Description

The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness:
How to Optimize Brain Health and Performance at Any Age

• 284 pages. Dis­cus­sion Guide (opens PDF)
• Pub­lish­er: Sharp­Brains Incor­po­rat­ed; 2 edi­tion (2013)
• For­mat: Soft­cov­er, eBook
• Buy Now
• Lan­guage: Eng­lish. Also in: Español, Japan­ese, Pol­ish, Por­tuguese.

Book Description:

Mod­ern life places extra­or­di­nary demands on our brains. Not only do we live longer than ever before, but we must con­stant­ly adapt to com­plex and rapid­ly evolv­ing per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al real­i­ties. Yet, we often ignore our most pre­cious resource to do so: our brain.

The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness cuts through the clut­ter of mis­con­cep­tions, super­fi­cial and con­flict­ing media cov­er­age, and aggres­sive mar­ket­ing claims, to help read­ers dis­cov­er what real­ly works, and what doesn’t, to improve brain health and per­for­mance at any age, to delay or pre­vent cog­ni­tive decline, and become smarter con­sumers of both media cov­er­age and sci­en­tif­ic research in the process.

With use­ful, prag­mat­ic and per­son­al­ized tips and sug­ges­tions that are easy to imple­ment, the Sharp­Brains Guide offers a ground­break­ing new approach for self-assess­ing cur­rent brain fit­ness needs and iden­ti­fy­ing the most rel­e­vant and evi­dence-based meth­ods to pre­serve and enhance brain health at work and through­out life. Whether your goal is to become more resilient, enhance mem­o­ry, ward off Alzheimer’s dis­ease, or sim­ply improve men­tal focus to per­form bet­ter at work, this how-to guide shows you exact­ly how to “use it or lose it.”

This new and much-expand­ed edi­tion of the guide AARP named a Best Book on Brain Fit­ness com­bines a user-friend­ly tuto­r­i­al on how the brain works with advice on how to choose and inte­grate lifestyle changes and research-based brain train­ing. Fea­tur­ing an inde­pen­dent analy­sis of hun­dreds of sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies pub­lished in the last 10 years, the book also includes in-depth inter­views with 20 lead­ing sci­en­tists who often chal­lenge con­ven­tion­al wis­dom and pre­vail­ing brain health think­ing and care.

A thought-pro­vok­ing, prac­ti­cal and cap­ti­vat­ing read, the Sharp­Brains Guide makes the fas­ci­nat­ing and com­plex sub­ject of brain func­tion and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty easy to digest with its com­mon sense approach. It’s time to rethink, and to tru­ly apply, “use it or lose it.”

Authors:

(co-author) Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, named a Young Glob­al Leader by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, is the CEO of Sharp­Brains, a lead­ing inde­pen­dent mar­ket research and think tank track­ing health and well-being appli­ca­tions of neu­ro­science. He has been quot­ed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, CNN, Reuters, and Asso­ci­ated Press, among oth­ers. Alvaro has pro­duced mul­ti­ple Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mits –a lead­ing con­fer­ence gath­er­ing hun­dreds of brain sci­en­tists and experts world­wide– and is a rec­og­nized speak­er on brain health and inno­va­tion. He start­ed his career at McK­in­sey & Co, and led the launch and turn-around of sev­eral edu­ca­tion-relat­ed start-ups. Alvaro has an MBA and MA in Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity, and a BA in Eco­nom­ics from Uni­ver­si­dad de Deusto.

(co-author) Elkhonon Gold­berg, Ph.D., is an author, sci­en­tist, edu­ca­tor and clin­i­cian, inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned for his clin­i­cal work, research, writ­ing and teach­ing in neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy and cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science. Dr. Gold­berg is a Clin­i­cal Pro­fes­sor, Depart­ment of Neu­rol­o­gy at New York Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, and Diplo­mate of The Amer­i­can Board of Pro­fes­sion­al Psy­chol­o­gy in Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy. A stu­dent and close asso­ciate of the great neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Alexan­der Luria, Dr. Gold­berg has con­tin­ued to advance Luria’s sci­en­tif­ic and clin­i­cal tra­di­tion, and writ­ten pop­u­lar sci­ence books such as The Exec­u­tive Brain: Frontal Lobes and The Civ­i­lized Mind and The Wis­dom Para­dox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older.

(with) Pas­cale Mich­e­lon, Ph.D. in Cog­ni­tive Psy­chol­o­gy, is a sci­en­tist, edu­ca­tor and writer. Dr. Mich­e­lon start­ed her career as a Research Sci­en­tist at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty in Saint Louis where she con­duct­ed behav­ioral and neu­roimag­ing stud­ies to bet­ter under­stand how the brain process­es and mem­o­rizes visu­al infor­ma­tion. She is now an Adjunct Fac­ul­ty at Wash­ing­ton University.

 

What people are saying:

“…the best overview I’ve seen of neu­ro­science impli­ca­tions for per­son­al devel­op­ment and pro­fes­sion­al effec­tive­ness” —Ed Batista, Lead­er­ship Coach at the Stan­ford Grad­u­ate School of Business 

“Your brain is your most pre­cious asset, and it is wise to invest in it,” the authors write. Using charts, draw­ings, and up-to-date sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies, they present the case that…the brain is high­ly dynam­ic and con­stant­ly reor­ga­niz­ing, and it can be shaped and reshaped across a person’s entire lifes­pan. The authors sug­gest myr­i­ad activ­i­ties to help the process along…(This is) A stim­u­lat­ing, chal­leng­ing resource, full of sol­id infor­ma­tion and prac­ti­cal tips for improv­ing brain health.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A much-need­ed resource to help us bet­ter under­stand our brains and minds and how to nour­ish them through life.“ —Susan E. Hoff­man, Direc­tor, Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute at UC Berkeley

“A great start for mak­ing sense new brain sci­ence and for tak­ing active steps towards smart health, at the indi­vid­ual lev­el, and Smart Health, at the soci­etal lev­el.” —Misha Pavel, PhD, Pro­gram Direc­tor for the Nation­al Sci­ence Foundation’s Smart Health and Well­be­ing Program

“One of those books you can­not ignore. Insight­ful, to the point, action­able. A book for lead­ers, inno­va­tors, thought pro­vok­ers and every­one who wants to act and live smarter and health­i­er, based on lat­est neu­ro­science.” —Dr. Tobias Kiefer, Direc­tor Glob­al Learn­ing & Devel­op­ment, Booz & Company

“This is the book you need to begin to think dif­fer­ent­ly about your brain and active­ly embrace the excit­ing and promis­ing real­i­ty that your brain’s health is the cause of the cen­tu­ry.” —San­dra Bond Chap­man, PhD, Founder and Chief Direc­tor, UT-Dal­las’ Cen­ter for BrainHealth

“An essen­tial ref­er­ence on the field of brain fit­ness, neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and cog­ni­tive health” —Wal­ter Jessen, PhD, founder and edi­tor, High­light Health

“Rec­og­nized by AARP as one of the best and most com­pre­hen­sive source of infor­ma­tion, this book man­ages to remain open mind­ed yet ade­quate­ly crit­i­cal at the same–a good mod­el for all sharp minds to fol­low and ben­e­fit from.” —Dr. Peter White­house, Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy at Case West­ern Reserve University

“Kudos for an excel­lent resource! This book is full of top notch infor­ma­tion and prac­ti­cal tips, and helps sep­a­rate hype from hope in the brain health are­na.“ —Eliz­a­beth Edger­ly, Ph.D., Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer, Alzheimer’s Association

“The Sharp­Brains Guide To Brain Fit­ness reminds of us all why books (and not just googling a top­ic) can be well worth your time and mon­ey. Two Stetho­scopes Up — check it out.” —Dr. Jan Gur­ley, Internist Physi­cian and Robert Wood John­son Fellow

“This book pro­vides a very valu­able ser­vice to a wide com­mu­ni­ty inter­est­ed in learn­ing and brain top­ics.“ —Michael Pos­ner, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oregon

“Final­ly, an insight­ful and com­plete overview of the sci­ence, prod­ucts and trends to debunk old myths and help us all main­tain our brains in top shape. A must-read“ —Glo­ria Cavanaugh, for­mer Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging

“A mas­ter­ful guide to the brain train­ing rev­o­lu­tion. Promis­es to stim­u­late a much need­ed con­ver­sa­tion that will nudge soci­ety to build a new brain fit­ness cul­ture on sol­id, research-based, foun­da­tions.“ —P. Murali Doraiswamy MD, Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try, Duke University

“This is the only book that I know of that seam­less­ly inte­grates lat­est infor­ma­tion about cog­ni­tive health across the lifes­pan. Very use­ful to any­one inter­est­ed in the brain.“—Arthur Kramer, Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­o­gy at Uni­ver­si­ty of Illinois

 

» Buy The Sharp­Brains Guide Now