Employ­ers turn­ing to ‘brain health’ tools to reduce stress, increase pro­duc­tiv­ity (HR.BLR.com):
“Brain health is not just about dis­ease. It’s not just about depres­sion or anx­i­ety,” says Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I had the good for­tune of spend­ing four days in Nuevo Val­larta, Mex­ico, with over 300 amaz­ing indi­vid­u­als from 40+ coun­tries who had been named Young Global Lead­ers by the World Eco­nomic Forum. The sum­mit agenda was insight­ful and inspir­ing, con­ver­sa­tions with other par­tic­i­pants always proved to be eye-opening and stim­u­lat­ing, and the over­all atmos­phere was con­struc­tive. You can read more about some of those con­ver­sa­tions here.

What I’d like to high­light in this arti­cle is the remark­able (and optional) activ­ity that started off every day at 7 in the morn­ing. Called “Pro­tect Your Asset” Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our ongo­ing mar­ket research we’d like to ask past and cur­rent users of Helicor prod­ucts to share their expe­ri­ence with us via this 3-question anony­mous sur­vey.  Read the rest of this entry »

Build­ing Blocks for a Bet­ter Future

The best alter­na­tive for tomor­row should be bet­ter than the best alter­na­tive avail­able today. How do we get there, when “cog­ni­tion” and “brain fit­ness” remain elu­sive con­cepts in pop­u­lar cul­ture? I believe that the lack of pub­lic edu­ca­tion is the major obsta­cle that lim­its the brain fit­ness field’s poten­tial to deliver real-world ben­e­fits, since only informed demand will ensure the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of ratio­nal, struc­tured “rules of the road.” What could be done to address this and other par­tic­u­lar obsta­cles? Read the rest of this entry »

Engag­ing peo­ple where they are in the life-course

Eighty per­cent of the 38,000 adults over age 50 who were respon­ders in the 2010 AARP Mem­ber Opin­ion Sur­vey indi­cated “stay­ing men­tally sharp” was their top ranked inter­est and con­cern (Dinger, 2010). What exactly does this phrase mean? And what role can tech­nol­ogy play in “stay­ing men­tally sharp”? Intel CEO Paul Otellini has said, “You have to start by think­ing about what peo­ple want to do… and work back­ward.” Read the rest of this entry »

The ter­mi­nol­ogy “fun­da­men­tal attri­bu­tion error” describes the ten­dency to over­value personality-based expla­na­tions for observed human behav­iors, while under­valu­ing sit­u­a­tional expla­na­tions for those behav­iors.  I believe that a pri­mary rea­son behind many per­ceived and real eth­i­cal chal­lenges in the brain fit­ness field is due not so much to cer­tain stake­hold­ers’ lack of per­sonal or pro­fes­sional ethics, but derives from the flawed soci­etal con­struct that under­pins cur­rent, rel­e­vant inno­va­tions. To improve the ethics of the brain fit­ness busi­ness and its appli­ca­tion (and empower con­sumers’ informed deci­sion mak­ing), there must first be agree­ment about a mean­ing­ful, appro­pri­ate way to ana­lyze and guide inno­va­tion. This is the crux of the prob­lem. The cur­rent med­ical model is not up to the task at hand, since it is heav­ily skewed toward inva­sive drugs and devices dri­ven by disease-based mod­els, and fails to lever­age Read the rest of this entry »

Stress man­age­ment is among the pil­lars of brain health main­te­nance. High and sus­tained lev­els of stress can indeed dam­age neu­rons, espe­cially in areas of the brain respon­si­ble for learn­ing and memory.

What about the effect of stress on the devel­op­ing brains of infants and chil­dren? What are the cog­ni­tive con­se­quences? How can these be pre­vented? This inter­est­ing arti­cle reports find­ings from both ani­mal and human research answer­ing these questions:

Brain devel­op­ment goes through sen­si­tive peri­ods dur­ing which stres­sors and nur­tur­ing expe­ri­ences can have last­ing effects

Chaos in the home and incon­sis­tent par­ent­ing impairs devel­op­ment of self reg­u­la­tory behav­iors, Read the rest of this entry »