Want to improve your Health? Start by boosting your Brain Health

Our cog­ni­tion and men­tal well­be­ing are cru­cial fac­tors for our qual­i­ty of life and put us in a good posi­tion to con­tribute to soci­ety. Ulti­mate­ly, it can be near impos­si­ble to achieve phys­i­cal goals and demand­ing life chal­lenges if our brain health is not opti­mal. Yet most of us appear to be more con­cerned with…

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Study: Moderate-to-vigorous exercise can boost memory for 24–48 hours following workout

What’s good for your heart is good for your brain. Just as phys­i­cal activ­i­ty helps keep our bod­ies fit and strong as we age, it also helps main­tain our cog­ni­tive func­tion – and is even linked with low­er demen­tia risk. Yet beyond the longer term cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, exer­cise also seems to give a…

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Pros and Cons of using four nootropics–caffeine, creatine, L‑theanine, Ashwaghanda–as cognitive enhancers

Humans have long been search­ing for a “mag­ic elixir” to make us smarter, and improve our focus and mem­o­ry. This includes tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese med­i­cine used thou­sands of years ago to improve cog­ni­tive func­tion. Now we have nootrop­ics, also known as smart drugs, brain boost­ers or cog­ni­tive enhancers. You can buy these gum­mies, chew­ing gums, pills…

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Evidence review: Physical exercise helps boost attention, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control in children and adolescents with ADHD

The impact of phys­i­cal exer­cise on ADHD has been exam­ined in a large num­ber of stud­ies. Col­lec­tive­ly, these stud­ies have exam­ined whether exer­cise reduces on core ADHD symp­toms, e.g., inat­ten­tion and hyperactivity/impulsivity, and strength­ens exec­u­tive func­tions, e.g., inhibito­ry con­trol, work­ing mem­o­ry, and men­tal health, e.g., emo­tion­al and social func­tion­ing. Over­all, results across mul­ti­ple stud­ies suggest…

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Ballroom dancing can reduce aging-related brain atrophy in the hippocampus (and, more than treadmill walking!)

Social ball­room danc­ing can improve cog­ni­tive func­tions and reduce brain atro­phy in old­er adults who are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of demen­tia. That’s the key find­ing of my team’s recent­ly pub­lished study in the Jour­nal of Aging and Phys­i­cal Activ­i­ty. In our study, we enrolled 25 adults over 65 years…

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