How does it feel to die?

How it feels to die
What does it feel like to drown? If you're decapitated, how long do you remain conscious? New Scientist has a feature on how it feels to die from a variety of causes. Read the article for details.

Reminds me of a book of short essays/stories (fictional...so, stories is perhaps the right word) that I had picked up earlier this year. The book, Severance by the very creative author, Robert Olen Butler, comprises of sixty-two entries...

...each in the voice of a beheaded historical, mythical, animal or modern figure, make up the collection. Each is exactly 240 words, Butler's estimate of the number of words that could be spoken by a decapitated head before oxygen runs out. theory has it that consciousness lasts for one and a half minutes after decapitation, and people can utter 160 words per minute when agitated. Butler did the math, so each spurt-of-consciousness story is 240 words long. And he did the research, unearthing 62 individuals who lost their heads in executions, at the hands of murderers (most often husbands), and in accidents (Jayne Mansfield).

I had found this book very vague, disconnected, and boring to read (not to forget morbid at times) and though very creative, read perhaps half the entries before returning it to the library.

And going past this the morbid topic of death, here is a scientific studies that tell us how to live..

Animal enrichment research may be telling us something important not about the positive effects of stimulation, but about reversing the negative effects of deprivation. For people whose work is unstimulating, having mentally challenging hobbies, like learning a new language or playing bridge, can help maintain cognitive performance. But the belief that any single brain exercise program late in life can act as a quick fix for general mental function is almost entirely faith-based.

One form of training, however, has been shown to maintain and improve brain health — physical exercise. In humans, exercise improves what scientists call “executive function,” the set of abilities that allows you to select behavior that’s appropriate to the situation, inhibit inappropriate behavior and focus on the job at hand in spite of distractions. Executive function includes basic functions like processing speed, response speed and working memory, the type used to remember a house number while walking from the car to a party.

Executive function starts to decline when people reach their 70s. But elderly people who have been athletic all their lives have much better executive function than sedentary people of the same age. This relationship might occur because people who are healthier tend to be more active, but that’s not the whole story. When inactive people get more exercise, even starting in their 70s, their executive function improves, as shown in a recent meta-analysis of 18 studies. One effective training program involves just 30 to 60 minutes of fast walking several times a week.