Chapter Two (continued)
The Students Discuss Alcohol, and Various Other Things

(To recap: On the previous page, among other things, the students talk about the harmful effects of alcohol.)

The Students Discuss Brain Power - or the Lack of it, Reducing the Risk of Dementia, and Such Things as Motivation to Study

One of the group grinned and said, "So like with revising, maybe if we all promise ourselves we can eat a chocolate bar or something if we can just get through half an hour's revising, then we'll be more motivated to do it."

Becky grinned and joked, "Yes, and you could do that every half an hour for weeks, throughout all the time you're revising, till you end up really fat, and the exams have to be held outside, because you're too fat to fit through the door of the exam room!"

They laughed.

Anne said, "Well, it might be difficult to think of some healthy treats, but it's possible that we might be able to think of non-edible things we can promise ourselves we'll do, so we've got them to look forward to! ... Mind you, it might take more brain power than it takes to revise to think of enough of them to keep us going till the end! At least if we want one every half an hour!"

They giggled.

But then one said, "It would be nice if I could find something that would definitely make me more quick-thinking and decisive! I don't know what's the matter with my brain sometimes! There've been a couple of times recently when it's taken me a stupidly long time to make tiny decisions that should have been really easy!

"Like the other day, I did some shopping, and when I got to the checkout, the woman on the till asked me if I wanted a carrier bag. I'd only bought a couple of things, so they would have been easy enough to carry without one, although they'd be easier to carry in one. But anyway, someone had criticised me not long before for having a cupboard full of carrier bags, since I keep them all, so I've ended up with loads, and they can jump out at people when they open the cupboard. ... Well, I don't mean they all come alive and grow legs and literally jump. Wouldn't that be spooky! Or funny. Something like that. At least it would be if it was just mine that did it, so people got a shock every time they opened my cupboard where they were, because they weren't expecting it, because they'd never heard of carrier bags doing that.

"But anyway, ... what was I saying again? Oh yes! When the woman at the checkout asked me if I wanted a carrier bag, I would normally have said yes straightaway, but I thought of what the person who'd criticised me had said about me having too many, and I dithered around for a stupid amount of time, wondering whether to say yes or not. The people who were behind me were probably all getting impatient, so I was probably being disapproved of just as much for thinking about not taking a carrier bag as I was by the person who criticised me for having too many!

"But anyway, there was another time just recently when I took a stupid amount of time to make a decision that should have been really easy, but I can't even remember what it was now!

"And I did something else that was just as daft! It was in the Easter holidays, when I was at home. One of my cousins was at my house, and he wanted to visit some relatives of ours after he visited us. They live quite near us. He wanted to phone them up and ask if it was convenient for him to go round there. But he'd forgotten their phone number. He asked me what it was, and I told him the number and said he could use our phone if he liked, and gave him our cordless phone. I didn't give him the code, since our relatives just live locally, and it's a landline phone. He asked me what the code was, and I said it was the same as my family's. He asked what that was, and I suddenly thought, 'Of course he's going to need the code; silly me! You need to always put in the code with mobile phones!' And I gave him the code. But afterwards, I thought, 'Why did I do that? What made me suddenly think it was a mobile phone, when I know full well it's just a cordless phone that works just like an ordinary landline phone!'

"I don't know what's wrong with my brain sometimes! I sometimes think that if I'm like this now, maybe when I'm 70, I'll be drooling and babbling nonsense all day in a home for the bewildered!"

One of the others said, "You probably don't need to worry. I wouldn't be surprised if most people have moments like that. And I think people's alertness levels go up and down throughout the day, depending on things like how sleepy they are and what they've just been doing, and other things. Anyway, if it meant there was something seriously wrong with you, you wouldn't have been able to do a degree, would you! So whatever the problem is, it probably isn't something to really worry about. Anyway, maybe you're a lot more alert some days than others.

"It might be like what happens with people physically. I was talking to someone once who told me he had a phobia of illness, and he said he was really worried because a few days earlier he'd been swimming, and it seemed to take him more effort than it normally did to swim the amount he usually swam. So he was worried that he was sickening for something horrible! But I think how energetically you can do something and how much your muscles hurt, and things like that, partly depends on all kinds of little things, such as whether you've just had a heavy meal, whether you haven't eaten very much that day, or how tired you are, or how many days it's been since you last exercised, since I think people can quickly get out of condition, and things like that.

"So maybe it's similar with mental things. Maybe people can sometimes do daft things for reasons that are just trivial really. I suppose if it keeps happening, it might be worth you going to the doctor; but I wouldn't worry about just the odd thing, since maybe everyone has experiences like that, but most people are just too embarrassed to mention them!"

Another one of the group said, "Yeah. And also, I think from what I've read that people's circumstances can determine how alert they are. I don't know if you remember, but there was this story we read in one of the first psychology books we read after we first got here that said there was a girl at a school who all the boys thought was dreary and boring and too quiet. But one day for a dare or something, they decided to each ask her out on Friday nights, one after the other. There were about fourteen of them. So for the next fourteen or so weeks, the girl got asked out for the evening by one boy after another. By the end of it, her personality seemed to have completely changed; she was all bubbly and lively! Maybe the reason she'd been quiet before was because she didn't have much confidence or she had low self-esteem, and she just assumed no one would be interested in anything she had to say or something. But then maybe so many people showing interest in her really boosted her self-worth or something, or made her feel more cheerful, so she changed.

"I'm just thinking that if something simple like enjoying yourself and feeling pleased because you think you're more popular than you thought you were can cause a dramatic change like that, then maybe being in different circumstances could make you feel more alert more of the time. You know, like maybe if you spent more time out with people doing things that made you feel mentally stimulated, instead of being stuck indoors for ages revising."

They giggled, and one joked, "It's official then! Revision is bad for your health! Imagine if a group of students left here and became scientists, and they presented a paper to the university, all about how revision can damage the brain. Do you think the university would stop expecting us to do it ... and go the next logical step and scrap exams while they were at it? After all, we wouldn't do well in exams if we didn't revise, and the disappointment of that might be even worse for the brain!"

They laughed.

Then one said, "The same could go for homework at school. I read on the Internet that even some teachers think that puts too much pressure on students so they think it should be scrapped! ... Well, maybe one or two teachers in a thousand or something, I don't know. But imagine if the government decided it was really important to get school pupils doing more science subjects, and they got the scientists who thought homework ought to be scrapped to help them think up ways of persuading school pupils to take up more science subjects. Then imagine that after that, they put out a press release that said, 'We're trying to encourage school pupils to do more work in the sciences. We've consulted with scientists about this, who all believe school pupils would be better off doing less work.'"

They giggled again, and one grinned and said to the student who'd been worrying about being indecisive, "Wouldn't it be good if scientists could persuade the university that less revision and more partying was good for your health. It would be even better if they could persuade a doctor to give you that on prescription! ... Maybe we could all think of times we've done things that weren't all that sensible if we thought we'd get that on prescription for it!"

The one who'd been confiding in the others about the problem said, "It would be nice to think that doing things that were a bit dithery and daft had some advantages like that! When I was at school, there were kids who used to call people who did things like that drips!"

Anne said, "Well maybe they've started doing things like that themselves since, so maybe they've conveniently changed their minds about it being drippy ... or else they'll have had to decide that they themselves are drips! Mind you, I think a lot of people probably get to be more tolerant and understanding as they get older and wiser ... well, some people probably do anyway; so if they changed their minds, that might be the reason. ... Or they might decide that some people can't help doing things that seem a bit drippy, so it isn't fair to sneer at them, or something."

One of the group grinned and said, "Imagine having a drip that dripped a constant supply of alcohol into your veins all day! ... I mean the medical kind of drip of course. ... A device with a needle on the end, that is, not a dozy doctor dripping alcohol into your mouth all day, obviously. ... As if they haven't got better things to do, ... like sleeping to get over their doziness maybe.

"... Actually, seriously, I know it's only a joke about doing more partying to improve the brain power. The thing about having a slight problem with brain power though is that it would be best not to really try to solve it by doing more partying or drinking more alcohol, since alcohol kills brain cells, so it might mean you'd actually be more likely to end up in a home for the bewildered in old age, not less.

"And another reason why it's probably best not to use alcohol to try and make yourself more decisive and motivated and things is because if you started using it a lot, what if you started believing you just had to have it to make you more decisive and motivated to get on and do things, as if you started thinking you couldn't function properly without it? You might start wanting to drink every day. Then over time, it would do you damage. So if you can find another way of kicking your brain into a higher gear, that wouldn't do you any damage, that would probably be better. ... Sorry, am I beginning to sound like your parents now? I'm probably beginning to sound like mine!

"But I read about a psychological technique you could maybe use. I don't know if it would work for things like motivation, but still, you could maybe try it:

"Maybe you're more decisive and motivated anyway at some times of the day than at others, or when certain things happen. So maybe you could try to remember to think about how decisive and motivated you're feeling several times a day for a while, and note down the times when you feel at your best, describing what's going on at those times; and then later you could look back at your notes, and see what makes a difference, and then maybe do more of it, if it's the kind of thing where you can. I don't know if that would work, but I reckon it's worth a try.

"... I mean, say if you discovered you're more decisive when your adrenaline kicks in because you've been arguing with someone. You might decide it would be worth doing more of that. ... Well OK, there are probably things it would be best not to do more of! Imagine feeling sure you were dependent on arguing to make you function well! ... Well actually, maybe some people really do think that, which might be one reason why there are a lot of arguments on the Internet. Imagine if you started thinking you just had to have an argument in the morning before you could start the day's work! It might be better to drink!

"Actually, that reminds me of something someone said to me not that long ago. She said, 'Why do we think we need to drink alcohol to have a good time when we go out? It's as if we think we have no personality unless we drink!'"

One of the group grinned and said, "That reminds me of a quote I read on the Internet from someone. I can't remember who it was now, but anyone who wanted to find out could easily look it up. It said, 'If alcohol kills brain cells, how come it never killed the ones that make me want to drink?'"

The Students Talk More About Research Into What Might Reduce and Increase the Risk of Dementia, Pausing for a Bit of Light-Hearted Chat Sometimes

One of the students said, "I wonder if a touch of alcohol can make people with mild dementia think any more clearly. I mean, if it could, it might be worth doctors prescribing it to them! After all, whatever it does to the liver wouldn't matter if they were likely to be dead before the effects on it really kicked in!"

Anne grimaced and said, "I doubt it would work! After all, considering the amount of people who drink, if there was any significant effect, it would probably be well-known about by now. And besides that, considering that people with dementia can start to do all kinds of worrying things, like forgetting to get dressed and going out to the local cafe in their pyjamas, if they're drunk as well, you might get double trouble! ... Mind you, I think people only start doing that kind of thing when their dementia gets quite severe."

One of the others said, "I heard something about things people can do to try to prevent themselves getting dementia the other day, ... or at least when it's caused by Alzheimer's. I don't think anyone's sure how much they really cut down the risk. Actually, once, I heard a feature on the radio about how exercise helps. I think it said eating healthily helps as well. But this thing I heard on the radio the other day was an interview with a man who'd studied a load of nuns for decades. Well, he'd interviewed them and asked questions to see how well their minds were working every so often for decades. And then after they died, he'd have their brains examined. ... That was to find out whether parts of their brains had deteriorated because of dementia.

"Anyway, in the interview, he said he'd been studying the differences in the abilities of the nuns, looking for what differences there were between the ones who went on to get dementia and the ones who didn't. And then he found autobiographies they'd all written when they were about twenty-two. Goodness knows why they wrote autobiographies that young! Maybe they all somehow had the same thought at the same time, that went, 'I know, I'll be different! Instead of writing an autobiography near the end of my life, I'll write one near the beginning!' I don't know.

"But to be serious for a minute, this man said he discovered that the nuns who'd got dementia had written in a different style to most of the ones who hadn't. He said there were a few differences: He said the ones who'd turned out to have a lower risk of dementia had written in a more complex style than the others, using longer sentences, using quite a lot of longer words that people don't normally use all that much, and putting more ideas in their autobiographies. He gave an example of the ideas thing, saying that whereas one of the nuns might have just reported facts, another one might have written about the thoughts and day-dreams they had along the way too.

"I can't remember the example that was given, but the kind of thing he was talking about would be where someone might write, 'When I went to secondary school I didn't know anyone because we'd just moved to a different part of the country. But I didn't do too badly there and got to university, where I studied music, and after that I became a music teacher', and another one would put more ideas in their autobiography, like, 'I remember that when I was twelve I had a vivid day-dream in class one day about what it would be like to see a centipede clinging to the wall of the classroom and force a teacher to eat it, imagining how it would be if they protested at first but then burst into a smile of delight and told us it tasted like marzipan, and said they were really pleased they'd been forced to eat it, because they adored marzipan!'

"According to this professor on the radio, if the nuns wrote that kind of thing in their autobiographies, they'd be at less risk of getting dementia. ... Well, that wasn't quite what he said; it had nothing to do with centipedes or trying to force-feed teachers with them; it was just that he said that the more ideas the nuns' autobiographies were filled with, the less likely they turned out to be to get dementia.

"He thought it must be to do with the ones who came up with more ideas demonstrating that they were using more brain power, since it takes more brain power to come up with ideas than it does to just report facts. And he just seemed to assume that anyone who talked a lot about ideas in their autobiographies was probably someone who'd keep on having them, and that using more brain power like that would protect them from getting dementia. Well, he said that some of the nuns who had no symptoms of dementia actually did show signs of it in their brains when they were analysed after they died; but he said he thought that the more people use their brains, the more healthy brain cells they'll have, so the more of them there will be around to help people function normally once dementia starts eating away at the brain, so they'll stay symptom-free for longer, so they might die before they even know they've got it. Something like that anyway."

One of the others grinned and said, "That's worth knowing! I'm going to try and keep the old brain active. Not all ideas are as intelligent as each other, though, are they. I mean, the other night when I went to bed, for some reason I thought I smelled a whiff of chocolate. Goodness knows what a smell like that was doing in my bed. But then I thought, 'Wouldn't it be nice if there was a bit of chocolate hanging above my bed like a Christmas tree decoration, suspended in mid-air, so I could eat it when I woke up in the morning, to give me the energy to get out of bed, or cheer me up so I felt like getting out of bed more!'

"I don't really know why I thought that, since I don't really think I'd want something that sweet first thing in the morning. ... Actually though, I have occasionally got myself out of bed by promising myself that I'll go straight to my chocolate store and treat myself to something! But imagine if I wrote an autobiography, and it was filled with ideas like that, and that man who studied nuns read it! I wonder if he'd think it meant I must be more intelligent than someone who wrote an autobiography that just reported facts, or whether he'd scratch his head and have a think about it, and then decide that maybe some ideas must be more equal than others!"

They laughed.

Then the one who'd been telling them about what the man had said on the radio said, "Maybe. He said some sensible-sounding stuff though. He gave the advice that we should try and use our brain power as much as we can, to reduce the risk that we'll get dementia, whether people do it by finding puzzles to work out, or whatever."

One of the students joked, "Maybe we could do it by revising all our lives. Imagine that, a whole life of revision, just to try and stave off dementia!"

Another one of the group grinned and said, "Well, even if we didn't get dementia, the depression a whole life of revision might cause would make it hardly worth it!"

They all agreed, and laughed again.

Then the one who'd been talking about what the man had discovered said, "There might be nicer things to do though. But anyway, I was thinking that although he was probably right about nuns who talked about more ideas in their autobiographies using more brain power, what if it meant something completely different from what he thought it meant? I mean, obviously he'll know a whole lot more about it than I do, but for one thing, what if the nuns who talked more about their ideas were the more narcissistic over-confident ones who thought people were bound to want to know about every little thought that entered their heads, whereas the ones who just reported the facts were the less confident, less self-important ones, who didn't see why other people would have any interest in the little things that went on in their minds."

One of the group grinned and said, "Yeah! Imagine if scientists wrote a paper that boldly proclaimed that being self-obsessed and over-confident could protect people from Alzheimer's!"

They laughed. But then one said, "I can see how that might be true, actually. I mean, the more selfish a person is, the more they'll want to keep all the good things for themselves and spend time on themselves, like spending a lot of their spare time doing things that improve their brain power instead of helping their kids with homework they can't understand, or helping with the housework, and that kind of thing. ... Well it would be a surprise if those nuns had kids, but I mean other people."

One of the others grinned and said, "Well if people really can protect themselves from dementia by being selfish and nasty, they might not die of dementia, but they might die lonely and miserable in old age with no friends, and with no relatives ever visiting them! Imagine if the family of someone like that paid for a grave stone to be put on their grave that said, 'This was a selfish old man who never helped anybody in his life!'"

One of the others giggled and said, "Oh who'd put something like that on a grave stone! Mind you, if anyone did, maybe it would come to be known as the Grave Stone of Hate! And imagine if people who went to the church the graveyard belonged to had to walk through it on their way there, and a child's parents really didn't want them to read the Grave Stone of Hate, because they thought it would be a bad influence on them, so they kept whispering to them every time they went past, 'Don't read that grave stone! Whatever you do, don't read that grave stone!' And if they caught them looking at it, they'd slap them and say, 'I told you not to read that grave stone!'

"Maybe if they hadn't kept saying that, the child wouldn't have had any interest in what the grave stones said; but because their parents were insisting so much that they didn't read it, they would get intrigued and think there must be something really interesting about that grave stone, so they'd sneakily read it while their parents weren't looking."

Another one of the group grinned and said, "Yes, and if one of their parents slapped them again, maybe they'd say, 'Watch it, or when you die, I'm going to buy you a grave stone and put a horrible message on it like that!'"

Another one of the group said, "Imagine if so many people admired the Grave Stone of Hate that it became the fashion for families to club together to buy grave stones for family members they didn't like who'd just died and put horrible messages on them. So grave stones might say things like, 'This man was a useless drunken layabout and a bad father!' 'This man was a liar, a cheat, and a filthy old creep. He did achieve one good thing though: When he died, he made this world a much better place, by eliminating himself from it!' Or you might get, 'This was a pathetic excuse for a mother! Shout, shout, shout! That's all I can remember the toxic ill-tempered screech-bag ever doing! My greatest pleasure in life now is to smile with delight when I imagine her rotting in the grave!' Maybe the place would become known as the Graveyard of Hate! Imagine historians in future generations scrutinising all the grave stones and writing books about them!"

One of the others laughed and said, "Who would want to be buried in a place like that, the Graveyard of Hate, among the graves with the horrible messages on them! Imagine some old people who knew they were going to die soon pleading with their children, 'Please don't bury me in the Graveyard of Hate, and if you do, please at least don't put a horrible message about me on my grave! I know I haven't always been nice, but there have been good times, haven't there!' Or maybe they'd say, 'My will says you can only have my money on condition that you haven't buried me in the Graveyard of Hate and put a horrible message on my grave!'"

Then one of the other students grinned and said, "Imagine lots of people going on day-trips to the beach, and the mums or dads saying eagerly, 'Let's stop and look around the Graveyard of Hate on the way!'"

They laughed again.

Then one of them said, "I heard someone saying on the radio that one day scientists might find a cure for ageing. But just imagine if there was a pill that prevented people dying, and everyone took it, but scientists still hadn't managed to cure dementia, so some people would get dementia, but they'd never die, so they'd have it forever. Wouldn't that be horrible!"

The one who'd been talking about possible ways of reducing the risks of getting dementia said, "Yes! Hopefully that would never happen! Mind you, I've heard there are scientists working hard to try to find a cure for dementia. Hopefully they'll succeed one day!"

One of the other students said, "I've heard other people say that thing about how people can reduce their dementia risk if they keep their brains active. One thing I heard was that when people lose their hearing a bit, that increases their dementia risk; but a study found that if they get given a hearing aid, their risk goes back to what it was before. I heard something on the radio about it, where someone was saying the risk might increase because when people's hearing diminishes, they can find it harder to have conversations with people and listen to things that stimulate the brain, and it's more likely to deteriorate if it isn't being stimulated. But they said that's only one possible cause; another one might be that if the brain has to work harder to interpret what people are saying, it might have to divert resources away from the parts that keep the memory working well to deal with it. But they didn't really know.

"But it sounds as if it's best if people get hearing aids if their hearing isn't that good any more. I think some people are put off them because some can hurt the ears if they're worn for a while, or they amplify background noise as well as what people near them are saying, and that's off-putting, or something like that. But I think modern ones are better than older ones; so it seems as if it would be worth them investigating what's recently become available.

"Mind you, I think when some people lose their hearing a bit, it's just because they've got loads of wax clogging up their ears, so they just need to go to a nurse and have it removed.

"I heard a horrible true story once about a nun who went to bed one night after she washed her hair and it was still wet, and the next morning, her hearing was really bad; and she lived in the convent for decades with really bad hearing; and she warned people not to wash their hair before they went to bed in case it happened to them. But I've had the experience of washing my hair and then my hearing got bad, but it turned out to be just a load of wax that had gone soft and squidgy because of the water, clogging up my ears; and they were fine once it was removed. So I wondered if this nun's hearing problem was really just caused by a load of wax clogging up her ears, and she would have been fine if it had been removed, so she had really bad hearing all those years when she didn't have to.

"I don't know if she went to the doctor when she first got the problem, and whether doctors had a technique for removing ear wax in the days when it first happened. I don't know when they first started doing that. I wonder if there were lots of people before then who got hearing problems just because of loads of wax clogging up their ears, and they just had to put up with it.

"Mind you, I've heard it's best if people who think that's what might be wrong don't try to remove the wax themselves, like with a cotton bud, in case they actually push it further into the ear. I know someone who got an ear infection, and at first he just presumed it was too much wax in his ears that had got all sticky after he'd been swimming and got water in them; and he used a cotton bud to try to get it out; and some came out, but his hearing problem was worse the next day, so he went to the doctor, and got diagnosed with an ear infection, and was given antibiotics for it, and he wished he hadn't used a cotton bud to try and clear his ears out the day before, because he thought he might have accidentally just pushed what was causing the problem further in."

The one who'd been talking about the study of nuns that had found differences between the ones who'd got dementia and the ones who hadn't said, "That's worth knowing! Actually, that reminds me: Another thing this man being interviewed on the radio about the nuns he studied and dementia said was that another difference he noticed was that the autobiographies of the ones who didn't get dementia mentioned being happy and cheerful a lot more than the ones written by the people who did. Maybe happiness - or unhappiness - relates to that thing about hearing loss increasing the dementia risk for some people in a way, because maybe with hearing loss, the increased risk is partly to do with people's brains getting less stimulation because they end up more isolated because they can't communicate with people so easily any more; and isolation's one thing that can make some people miserable and lonely. Maybe some things that make people unhappy are what increase their risk of dementia. Maybe feeling miserable over time in itself increases the risk somehow too though.

"Actually, I do remember reading that long-term anxiety and depression are risk factors for dementia. I don't know if that's to do with things they do to the brain over time that makes its health deteriorate, or with behaviours they can lead to, like people eating a lot of junk food for comfort and being too depressed to feel motivated to exercise. Maybe it's a mixture of things. I know being stressed over time can stop the immune system working so well, and affect the memory for a while. And having a stressful childhood can lead to people having mental health problems all through adulthood, because they've got into the habit of feeling hopeless about things, or they've got a lot of bad memories, or things that happened made them scared of a lot of things, or all kinds of reasons like that.

"The man being interviewed didn't say why he thought the more cheerful nuns - or the ones who at least mentioned being cheerful more often in their autobiographies - would have a lower risk of developing dementia in later life; but I wonder if it could mean that the ones with less stressful childhoods were less likely to be anxious and depressed as adults and then end up with dementia. ... That might not have had a thing to do with it, actually, because just because some nuns mentioned being cheerful a lot and some didn't, it doesn't necessarily mean the ones who didn't were actually unhappy.

"But if some of them did have stressful childhoods, although it might not have been anything to do with developing dementia or anything else, if it was, then maybe it links in with the other things this man found, about how the autobiographies of the nuns who didn't get dementia had more complicated words and sentences and more ideas in them, instead of just facts. He said he thought that showed that people who wrote like that had better-developed brains or something. ... Well, he didn't say 'or something'; that was me. I mean I can't quite remember what he said, but it was something like that. But I was thinking, 'What if there was more going on than that?'

"I mean, I think there are quite a few reasons why some kids can't develop their intelligence as much as other kids can, and what if some of those reasons are partly the same reasons why a lot of kids aren't as cheerful as others, and why some people have more risk of getting dementia later in life?

"I mean, for one thing, what about kids who grow up in families where there's a lot of stress at home, say because the parents are always arguing, and they fight and hit the kids or something. When the kids are at school, they might find it much harder to concentrate on their work, because they might always be worrying about what might happen next at home, and be feeling angry and upset about what's already happened, thinking about it all the time. So it might be a lot harder for them to do their work well and end up with good grades than kids who haven't got anything to worry about. So that might be part of the reason they never get to be so talented, and end up with a higher risk for dementia; but what if the long-term effects of the chemicals that are released in the body when people are stressed put them at a higher risk of getting dementia too? That might happen. I mean, it is unhealthy to be stressed for too long because of those chemicals being bad for your health if they stay around for too long. So what if that kind of thing's going on?

"And the stress might mean it's a lot harder for kids who are worried a lot to spend time thinking up ideas as well. I mean, if you haven't got anything to worry about, you might spend a lot more time dreaming things up than kids who are always worrying about things instead. You know, while one kid's busy worrying about whether they're going to get hit that night when they should be concentrating on their algebra or something, another one who isn't stressed might be spending the time day-dreaming about new ideas instead, like thinking, 'Wouldn't it be good if everyone had cellars, and all the water from their showers went down into them and then got purified, so they got to be like swimming pools that all the family could go and play in!'"

Another student grinned and said, "Well I suppose stressed kids might not be so likely to have fun day-dreams like that; but they might still have day-dreams about ideas they think up, like, 'Wouldn't it be good if a special kind of hot air balloon one day whipped my parents up into the air and carried them right to the other side of the world, and dropped them somewhere in the middle of nowhere in a place that was full of massive spiders and snakes, that they found it really difficult to find their way out of! And then wouldn't it be good if it whipped some nice parents up from somewhere around there and brought them to my house, so they could be my parents instead!'"

They grinned. But the one who'd been talking about stressed kids possibly not thinking up so many ideas said, "Maybe. But then if someone's had quite a dramatic childhood, they might be more likely to forget all the little ideas they had like that, because of the more important things they'll have their minds on; so maybe that would sometimes mean they didn't mention ideas in their autobiographies."

Then one of the students grinned and said, "I wonder what kind of ideas kids who are going to grow up to be politicians dream up. I wonder if with at least a few of them, it's things like, 'Wouldn't it be exciting to do things that risk World War III breaking out! What a cracking good wheeze it would be to do that!'"

They giggled, and one said, "Anyone who thought up ideas like that might deserve dementia, preferably before they got to lead a country! Mind you, I hope whoever thought up the idea of the Internet, or chocolate bars, or ready-sliced onions that you can get in supermarkets, or how to transport strawberries from far away so you can buy them all year round, or fridges, and kettles, and cups and plates, and a whole load of things like that, never gets, or got dementia. Probably some of them did, which is a pity, since it can go on for years, making people's quality of life worse and worse."

The student who'd been talking about the man who studied the nuns said, "Yeah, it is a pity really if it happened. Anyway, I was thinking that another reason why some kids might be able to develop more brain power than other kids is that some will have parents who really encourage them to learn from an early age. I don't mean pressuring them to succeed, so they get stressed because they think they'll be in trouble if they don't, or they haven't got enough time to just play; I think doing that can backfire, if something could be enjoyable or interesting for them, but because the parents are insisting that the kids do really well at it, it just makes them stressed, worrying about whether they're doing it well enough, and about what their parents will say if they don't.

"I actually remember something a little bit like that happening in a minor way in my family. ... At least, that might have been what happened, or it could have happened for another reason; but my dad bought my little sister this computer game, where a voice asked questions, like general knowledge questions and things, and when she got an answer right, it cheered her on. One day, I was with her when she was playing it, and my brother was there as well; and when she didn't know the answer to a question, I would give her clues to help her. But my brother didn't like that, and we started an argument, because he thought she should try and work out the answers all by herself. I thought, 'For crying out loud, this is supposed to be fun for her; it's not supposed to be just like being at school!'

"I think she wasn't so keen on playing it after that. I'm not sure if that was the reason, but it might have been."

Another student said, "I heard about something a bit like that on the radio once. A boy was talking about how he used to play football on a Saturday morning, but his dad started putting pressure on him to play really well, getting annoyed and criticising him if he made mistakes; and one day, he told his dad that he wanted to give up playing, because it was supposed to be fun for him, but it had just turned into a stressful slog, with all the disapproval he got from his dad when he made mistakes. Then his dad realised he ought to remember it was just a game and it was supposed to be fun, not some kind of extra schooling, as if the boy wouldn't have had enough time at school during the week!"

One of the group said, "It's good that things at least changed for the boy in the end. It's a shame some parents can take some things too seriously. Imagine if there were nutty parents who had really daft hobbies that they took really seriously, for some reason, and they made their children participate, and got annoyed with them if they didn't do them well.

"Imagine if one was squashed donut hurling, where they'd make their kids stand at the edge of a field and fling a squashed donut, trying to make it land on a cow's head. And imagine if when a kid missed a few times, their dad would raise his voice and sternly say, 'This just isn't good enough! How long have you been practising now? You should be much better at throwing squashed donuts at cows accurately by now!'

"Or imagine if some parents were really into having false burp competitions, and they made their kids compete, and every time they went home afterwards, some of the dads would yell things at their kids like, 'What kind of pathetic burps were those! You should be able to do much longer burps by now! We've been taking you to burping competitions for a whole year! I can do long ones! Your mother can do long ones! So why can't you! You're hopeless!'

"Or imagine if some parents were really into competitions where they and their kids had to cut a bread roll in half and cover it in cheese spread, and then plonk it on their heads, cheese spread-side down, and then run around the block without it falling off, in front of all the people walking around there. Imagine if every time a child didn't quite manage it, their dad would get angry and sternly say, 'How come you've still got such a pathetic sense of balance after all this time! How many times have you run around the block with cheese spread rolls on your head? And still, you're only managing to get about halfway round before they fall off! This just isn't good enough!'

"Or imagine if some daft parents had noisy eating competitions, where they'd go out to restaurants and order their kids to eat as noisily as they could, to see if they could do it loudly enough to get disapproving looks or complaints from people on other tables; and if the kids didn't eat noisily enough for the parents' liking, the dads would shout things like, 'You call that noisy eating? Not one person has even looked at you disapprovingly! If you were any good at it, you'd have people coming over here in droves complaining about you! Why can't you eat noisily enough yet, after all the time we've been taking you to restaurants to practise! It looks as if we've been wasting our time and money!'"

The students giggled.

Then the one who'd been talking before about the man who'd studied the nuns said more seriously, "Maybe there really are nutty parents who insist that their kids do silly things like that!

"Anyway, I know this is a gloomy thought, but what I was thinking of saying before was that I wonder if the reason why some children wouldn't grow up to be able to write stuff with as many ideas and big words in it as other kids might could be because they're not encouraged to learn anything much at home, so other parents might teach their kids to read better, and read them stories that help them think up new ideas, and make things fun for them, but children of parents who don't think it's worth them and their kids bothering to get much of an education, for whatever reason, or who don't have the time to do things that help them learn things, because they're poor so they need to spend longer hours working and they're too tired to give them much attention when they get home, or for some other reason, don't get their brains stimulated so much, so they don't develop as much; and maybe less development at a younger age is partly what makes people more vulnerable to dementia in later life. I don't really know about that; it's only a theory. But I think it kind of makes sense.

"And I think if kids aren't given enough healthy food when they're little, that can mean their brains can't develop as much too; so that might stop them growing as intelligent as other kids of their age, and I wonder if it means they're more likely to get dementia in later life too, because their brains weren't nourished as much as they should have been when they needed to be most because they were still developing. I'm not sure if that really could make people more vulnerable to dementia; and it might be possible to catch up with other people later in life by doing things that stimulate the old brain power, like learning new things. I don't know if that would compensate for the brain not being given enough nutrients at an early age. ... Not that kids would need to be given healthy food every day, I don't suppose. I mean, I'm pretty sure parents wouldn't need to panic if their kids would only eat burgers and chips or something; there would be time for them to experiment to see if they can entice their kids to eat more healthily."

One of the others grinned and joked, "Yeah, like wrapping cauliflower and carrots in chocolate, to make dinners more tempting!"

The Discussion Turns to the Effects on Children of Toxins in the Environment

The student who'd been talking about things that could cause children to have problems developing intelligence smiled and said, "That would probably be a very last resort! Maybe putting vegetables in a nice sauce might work, or seeing if the kids prefer raw ones, since raw ones have normally got a much nicer flavour - at least I think so; or the parents could maybe let them play games arranging brightly-coloured raw ones in pretty patterns on the plate, saying they can eat them at the end if they like; or they could let them help them grow some, so they get to think of them as things that are fun to have around, instead of boring things they just have to eat whether they like it or not.

"But I think children in developing countries are probably most at risk for not getting as much nutrition as their brains need to develop well when they're little.

"Anyway, I've read that another thing that can lower children's intelligence levels, as well as possibly causing them to develop problems with their behaviour like ADHD, is toxins that people can even just be exposed to around their own homes. Lead's one of them. Anyone who's got old lead pipes or old lead paint in their house could be taking in toxins without realising, if they're taking in a low level over time so they wouldn't necessarily have obvious symptoms.

"I'm not sure what it's best to do about that kind of thing if people suspect that their house might be contaminated; but it might be worth them investigating ways of finding out whether it is, and what to do if it is, because children could pick that kind of thing up in quite a few ways, such as if tiny flakes of lead paint come off things and add to the dust around the place, and they happen to get some on their hands while they're playing, and then lick their fingers. Or if pipes have got a bit of lead that's dissolved into the water in them, then kids will likely drink some of that, ... as well as the rest of the family, obviously. Hopefully not too many houses are contaminated like that nowadays.

"But I'm wondering if it's things like that, not just how much brain power people use, that could end up being partly responsible for causing dementia years and years later."

One of the group said, half-joking, "That's horrible! If you carry on talking like this, I'm going to be too depressed to want to bother revising! Would you like to do my exams for me, since you'll be responsible for causing it?"

The one who'd been talking about toxins said, "I think I'll have enough trouble doing my own! ... Actually, as strange as it might sound, I'd prefer to be talking about this than revising; talking about this is more interesting, and it gets me out of feeling as if I ought to be going in and doing it!"

The others smiled. They could identify with the feeling.

But one said, "If we keep talking like this, we won't have enough time to revise!"

Then she joked, "If we get a question we can't answer, I wonder if the people marking the exams would accept it if we wrote, 'Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to revise to recall the answer to this; but I'll tell you all about toxins instead; it's a very worthwhile subject to know about, so I'm hoping you'll think it's just as good to write about as the thing I'm supposed to be writing about, and give me decent marks for it!'"

They tittered.

Then the one who'd been depressing them said with a grin, "Well, if you're going to write about that instead of what you're asked to write about, I'd better tell you more of what I know about it, so the essay you write can at least be of a decent length! ... Actually, really, it probably won't take long to finish our conversation; we'll probably still have lots of time to revise ... hopefully!

"I was just going to say that I think another source of toxins that might cause problems for kids' developing brains is second-hand smoke, if the parents smoke, since I think tobacco contains lots of toxins. So that might have some kind of long-term effect as well, for all we know."

There's a Bit More Humour

A few of the students started feeling a little bit down. Becky started chewing on a bit of long grass, as if it soothed her somehow. But the group was cheered up a bit after a pause in the conversation when one of them grinned and joked, "You wouldn't want to smoke that grass, would you Becky? Well, if you did, Maybe it would be healthier than cigarettes! ... But maybe it wouldn't be. Still, at least it isn't junk food!

"Imagine if grass was put into a burger by some company that made novelty items, and it was called a grassburger! Who'd want one of those! Well, some people might be really keen if they didn't realise it was literal grass. Then they might get a surprise they didn't like! Anyway, you'd better not eat the grass; maybe it's special alcoholic grass. .. No, I don't suppose it can be, otherwise its secrets would probably have been discovered before now, and there would be people crawling around nibbling the grass all over the place!"

They tittered.

One of the group said, "I actually read a weird post on an Internet forum not long ago, from someone who I think has just taken up Buddhism, and might possibly be trying to take its philosophy even further than the old Buddha did himself! He said something like, 'Our problems are caused by us desiring to have things we can't have, so if we only trained ourselves not to want them, we wouldn't have problems any more. I've been training myself to live without desires. After all, we don't need the things we desire. We don't even need food!'

"I don't know if he gave some explanation for what he said that made it sound less daft, but I stopped reading what he was saying after that, and thought it might be fun to reply to him, saying something like, 'If you're convinced of that, perhaps you could prove it to us, by going entirely without food for about sixty days. Then you can come back and tell us all about it. ... Of course, you might be coming back as a ghost, but if you've given up all desires, that must include the desire to live, so I don't suppose you'll mind that.'

"I mean, I can understand that philosophy about how desires can be a big cause of problems making sense in certain situations, say if someone really wanted a girlfriend, and he started to get fed up because he didn't have one, and he thought the problem was that he didn't have one, but then he thought, 'This just wouldn't be a problem for me if I could just be happy enough without one for the time being.'

"But say if it was winter and your kids told you they were cold, somehow I don't think it would be appropriate to tell them their problem was just that they had a desire to be warm, and that if they could only think thoughts that made the desire go away, they'd be OK. Welcome hypothermia! ... Mind you, I'm pretty sure Buddhist philosophy must be more complex than that really!"

After a little while, the students got onto the subject of motivational counselling, where addicts are asked questions that can inspire them to staart thinking kicking their habits would be more desirable than keeping them. Then one of them grinned and teased, "There you go, Anne, if you do another course after this one and drink in your classes again, you might need to go for counselling like that in the end. So now you know what it'll be able to do for you."

Anne was indignant, and protested, "Actually, I don't suppose I drink any more alcohol than most of you do, really! I could hardly be called a heavy drinker! The only difference between me and some of you is that instead of drinking much in the evenings, I used to drink just before the discussion groups about the subjects that I thought were the most boring, that had the tutors who seemed a bit useless to me, because I was hoping it would help me tolerate them better! Anyway, I was telling you about what I did to help myself stop doing that before all this discussion, wasn't I. I didn't finish what I was saying. Would anyone like to hear more about what I did?"

They all said they would. So Anne started talking about it again.

Anne Talks More About What She Did to Try to Motivate Herself to Stop Drinking Before Her Stressfully Tedious Class

She said, "Well, one thing I tried was finding logic puzzles on the Internet to work out instead of arguing on forums, thinking they would give my brain the work-out it needed. I liked them. And I think one reason they helped was that they distracted my thoughts from thinking about how much I didn't like the class. So I did feel better before the class. But instead of making me feel in a better mood to go to it, I found it more and more difficult to tear myself away from them! So I realised I'd have to do something different.

"I came up with the idea of reading psychology books from the course I was most interested in for about half an hour before the boring class started, to give me food for thought - they meant I was thinking through ideas that were new to me when I went to it so I wasn't feeling stressed by it. The trouble was that I started thinking about them when I should have been concentrating on the class, and that got embarrassing when the tutor would ask me questions I wasn't expecting about things I'd only half heard him talk about so I found it difficult to answer them.

"But then I had a better idea: Christmas was coming up, and I asked my relatives to buy me some CD's of BBC comedies I'd heard on the radio and liked, like Hancock's Half Hour, Dad's Army, Yes Minister and a few others. I got quite a few, and I decided to listen to one comedy programme every week before that horrible class, to put me in a better mood so it hopefully wouldn't stress me out so much. Since the comedies would stop by themselves when they finished after about half an hour, I didn't have to worry about having to discipline myself to tear myself away from them.

"I did feel better about going to the class after that. Mind you, we started learning about more interesting things too, so that helped. And then whenever I started getting irritated with it while it was going on, I'd think about that pie and chips I was going to have afterwards, and that would buck my spirits up a bit.

"Actually, there's one more thing I sometimes did: Sometimes when I thought it might be boring again, instead of listening to a comedy before it, I found that going and sitting by the door of the room we were doing the class in and reading a good fiction book where I could escape in my imagination to a different place and time for about half an hour before it started helped; I'd spot people going into the room just before it started, so I didn't have to worry about getting so absorbed in the book I forgot about the time and missed it.

"And actually, one last thing I did that sometimes helped was day-dreaming about how nice it's going to be when I finally finish my degree and I'm at the graduation ceremony being congratulated for doing it, knowing it's out the way and I've got a decent qualification to my name."

Another student said with a smile, "Well, at least a Lot of our classes were interesting."

The Students Discuss the Finding That the More Educated a Person Is, the Less Difficulty the Brain Seems to Have Recovering From Injury Up to a Point

One complained, "Courses might be nicer if we didn't have to do exams at the end of them! You know, I think I've worn my brain out with all that revising! I don't feel as if I can face doing anything I have to think even remotely hard about now! And I haven't even finished all my exams!"

Becky said, "Don't worry; I expect it'll wear off soon. Maybe it would help you motivate yourself if you thought about how bad it would be to fail after all the effort you've put in over the last three years!"

The unmotivated student chuckled and said, "Actually, I think that would just depress me so I'd feel even worse!"

Another student said, "I know the feeling! Oh well, our brains might feel frazzled and no good for anything now, but there's one way all the slog we've been doing might benefit us one day - well, hopefully there are more ways than that! But anyway, there's one way I heard about recently, though hopefully it won't happen:

"The other day I heard a radio programme about brain injuries that people can get from car crashes and things. It said that sometimes, two injuries might look just the same, but one person might be a lot more seriously affected than the other one. They said there was one study that found that people who'd been educated for more than sixteen years weren't as badly affected by their injuries as people educated for twelve years or less. They wondered if that meant that learning new things makes the brain's wiring more sophisticated so it takes more to damage it."

Becky said, "Well that's me stuffed then if I get in a car accident! I've been educated for a bit less than twelve years! Mind you, I wonder if the study findings really did mean that. What if the real reason people educated for less than twelve years were more badly affected was because a lot of them were young, too young to have been educated for all that time, and their brains were still developing, and when brains are still developing they're more vulnerable somehow? Or what if it's because people who've been educated better will often have better jobs that pay more, so they might be able to afford better treatment if they get injured so they might often recover faster?"

None of the students knew the answer to that. One said, "Could it be that young people are more likely to have drugs or drink in their systems that's harming their brains to begin with?"

"Speak for yourself!" said another student.

The one who'd suggested it said, "Yes, but I've heard that younger people are more likely to take risks and make bad decisions, like getting drunk and going home in cars driven by people who've had a bit too much to drink, than older people are. They reckon that's something to do with the emotional part of the brain that gives people anxiety and cravings for pleasure and things developing before the thinking part. Maybe that's why I've been finding it so hard to revise! Maybe they should let people off exams till they're about ... oh, say, about forty or fifty! Brains might have developed properly by then!"

The other students laughed. They said that sounded like a great idea!

Then the one who'd mentioned the programme said, "Oh well, at least there was one bit of good news in the programme: Doctors were saying that people can carry on recovering from brain injuries years after they got them; they don't have to think that they've got two years or so to recover and then that's it - that they won't recover any more or anything. They said the brain carries on trying to find new ways of doing things to substitute for the damaged bits that used to do them for ages afterwards."

Becky said, "That reminds me of a book I read! It was saying there was a man in hospital whose brain had been damaged in a way that meant he could hardly remember things that had just happened any more. But he was taught techniques that helped him, using the parts of his brain that still worked well."

"What were the techniques?" asked one student.

"I can't remember off-hand," said Becky. "I vaguely remember having discussions about it with people some time ago though. ... Oh dear, I hope it doesn't come up in the exams! Maybe it's something I need to revise!"

One student said, "Oh no! It'll be horrible if after all the revising we've done, the things that come up in our next exams are Just the things we didn't revise! You know, I wonder if how well the brain manages to find other bits to do the work after it's been injured has anything to do with what state it's in at the time it's damaged. I'm not confident My brain's in a fit state to do anything much at the moment! I don't feel as if I can even be bothered to go and do any more revising!"

One student chuckled and joked, "Maybe we could sue the university for injuries they did to our brains by making us work too hard!"

They all laughed.

Then one of the students who'd said he felt unmotivated to do any revision smiled and said, "Yeah! Oh well, I suppose I'd better get down to giving my brain a bit of a workout and go in and start revising again now if I want to pass my exams!"

They all decided it would be a good idea if they did the same. So they all went in.

All the students in Becky's year passed their exams and got decent degrees.