Update: The latest research and noninvasive neurotechnologies for brain health and mental fitness

Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter! 1. Food for (non­par­ti­san) Thought: Should heads of state and can­di­dates to high office pass a cognitive/ men­tal fit­ness test? 2. A school psy­chol­o­gist shares good tips to sup­port our kids and, yes, man­age our own stress. Three Ss to reduce the stress of “home­school­ing” our kids: Sim­pli­fy, Structure,…

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Kaiser Permanente offers Calm mental fitness app at no cost to millions of members

Med­i­ta­tion app Calm is now free for Kaiser Per­ma­nen­te’s mil­lions of mem­bers (CNBC): Kaiser Per­ma­nente is try­ing to give its 12.4 mil­lion mem­bers a lit­tle bit of calm. Start­ing Tues­day, the health-care provider is allow­ing patients to down­load the Calm med­i­ta­tion app for free as part of a way to help cus­tomers man­age anx­i­ety as they…

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Big Ten Conference announces “Mental Health and Wellness Cabinet” and Calm app rollout

__ Big Ten Con­fer­ence Announces Men­tal Health Ini­tia­tives (press release): “The Big Ten Con­fer­ence for­mal­ly announced today, in con­junc­tion with Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month, the for­ma­tion of the Big Ten Men­tal Health and Well­ness Cab­i­net, which includes rep­re­sen­ta­tives from all 14 Big Ten insti­tu­tions, as well as sport affil­i­ate mem­bers Johns Hop­kins (women’s and men’s…

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Meditation apps have gone mainstream in the covid-19 era

__ 1. Best med­i­ta­tion apps: prac­tice mind­ful­ness with Head­space, Calm and more (TechRadar): “The best med­i­ta­tion apps could help you to sleep bet­ter, reduce your stress lev­els and find some much-need­ed inner peace. But giv­en the sit­u­a­tion right now with Covid-19, even if med­i­ta­tion apps just give you a break from the news and a…

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Meditation app Headspace raises $93 million in equity and debt to accelerate clinical validation and geographic expansion

Head­space rais­es $93 mil­lion in equi­ty and debt as it pur­sues clin­i­cal val­i­da­tion for mind­ful­ness (TechCrunch): “Head­space, the Los Ange­les-based mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion com­pa­ny locked in a bit­ter com­pet­i­tive strug­gle with Calm for lead­er­ship in the men­tal well­ness world, has raised new cap­i­tal to try to take the pole posi­tion. The com­pa­ny has just closed…

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Will personalized meditation apps be able to replicate the experience of working with a coach?

__________ ‘Men­tal fit­ness’ start­up Ele­vate Labs launch­es a per­son­al­ized med­i­ta­tion app called Bal­ance (TechCrunch): “While investors are already writ­ing big checks for med­i­ta­tion star­tups, Ele­vate Labs founder and CEO Jesse Pickard said that none of the exist­ing med­i­ta­tion apps can replace the expe­ri­ence of work­ing with a human coach.

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