Last stop on the Paris Métro! Today’s issue of Fridays Are For France🇫🇷 is a little bit different! As I’ve mentioned in this post, one of my favourite parts about travelling mindfully is how good it is for our brain! When we travel, our brain is forced to think differently and make new connections, which helps us have more opportunities to grow into our ideal selves.
For example, have you ever picked up a habit on a trip and then brought it home with you? Or had an experience that completely changed your opinion about something? I’d love to hear about them in the comments❤️!
Before we get started on how the Métro can specifically help our brains, here is a recap of the last two posts in the Métro series:
what you didn’t know about paris’ métropolitain🇫🇷 (a brief history of the Métro!)
ride the métro like a parisian🇫🇷 (my tips and tricks for the most romantic public transportation!)
Now comes the closing chapter to this topic: how is taking the Métro good for our brains?
While I was researching the benefits of taking the Paris Métro for the brain, I excitedly went a little too far into the topic and became overwhelmed with what seemed like endless benefits! The Paris Métro can train your brain to have a sharpened memory, quicker reaction time, greater empathy, focus, and an increase in creativity😍!
However, today we’ll just focus on one: The Paris Métro has the potential to literally enlarge your brain- specifically your hippocampus!
So, what is the hippocampus? Put very simply, the hippocampus (which comes from the Ancient Greek word for “seahorse” because of its shape) is a part of your brain that’s responsible for:
Spacial memory and navigation (remembering where things are, like your favourite café)
Short and long-term general memory about everything
Understanding context and time so you can recount your memories in the right order, and imagine future scenarios
It was really important for humans to have a large hippocampus for survival- not just in cavemen times, but also quite recently before we had smartphones! The stakes of not getting lost were much more real before we could just pull out Google Maps. But what if you lose cell service? Or worse, what happens when our brains don’t exercise the hippocampus?
Although it’s natural for our brains to lose a bit of functionality in the hippocampus as we get older, this will cause greater memory loss for everyday things overall, and you’ll find yourself saying things like “where are my keys?” or “what did that person say, again?”
Even though I totally recommend using Google Maps while travelling (and did in my last post multiple times!), if we continue to use technology like this without challenging our brains every so often, our hippocampus won’t have an opportunity to grow, and we may lose our memory earlier than previous generations who had to use this part of their brain more often.
Thankfully, the hippocampus is one of the parts of the brain that’s able to not only rewire itself, but also generate NEW neurons😍✨! This means that most people, no matter your age, have the opportunity to grow it and rewire it, even if you’ve been coasting and leaving it inactive for a while!
Neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire and her team devoted many years studying the hippocampi of London taxi drivers pre-Uber and mostly pre-GPS. These taxi drivers had to pass a series of licensing tests (three years long!) testing their knowledge of London’s 25,000 streets! They found that the people who didn’t pass the test had small hippocampi, and the more years these taxi drivers had been working, the bigger their hippocampi became!
Another interesting part of their continued studies was when they compared the brains of bus drivers who followed a fixed route to these taxi drivers who needed to adapt on a whim, problem-solving and making connections with their pre-existing memory of the streets. It turns out that the bus drives didn’t have hippocampus growth, which led Maguire and her team to conclude that the key was the mental challenge of flexible navigation!
So what are some ways that we can grow our hippocampus in the Paris Métro and beyond?
You probably already guessed it: go “analog” and try planning your route using a map without the help of navigation apps once in a while! You can practice this anywhere, but big cities like Paris are even better because there are so many more streets, Métro stops, etc.!
Even if you use a navigation app, if you’re visiting Paris or another foreign city for the first time, your hippocampus will still be getting exercise because you’re learning how to navigate an entirely new transit system with new landmarks and signs in a different language (read my previous post here for a handy translation key)!
If you do use GPS, once you arrive at your destination or before you go to bed that night, see if you can mentally retrace your route. The more you do this, the easier it gets!
If you always take the same route (like to work or back home for example), make a few detours and see how many alternate routes there may be. You never know, you may find your favourite new restaurant along the way, or a more scenic (and therefore more enjoyable and beautiful) journey!
During your commute, take note of landmarks and visualize how you might tell your friend how to get from A to B without GPS.
Rewire your perspective and remember that a detour due to construction etc. is actually the perfect opportunity to flex that hippocampus!
Sketch a map by memory and turn it into an arts and crafts activity to grow both your hippocampus and channel your inner artist!
You don’t even need to leave your couch to start practicing! Look up subway maps of major cities from around the world (Tokyo, London, New York) and explore how you might get from A to B. Here’s a map of the Paris Métro so you can start right now!
Every time you go outside your comfort zone, find the enjoyment in getting a little lost, and notice new things along the way, your brain will thank you! Who knows…maybe with this series as your prep, you’ll tackle your Paris Métro experience like a local the very first time!
Thank you as always for reading until the end! Your comments, likes, pledges, and everything in between have been making my spirit soar🥹❤️! Bisous! À la semaine prochaine! 🇫🇷
