On physical activity, neuroplasticity, depression, screen time, neuromodulation and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time eight sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try resources plus a few fun brain teasers. #1. Study finds ulti­mate hack to pro­tect teen brains from harm­ful screen time: Exer­cise (and good role-mod­­el­ing): “Girls who spent less than an hour on screens and boys who spent less than…

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Dr. Judith Beck on the future of cognitive therapy and psychotherapy

Dr. Awais Aftab: What do you think the future of psy­chother­a­py is? What would you like it to be? Dr. Judith Beck: A num­ber of years ago, a col­league asked my dad whether he expect­ed cog­ni­tive ther­a­py to even­tu­al­ly dom­i­nate the field of psy­chother­a­py. He respond­ed, “I hope good ther­a­py even­tu­al­ly dom­i­nates the field of psychotherapy.…

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Update: Only 5% of US children ages 8–11 follow guidelines recommended for brain development

___ Dear read­er, Time for Sharp­Brains month­ly e‑newsletter, dis­cussing the lat­est inno­va­tions for brain health and men­tal health, and open­ing in this occa­sion with an impor­tant wake-up call. New research: Only 5% of US chil­dren ages 8–11 fol­low screen time, sleep and exer­cise guide­lines rec­om­mend­ed for brain devel­op­ment Neu­ro­feed­back or med­ica­tion to treat ADHD? New study reinforces…

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Time to adopt Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) as a public health intervention to ease depression?

___ As near­ly 10,000 fresh­men and trans­fers arrived on cam­pus at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les, last fall, they were invit­ed to try some­thing nev­er before offered dur­ing stu­dent ori­en­ta­tion: depres­sion screen­ing. The hope, admin­is­tra­tors explained, is that by iden­ti­fy­ing their risk for depres­sion, stu­dents can get the sup­port they need before they face…

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Growing research aims at helping cancer patients in distress access most-likely-to-help self-care options, from Mindfulness training to Web-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

___ Mind­ful­ness in can­cer treat­ment: time to stop and think (The Con­ver­sa­tion): “Breathe deeply and focus on the moment: mind­ful­ness now appears every­where as a tech­nique to improve well-being, includ­ing in health care. Mind­ful­ness train­ing is often sug­gest­ed for can­cer patients to reduce high lev­els of anx­i­ety and dis­tress asso­ci­at­ed with diag­no­sis, treat­ment and anticipation…

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Update: To improve sleep, combine general sleep hygiene with mindful and cognitive techniques

———- Had a good night’s sleep?  We hope you did, so you can ful­ly enjoy all the fas­ci­nat­ing arti­cles and brain teasers in the new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ eNewslet­ter…includ­ing excel­lent advice on how to com­bine gen­er­al sleep hygiene with mind­ful and cog­ni­tive tech­niques, and a book give­away.  Hap­py read­ing! New think­ing: For a good night’s rest,…

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