Syllabus for online course How to Be Your Own Brain Fitness Coach (starts March 7th)

Here you have the syl­labus for upcom­ing online course How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach. There are still some seats avail­able, so please take a look and reg­is­ter if interested.

Ses­sion I. Debunk­ing Brain and Brain Fit­ness Myths: We will first debunk pop­u­lar mis­con­cep­tions that stand in the way of mak­ing informed deci­sions to spend our time and mon­ey wise­ly. We will explore hot top­ics such as genet­ics vs. envi­ron­ment vs. lifestyle, intel­li­gence, left/ right brain hemi­spheres, “brain age”, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, sup­ple­ments, learn­ing styles, brain train­ing, neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, cog­ni­tive reserve, and Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. Addi­tion­ally we’ll con­trast the find­ings from a major recent sci­en­tific study with their media cov­er­age, equip­ping par­tic­i­pants to become bet­ter informed read­ers of news and sci­en­tific findings.

When: Wednes­day, March 7th, 11am-1pm US Pacif­ic Time (live ses­sion will be record­ed for lat­er viewing).

Read­ing:

• Intro­duc­tion and Chap­ter 1 of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness
• Agency for Health­care Research and Qual­ity (AHRQ). 2010. Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and Cog­ni­tive Decline, Struc­tured Abstract and Evi­dence Report. April 2010. www.ahrq.gov/clinic/tp/alzcogtp.htm

Activ­ity: five-fin­ger meditation.

Ses­sion II. How to Address the Basics: In this ses­sion we will dis­cuss the com­ple­men­tary roles and mech­a­nisms under­pin­ning the major lifestyle pil­lars for brain fit­ness: healthy nutri­tion, aer­o­bic exer­cise, stress man­age­ment and men­tal stim­u­la­tion that incor­po­rates nov­elty, vari­ety and chal­lenge. We’ll explore how the human brain is a dynam­ic sys­tem to opti­mize and enhance, and how each of the major lifestyle pil­lars plays a fun­da­men­tal role in devel­op­ing, enhanc­ing, and main­tain­ing key cog­ni­tive, exec­u­tive and emo­tional self-reg­u­la­tion func­tions require to thrive at every stage of life (“brain fitness”).

When: Wednes­day, March 14th, 11am-1pm US Pacif­ic Time (live ses­sion will be record­ed for lat­er viewing).

Read­ing:

• Chap­ter 2 of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

Activ­ity: cog­ni­tive reappraisal.

Ses­sion III. How to Build Brain-Based Capac­i­ties: What are some of the most promis­ing research-based “brain train­ing” meth­ods (hint: med­i­ta­tion, cog­ni­tive train­ing, biofeed­back, cog­ni­tive ther­apy) and what are emerg­ing best prac­tices and guide­lines on how and when to use each of them to build core capac­i­ties such as atten­tion, work­ing mem­ory, emo­tional self-reg­u­la­tion, infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing, cog­ni­tive mon­i­tor­ing and reap­praisal? This ses­sion will sur­vey the val­ue and lim­i­ta­tions of avail­able tools and sug­gest appro­pri­ate sce­nar­ios of use.

When: Wednes­day, March 21st, 11am-1pm US Pacif­ic Time (live ses­sion will be record­ed for lat­er viewing).

Read­ing:

• Chap­ters 3 and 4 of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

Activ­ity: par­tic­i­pants choose biofeed­back-based exer­cise or cog­ni­tive training.

Ses­sion IV. How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach: This ses­sion will equip you with the frame­works and check­lists required to inte­grate the knowl­edge and tools intro­duced dur­ing the whole course to meet your spe­cific per­sonal and pro­fes­sional pri­or­i­ties. “No one size fits all” applies to brain fit­ness, and this course is designed to help you build your own per­sonal “brain fit­ness toolk­it” to meet the pri­or­i­ties you are fac­ing today and will face tomorrow.

When: Wednes­day, March 28th, 11am-1pm US Pacif­ic Time (live ses­sion will be record­ed for lat­er viewing).

Read­ing:

• Chap­ters 6 and 7 of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

Activ­ity: devel­op your own “brain fit­ness plan” for 2012.

—> To Learn More about the Course Fac­ul­ty, Mechan­ics, Com­mon Q&A, and more, click on Online Course: How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach.