In July 1968, John B. Calhoun, an American research psychologist, once conducted a now important experiment on the effect of open space on brain fitness. The test, as expected, involved rats, not people yet his results were extensively regarded to be a useful. Here is what he did.

He placed four pairs of mouse into a perfect world. There’re no hunters, no deficiency of food or drinks and obviously, no inadequate of breeding partner.

Essentially these mouse have everything they want - with the exception of space. At first, everything seems just great. The mouse lived as they are suppose to be. Their community grow very quickly, multiplying about every fifty-five days. Very soon, when the number of the mouse reached 620, the space he was keeping them in become overflowing. This was day 315 of the experiment.

Amazingly, the population began to decline since then… to a point where the last surviving birth was at day 600. At the same time, between day 315 to day 600, the mouse behaved erratically. No longer do guys secure their territory and females. No longer did they occupy themselves in courtship or physical encounter. Instead they become anti-social, and clean themselves.

As a result of their lack of scars and beautiful skin, these number of guys were called “the pretty ones”. The females, on the contrary, become increasingly hostile, stopped giving birth and get rid of their junior before weaning was complete. After day 600, the number of rats began to decline into extinction.

Look familiar? Redundant to say, these mouse are extremely unhappy during this period of time. Does the lack of space and increasing population density altering your psychology? Who knows? Perhaps so, perhaps not. Although if you’re similar me, you want to find out.

Try this out: At worst once a week, stroll to an open space. Be it a meadow or out of town. A lot of people feel relax, sort of a freedom feeling when in open space. I doubt even brain training exercises can yield such results.