullshit detector, the fact the the author couldn&#x27;t go two paragraphs without undermining his own point indicates that the title should really be &quot;Nothing to see here&quot;. Luckily the author throws in a gratuitous and creepy reference to female orgasms to make sure readers won&#x27;t feel ripped off having wasted 15 seconds reading this crap.

A current book review of the newly published book <i>Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience</i><p><a href="http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/brainwashed-neuroscience-and-its-perversions/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencebasedmedicine.org&#x2F;brainwashed-neuroscience...</a><p>goes into some additional detail about what we can know, and can&#x27;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<p><a href="http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.phdcomics.com&#x2F;comics.php?f=1174</a><p>to tell us things we want to believe even if they aren&#x27;t true. As always, we have to discern what&#x27;s established fact and what&#x27;s speculation in reports about new research findings.<p><a href="http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;norvig.com&#x2F;experiment-design.html</a>

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.

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.<p>EDIT: I wrote the above when the title was &quot;Gym workouts and sunbathing do more for your brain than crosswords and Mozart&quot; and the link was to a different URL.

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&#x2F;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 $$&#x2F;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&#x2F;companies still trying to sell us things&#x2F;services to achieve things we can get for FREE.

Crosswords indirectly affect my performance.<p>I don&#x27;t think they make me clever either, but they do calm me down and help me settle into whatever area I&#x27;m in. That helps me take the edge off of what I&#x27;m about to say&#x2F;present. It&#x27;s not quite the same as staring at a flashlight (a la tablet&#x2F;laptop).<p>The paper and pencil in my hands have a dramatic effect on my mood. Add a cup of coffee on the side and I&#x27;m a completely different person after a crossword. I&#x27;d say a noticeably more lucid (even without the added coffee), calm and collected individual.

&quot;Relevant&quot;: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Diy0RNe_c" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=H2Diy0RNe_c</a>

I wouldn&#x27;t say, though, these activities are mutually exclusive.

but it might help with alzheimers <a href="http://puzzles.about.com/library/bl021108.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;puzzles.about.com&#x2F;library&#x2F;bl021108.htm</a>

it&#x27;s too bad half the links cited in this article say (paywall) behind them. &#x2F;rant

- Unprotected exposure to sunlight also prematurely ages ones skin and increases the risk of skin cancer. I&#x27;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.<p>Personally I&#x27;ve lived 61 degrees north for most of my life and I don&#x27;t think SAD has been a problem for me.<p>- I&#x27;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&#x27;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.