Juggle Your Brain

Before we proceed further with today's article, let's see what our brain consists of. Previously, there already had been many articles which talk about the brain, but do you know how our brain actually works? Firstly, brain consists of the famous grey matter and white matter. While the third component would be an area which is called substantia nigria.

For today, we would just focus on the two famous matters which everyone is talking about. For the first one, grey matter is a major component of the central nervous system where its function is to create a bridge between sensory or motor stimulus to interneurons, which in turns stimulate a response through chemical synapse activity.

On the other hand, the white matter composed of bundles of axons, and carry nerve impulses between neurons. The white matter is the tissue through which messages pass between different areas of grey matter within the nervous system.

To make things sound simpler, the grey matter is like an actual computer itself, whereas the white matter is like the network cables connecting the computer together (cited from Wikipedia).

Now that we scarcely know these two matters, let's focus back on the display picture of this article with the brain. So what juggling got to do with the brain?

A study led by Dr. Heidi Johansen-Berg, a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow at the University of Oxford, found that the structure of white matter of an adult brain changes after practising juggling extensively.

The study consisted of 48 volunteers who were then asked to learn and practise juggling. After their 6-week training, those who trained and practised showed changes in their white matter and these changes prove to be a very healthy and positive alteration which improves the brain connection of human.

Although juggling has now been proven that it exerts certain effects on human brain, other stimulating activities which keep the brain working such as going for a walk or doing a crossword puzzle are also great activities which encouraged by Johansen-Berg.