• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

blood-pressure

Towards a new brain fitness culture: The mainstreaming of mindfulness meditation

April 8, 2014 by SharpBrains

mindfulnessThe main­stream­ing of mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion (The Week):

“Sci­en­tif­ic research has shown that mind­ful­ness appears to make peo­ple both hap­pi­er and health­i­er. Reg­u­lar med­i­ta­tion can low­er a per­son­’s blood pres­sure and [Read more…] about Towards a new brain fit­ness cul­ture: The main­stream­ing of mind­ful­ness meditation

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: antidepressants, blood-pressure, Brain-Fitness, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, Cortisol, creativity, depression, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness-meditation

Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress

May 20, 2013 by Alvaro Fernandez

These days, we all live under con­sid­er­able stress — eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, job demands, fam­i­ly ten­sions, always-on tech­nol­o­gy and the 24-hour news cycle all con­tribute to cease­less wor­ry. While many have learned to sim­ply “live with it,” this ongo­ing stress can, unless prop­er­ly man­aged, have a [Read more…] about Six tips to build resilience and pre­vent brain-dam­ag­ing stress

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Peak Performance Tagged With: adrenaline, Alzheimers-disease, blood-pressure, brain, cognitive-decline, Cortisol, depression, emotional-resilience, exercise, hippocampus, humor, memory, relax, resilience, socialization, Stress

Transcript: Alvaro Fernandez on Brain Health and Non-invasive Cognitive Enhancement

November 16, 2011 by SharpBrains

Below you can find the full tran­script of our engag­ing Q&A ses­sion yes­ter­day on life­long cog­ni­tive fit­ness, “men­tal cap­i­tal­ism”, and more,  with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, mod­er­at­ed by Har­ry Moody, Direc­tor of Aca­d­e­m­ic Affairs at AARP.

[Read more…] about Tran­script: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on Brain Health and Non-inva­sive Cog­ni­tive Enhancement

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AARP, aerobic-exercise, Applied-Cognitive-Engineering, attention, biofeedback, blood-pressure, brain function improvement, brain-function, Brain-health, cogmed, cognifit, cognition, cognitive-enhancement, cognitive-fitness, cognitive-reserve, cognitive-therapy, crossword-puzzles, curiosity, Dakim, FDA, fitness, heartmath, Helicor, Houghton-Mifflin, human development, information-processing, intelligence, InterCure, Learning-Enhancement-Corporation, lumos-labs, medical profession, meditation, mental capital, mental capitalism, mental-abilities, mental-exercise, mental-fitness, NIH, nintendo, NovaVision, PBS, Posit-Science, scientific-brain-training, Scientific-Learning, self-regulation, transcript, videogames, Vivity-Labs, Wild-Divine, Working-memory

Transcript: Dr. Gary Small on Enhancing Memory and the Brain

November 1, 2011 by SharpBrains

Below you can find the full tran­script of our engag­ing Q&A ses­sion today on mem­ory, mem­ory tech­niques and brain-healthy lifestyles with Dr. Gary  Small, Direc­tor of UCLA’s Mem­ory Clin­ic and Cen­ter on Aging, and author of The Mem­ory Bible. You can learn more about his book  Here, and learn more about upcom­ing Brain Fit­ness Q&A Ses­sions Here.

Per­haps one of the best ques­tions and answers was:

2:55
Ques­tion: Gary, you’ve worked many years in this field. Let us in on the secret. What do YOU do you, per­son­al­ly, to pro­mote your own brain fitness?
2:57
Answer: I try to get at least 30 min­utes of aer­o­bic con­di­tion­ing each day; try to min­i­mize my stress by stay­ing con­nect­ed with fam­i­ly and friends; gen­er­al­ly eat a brain healthy diet (fish, fruits, veg­eta­bles), and try to bal­ance my online time with my offline time. Which reminds me, I think it is almost time for me to sign off line. [Read more…] about Tran­script: Dr. Gary Small on Enhanc­ing Mem­o­ry and the Brain

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: AARP, adhd, aerobic conditioning, Alzheimers-disease, Alzheimers-Prevention, antioxidant, best books, biofeedback, blood-pressure, Books, brain-cells, Brain-Fitness, brain-fitness-exercises, brain-fitness-games, Brain-games, brain-healthy, brain-performance, Brain-Training, CERAD, cognitive-abilities, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, Curcumin, dementia, dementia symptoms, depression, diet, DSM, exercise, fish-oil, fluid-intelligence, Gingko-Biloba, health promotion, increase attention, increase focus, Internet, lower blood pressure, medicine, mem­ory, mem­ory tech­niques, memory enhancing, memory-improvement, Memory-Training, mental aerobics, mental response, mental-stimulation, mnemonic technique, MOCA, mood, neural circuitry, neural circuits, Neurofeedback, omega-3, phosphatidylserine, placebo, protective, relaxation, stress-reduction, supplements, Working-memory

The brain virtues of physical exercise

March 10, 2008 by Dr. Adrian Preda

Dr. Adri­an Pre­da, our newest Expert Con­trib­u­tor, writes today the first in a series of thought-pro­vok­ing arti­cles,physical exercise for the brain chal­leng­ing us to think about phys­i­cal exer­cise as the best and most unap­pre­ci­at­ed form of “brain exer­cise”. A superb article.

And one thing is clear, he points out: “the brain real­ly likes it when it’s asked to be “active”. Pas­sive audi­ences, which are spoon fed infor­ma­tion, score less well when test­ed on reten­tion and under­stand­ing of the pre­sent­ed mate­r­i­al than audi­ences that were kept engaged through the process.”

So, will you write a com­ment below and con­tribute to an engag­ing con­ver­sa­tion? Thoughts? reac­tions? questions?
————————-

Don’t ignore plain old com­mon sense.

Brain Lessons Part 1

– By Adri­an Pre­da, M.D.

Let me start with a list of com­mon bias­es: expen­sive is bet­ter than cheap, free is of dubi­ous val­ue (why would then be free?), rare is like­ly to be valu­able, and while new is bet­ter than old, ancient is always best. Which explains a com­mon sce­nario that is reen­act­ed about twice a week in my office. It starts like this: a patient shows me a fan­cy look­ing bot­tle of the brain sup­ple­ment of the week: ancient roots with obscure names mixed togeth­er in anoth­er nov­el com­bi­na­tion which you can exclu­sive­ly find in that one and only store (rar­i­ty oblige!). And not to for­get: it ain’t cheap either! Of course, there it is, the per­fect the recipe for suc­cess: ancient yet new, rare and expen­sive. It got to be good! But is it, really?

[Read more…] about The brain virtues of phys­i­cal exercise

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: Adrian-Preda, Alzheimer’s-dementia, anxiety, blood-pressure, brain-awareness-week, brain-exercise, brain-illness, Brain-Lessons, brain-performance-metabolic-problems, brain-structure, brain-supplement, cognitive-decline, common-sense, depression, healthy-brain, higher-education, increase-longevity, memory-loss, Physical-Exercise, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, researcher, teacher, UC-Irvine-School-of-Medicine

Stress and Neural Wreckage: Part of the Brain Plasticity Puzzle

February 5, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Victoria Crater MarsEdi­tor’s Note: Below you have a very insight­ful arti­cle on stress by Gre­go­ry Kel­let, a researcher at UCSF. Enjoy!

———————————————-

“My brain is fried, toast, fraz­zled, burnt out. How many times have you said or heard one ver­sion or anoth­er of these state­ments. Most of us think we are being fig­u­ra­tive when we utter such phras­es, but research shows that the bio­log­i­cal con­se­quences of sus­tained high lev­els of stress may have us being more accu­rate than we would like to think.

Crash Course on Stress 

Our bod­ies are a com­plex bal­anc­ing act between sys­tems work­ing full time to keep us alive and well. This bal­anc­ing act is con­stant­ly adapt­ing to the myr­i­ad of changes occur­ring every sec­ond with­in our­selves and our envi­ron­ments. When it gets dark our pupils dilate, when we get hot we sweat, when we smell food we sali­vate, and so forth. This con­stant bal­anc­ing act main­tains a range of sta­bil­i­ty in the body via change; and is often referred to as allosta­sis. Any change which threat­ens this bal­ance can be referred to as allo­sta­t­ic load or stress.

Allo­sta­t­ic load/stress is part of being alive. For exam­ple just by get­ting up in the morn­ing, we all expe­ri­ence a very impor­tant need to increase our heart rate and blood pres­sure in order to feed our new­ly ele­vat­ed brain. Although usu­al­ly man­age­able, this is a change which the body needs to adapt to and, by our def­i­n­i­tion, a stressor.

Stress is only a prob­lem when this allo­sta­t­ic load becomes over­load. When change is exces­sive or [Read more…] about Stress and Neur­al Wreck­age: Part of the Brain Plas­tic­i­ty Puzzle

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: adrenaline, blood-pressure, brain, brain-damage, Brain-Plasticity, burnout, Cortisol, crash-course, Emotions, epinephrine, excessive-stress, heart-rate, hippocampus, memories, Neural-Wreckage, Neurogenesis, Neurons, Robert-Sapolsky, SFSU, Stress, stressor, synapses, UCSF

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 12,620 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2022 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy