Does music facilitate or impair cognitive task performance? It depends…

__ Does Music Boost Your Cog­ni­tive Per­for­mance? (Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can): “Music makes life bet­ter in so many ways. It ele­vates mood, reduces stress and eas­es pain. Music is heart-healthy, because it can low­er blood pres­sure, reduce heart rate and decrease stress hor­mones in the blood. It also con­nects us with oth­ers and enhances social bonds. Music…

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Study shows how online mindfulness interventions can reduce work-related rumination and fatigue, and improve sleep quality

__________ Work these days often comes with long hours, emo­tion­al­ly drain­ing col­leagues, and com­plex prob­lems that require an enor­mous amount of men­tal ener­gy. So it’s no sur­prise that many of us have a hard time leav­ing work-relat­ed thoughts at the office. “Sur­veys have shown that between 16 and 25 per­cent of the work­force have regular…

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Large study highlights the cognitive enhancement value of both higher education and lifelong learning

  _______ UC Berke­ley study links cog­ni­tive longevi­ty to high­er edu­ca­tion (The Dai­ly Cal­i­forn­ian): “A study led by cam­pus researchers found that high­er lev­els of edu­ca­tion are linked to lat­er ages of peak cog­ni­tive performance…The team was able to use anony­mous data gath­ered from almost 200,000 sub­scribers to Lumos­i­ty, an online cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­gram, whose…

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Dance training: The ultimate way to delay brain decline by combining physical, cognitive, and social engagement

Study: Danc­ing may off­set some effects of aging in the brain (CSU release): “A new study led by a Col­orado State Uni­ver­si­ty researcher shows that kick­ing up your heels can actu­al­ly be good for your nog­gin. The research team demon­strat­ed for the first time that decline in the brain’s “white mat­ter” can be detect­ed over…

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Study: Wisdom requires both higher heart rate variability and adopting a third-person perspective

——- Many cul­tures con­sid­er the human heart to be the seat of wis­dom. Now sci­en­tists are find­ing some evi­dence for this, though the real­i­ty may be more com­pli­cat­ed than it seems. Pre­vi­ous research has sug­gest­ed that high­er heart rate vari­abil­i­ty (HRV)—the vari­abil­i­ty in the time between our heartbeats

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