Peak Performance
Trend: Large US employers deploy apps, AI chatbots, other digital tools to boost brain & mental health at work
Employers Are Offering a New Worker Benefit: Wellness Chatbots (The Wall Street Journal): More workers feeling anxious, stressed or blue have a new place to go for mental-health help: a digital app. Chatbots that hold therapist-like conversations and wellness apps that deliver depression and other diagnoses or identify people at risk of self-harm are snowballing across…
Read MoreTime for a universal “exercise prescription” for kids and adults to boost cognition and mental health?
Welcome to a new edition of SharpBrains e‑newsletter, featuring this time a range of brain research findings, tools and controversies plus some brain teasers to challenge your (and our) working memory. #1. Major evidence review supports an “exercise prescription” for most adults to boost mental health “Higher intensity physical activity was associated with greater improvements”…
Read MoreMajor evidence review supports an “exercise prescription” for most adults to boost mental health and well-being
When you head to your weekly yoga class or lift weights at the gym, you’re doing something good for your physical health: getting more fit today, and so protecting your body into the future. What you may not always think about, though, is that you’re also protecting yourself from anxiety and depression—about as much as…
Read MoreHarnessing mindfulness and virtual reality simulations to maximize sports performance
Athletes at the very highest level of their sport face the challenge of performing consistently under pressure amid many potential distractions, including performance anxiety, crowd behaviour, their own and others’ expectations, and the responses of their opponents. The performance of players in the 2023 Australian Open, for example, demonstrated the psychological factors needed to succeed…
Read MoreUC study finds near-transfer of cognitive training to be necessary (yet not sufficient) for far-transfer, broader benefits
Who benefits from brain training, and why? (UCI release): If you are skilled at playing puzzles on your smartphone or tablet, what does it say about how fast you learn new puzzles, or more broadly, how well can you focus in school or at work? In the language of psychologists, does “near transfer” predict “far…
Read MoreTrend: Esports teams harness cognitive tests to better match player to task and to identify training opportunities
I Took An Esports Brain Test. I’m Not Even Close to Being a Pro Gamer (CNET): NeurOlympics is a deceptively simple test. The 60-minute assessment guides people through four uncomplicated video games. One involves remembering disappearing icons. Another is an exercise in rapid reaction time. A person’s performance on the test is then run through an…
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