Reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants in the new e-course How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach can take part in a monthly online Q&A ses­sion to dis­cuss progress and open ques­tions with the course fac­ulty and with fel­low par­tic­i­pants. Below is the tran­script of the Octo­ber 30th Q&A ses­sion, lightly edited and anonymized.

Course Fac­ulty (or F): OK, we are ready to start. You can start writ­ing and sub­mit­ting any ques­tions and com­ments!  Read the rest of this entry »

The words, The Agile Mind cap­tured my atten­tion imme­di­ately. The title con­veyed energy, inno­va­tion, change, bounc­ing on a tram­po­line in my head. I knew that inves­ti­gat­ing the book would be an adventure.

As soon as the book The Agile Mind by Wilma Kout­staal was in my hands, I explored the 24-page index, look­ing for my favorite topic, problem-solving think­ing. On page 29 I accessed a brand new take on the intu­itive ver­sus ratio­nal prob­lem solv­ing chal­lenge. A cen­tral aspect of men­tal agility Read the rest of this entry »

Over and over again—in nat­ural dis­as­ters, after the SARS epi­demic, fol­low­ing the loss of a child or spouse—Bonanno’s lon­gi­tu­di­nal stud­ies on loss and trauma revealed the exact same pat­tern at the pop­u­la­tion level. No mat­ter how bad the trauma, rates of PTSD never exceeded one-third, and rates of resilience were always found in at least one-third and never more than two-thirds of the population.

“This pat­tern of response is so ubiq­ui­tous, and so con­sis­tent, it begs the ques­tion: Why are we, as a species, designed this way?” asks Bonanno.

One pos­si­ble answer is that the design ensures that there is always at least a siz­able minor­ity, or even a major­ity, to take care of those deeply affected by a trauma. Read the rest of this entry »

Time for Sharp­Brains’ March 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing in this occa­sion thought-provoking  per­spec­tives on emo­tions, ADHD, health and the brain, and a brief sta­tus update of the upcom­ing 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (June 7-14th, 2012).

Fea­tured Perspectives:

• The Emo­tional Life of Your Brain, by Richard David­son and Sharon Begley
• Is ADHD over­diag­nosed? Find­ings from a new study in Ger­many, by David Rabiner
• Tran­script: Online Q&A on the Future of Brain Health with Alvaro Fernandez

New Research and Resources:

• One size does not fit all: Does the brain ‘remem­ber’ antidepressants?
• Should Hos­pi­tals Mon­i­tor, and Work to Main­tain, Patients’ Cog­ni­tive Function?
• The Life of Your Next Neuron
• Info­graphic: Retool­ing Brain Health for the 21st Century
• Not all men­tal activ­ity is cre­ated equal (quick brain teaser)

Update on 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (June 7-14th):

• Pre­lim­i­nary Agenda: with 30+ Speak­ers and 5 Edu­ca­tional Workshops
• Spon­sors: Learn about Gold Spon­sors  The Arrow­smith Pro­gram and Brain Resource; Learn how to Sponsor/ Exhibit
• Part­ners: Learn about 10+ Sum­mit Part­ners; Learn how to Partner
• Reg­is­ter: very-early-bird rates apply until next Tues­day, April 3rd. Don’t miss them!

If you believe most self-help books, pop-psychology arti­cles, and tele­vi­sion ther­a­pists, then you prob­a­bly assume that how peo­ple respond to sig­nif­i­cant life events is pretty pre­dictable.  Most of us, accord­ing to the “experts,” are affected in just about the same way by a given experience—there is a griev­ing process that every­one goes through, there is a sequence of events that hap­pens when we fall in love, there is a stan­dard response to being jilted, and there are fairly stan­dard ways almost every nor­mal per­son reacts to the birth of a child, to being unap­pre­ci­ated at one’s job, to hav­ing an unbear­able work­load, to the chal­lenges of rais­ing teenagers, and to the inevitable changes that occur with aging.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 7, at 7 p.m., Cleve­land Park Library in Wash­ing­ton, DC will host Alvaro Fer­nan­dez as he dis­cusses  The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews to Keep Your Brain Sharp (book also avail­able via DC library sys­tem).

The book expands on the con­cept of neu­ro­plas­tic­ity that recent works such as the New York Times best­seller, The Brain that Changes Itself, and the PBS Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram have intro­duced to the world. Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, or the the brain’s capac­ity to Read the rest of this entry »

Vet­er­ans learn to use yoga and med­i­ta­tion exer­cises to recon­nect with their emo­tions (Wis­con­sin State Journal):

“Rich Low of Madi­son served as an infantry offi­cer in the Army in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, lead­ing some 280 com­bat mis­sions. When he came back from the ser­vice, he didn’t think his expe­ri­ence affected him in any major way. He had night­mares, and he star­tled eas­ily, but he chalked that up to just some­thing vet­er­ans live with. Read the rest of this entry »