brain-coaches

Top 10 Brain Training Trends — Putting our Cognitive Reserve to Work

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Yes­ter­day I had the chance to chat with Yaakov Stern, lead­ing Cog­ni­tive Reserve researcher at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, and then with a group of 25 life­long learn­ers in Ari­zona who attend­ed a brain fit­ness class (hel­lo, Robert and friends!) based on our con­sumer guide The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness. On reflec­tion, I found both con­ver­sa­tions to be very stim­u­lat­ing for the same rea­son: they were for­ward-look­ing, focused not so much on sta­tus quo but on how emerg­ing research, tech­nol­o­gy and trends may impact our soci­ety and lives in years to come. Let’s con­tin­ue the con­ver­sa­tion. Let me share the 10 main trends that we analyzed/ fore­cast­ed in our book, and then ask you, sharp read­ers, to add your own 2 cents to the dis­cus­sion. [Read more…] about Top 10 Brain Train­ing Trends — Putting our Cog­ni­tive Reserve to Work

Newsletter: Navigating Games for Health and Education

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Here you have the twice-a-month newslet­ter with our most pop­u­lar blog posts. Please brain fitness and health newsletterremem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, sim­ply by sub­mit­ting your email at the top of this page.

Quick, Are videogames good or bad?

That’s an impos­si­ble ques­tion. Good or bad for what? What  spe­cif­ic games are we talk­ing about? More impor­tant­ly, what are they sub­sti­tut­ing for, giv­en time is a lim­it­ed resource?  Con­trib­u­tor Jere­my Adam Smith, man­ag­ing direc­tor of Greater Good mag­a­zine, offers an in-depth review on the trade-offs videogames present in: Play­ing the Blame Game.

News Round-Up

Math Inno­va­tion in UK Schools: a recent (and unpub­lished) study seems to sup­port the poten­tial role for “Seri­ous Games” in edu­ca­tion. Learn­ing and Teach­ing Scot­land reports sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in pupils’ con­cen­tra­tion and behav­ior, on top of math skills, after using Nin­ten­do Brain Train­ing game.

Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia endors­es Posit Sci­ence pro­grams: this announce­ment brings to sur­face a gen­uine pub­lic health dilem­ma — do you, as an asso­ci­a­tion, pro­mote pro­grams before they have been shown to have long-term effects on Alzheimer’s pro­gres­sion and preva­lence, or do you wait until you have “per­fect” research, and then per­haps lose 10–20-30 years or use­ful con­tri­bu­tion to thousands/ mil­lions of brain’s Cog­ni­tive Reserves? In our judg­ment, it may well be worth offer­ing options today, as long as they are accom­pa­nied by inde­pen­dent mea­sure­ment of the cog­ni­tive benefits.

More Sep­tem­ber News: Sep­tem­ber has brought a wealth of addi­tion­al world­wide media cov­er­age on cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics, includ­ing the role of schools in nur­tur­ing stu­den­t’s exec­u­tive func­tions, the impor­tance of base­line neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing in sports, the need for geron­tol­ogy as a dis­ci­pline to incor­po­rate brain research, how walk­ing can enhance brain func­tion, and the val­ue of brain fit­ness pro­grams for long-term care operators.

Resources for Brain Fit­ness Navigation

Well­ness Coach­ing for Brain Health and Fit­ness: will Well­ness Coach­es expand their role and become “Brain coach­es”? We have part­nered with Sut­ter Health Part­ners, the pio­neer­ing coach­ing group of a major health sys­tem, to train their well­ness coach­es on the impli­ca­tions of emerg­ing brain research for their work: focus on the 4 pil­lars of brain health ‑bal­anced nutri­tion, phys­i­cal exer­cise, stress man­age­ment and men­tal exercise.

Eval­u­a­tion Check­list for Orga­ni­za­tions: many health­care and edu­ca­tion orga­ni­za­tions are already mak­ing pur­chase deci­sions which involve eval­u­at­ing dif­fer­ent pro­grams that make “brain train­ing” or “cog­ni­tive health” claims. Here we present our 10-Ques­tion Sharp­Brains Check­list to help orga­ni­za­tions make informed decisions.

Eval­u­a­tion Check­list for Con­sumers: if you are an indi­vid­ual inter­est­ed in pro­grams for your­self and/ or a loved one, you can use this check­list. The start­ing point is to rec­og­nize that no pro­gram is a “mag­ic pill” or “gen­er­al solu­tion”, but a tool to be used in the appro­pri­ate context.

Learn­ing to Lead, and To Think 

Round­table on Human Resources and Lead­er­ship: sev­er­al blog­gers dis­cuss lat­est news around lead­er­ship, social intel­li­gence, appli­ca­tions of brain research, and more.

Help­ing Young and Old Fish Learn How To Think: David Fos­ter Wal­lace gave a mas­ter­ful com­mence­ment speech on Life and Work to the 2005 grad­u­at­ing  class at Keny­on Col­lege.  Worth read­ing, with full attention.

Brain Teasers

Sev­en Brain teasers for Job Inter­views: A recent CNN arti­cle explains why a grow­ing num­ber of tech­nol­o­gy and con­sult­ing com­pa­nies use brain teasers and log­ic puz­zles of a type called “guessti­ma­tions” dur­ing job inter­views. What are they look­ing for? Good exec­u­tive func­tions. Here you have a few typ­i­cal questions.

Enjoy!

Brain Training Top 10 Future Trends

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In an emerg­ing, dynam­ic, high growth mar­ket, like brain train­ing, it is dif­fi­cult to make pre­cise pro­jec­tions. But, we can observe a num­ber of trends that exec­u­tives, con­sumers, pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers, and the media should watch close­ly in the com­ing years, as brain fit­ness and train­ing becomes main­stream, new tools appear, and an ecosys­tem grows around it.

1. We pre­dict an increased empha­sis on brain main­te­nance in loca­tions rang­ing from retire­ment com­mu­ni­ties to gyms. As a com­put­er-savvy baby boomer pop­u­la­tion looks for ways to stay men­tal­ly fit, brain fit­ness, or brain train­ing, is becom­ing part of their vocab­u­lary and concern.

2. Phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise will be bet­ter inte­grat­ed. Phys­i­cal exer­cise has been shown to increase the rate of neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, where­as men­tal exer­cise helps ensure the sur­vival of any new­ly cre­at­ed neu­rons. Today both activ­i­ties usu­al­ly take place in very dif­fer­ent set­tings: the for­mer, in health clubs, the lat­er, in uni­ver­si­ties. We pre­dict that the bor­ders between them will become more dif­fuse. Expect new pro­grams such as brain fit­ness pod­casts that allow us to train work­ing mem­o­ry as we jog or exer­cise bikes with built-in brain games.

3. Watch for a [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing Top 10 Future Trends