crossword-puzzles

To maintain lifelong mental acuity, avoid early retirement and repetitive jobs

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retirement_roadThis is your brain on retire­ment — not near­ly as sharp, stud­ies are find­ing (The Wash­ing­ton Post):

“Retir­ing at 55 and spend­ing the rest of your life relax­ing on the front porch may sound appeal­ing, but if you want your brain to keep work­ing, it’s prob­a­bly not a good idea. Mount­ing evi­dence shows that stay­ing in the work­force into old age is good not only for our bank accounts, but also for our health and men­tal acu­ity [Read more…] about To main­tain life­long men­tal acu­ity, avoid ear­ly retire­ment and repet­i­tive jobs

To delay dementia, try challenging (vs. routine) brain stimulation…up to a point

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brain__skeletonBrain games that could pay off in retire­ment (Mar­ket­Watch):

“Cog­ni­tive aging is the biggest health cri­sis in our coun­try,” said Denise C. Park…the mon­e­tary cost of demen­tia in the U.S. tops $157 bil­lion annu­al­ly, accord­ing to esti­mates by the Rand Corp.—and that num­ber could more than [Read more…] about To delay demen­tia, try chal­leng­ing (vs. rou­tine) brain stimulation…up to a point

Brain fitness is not about crossword puzzles and blueberries

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brain_centerTop 15 Insights About Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, Emo­tions and Life­long Learn­ing (The Huff­in­g­ton Post):

  • “A con­se­quence of the brain’s plas­tic­i­ty is that the brain may change with every expe­ri­ence, thought and emo­tion, from which it fol­lows that you your­self have the poten­tial pow­er to change your brain with every­thing that you do, think, and feel. So brain fit­ness and opti­miza­tion are about much more than cross­word puz­zles and blue­ber­ries; they are about cul­ti­vat­ing a new mind­set and mas­ter­ing a new toolk­it that allow us to appre­ci­ate and take full advan­tage of our brains’ incred­i­ble properties.”

Keep read­ing these  Top 15 Insights About Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, Emo­tions and Life­long Learning

Great book review by The New York Public Library

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BrainFitnessLifecycle_webWhat Does a Brain Want? Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team Put Brain Fit­ness to the Test (New York Pub­lic Library):

“Many have referred to the 21st cen­tu­ry as the cen­tu­ry of the brain. In the 20th cen­tu­ry the aver­age lifes­pan in the U.S. increased from 47 to 74, but research on the brain lagged behind. As lifes­pan increas­es this becomes more and more of a soci­etal, and per­son­al, concern…

May I rec­om­mend a book to cut through the chat­ter on the brain? The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age…I dis­cov­ered Sharp­Brains when [Read more…] about Great book review by The New York Pub­lic Library

Update: A Fresh Look at Enhancing Brain & Mental Health Across the Lifespan

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kid brainTime for Sharp­Brains’ May 2013 e‑newsletter, which fea­tures a vari­ety of arti­cles offer­ing a more opti­mistic and evi­dence-based approach to brain and men­tal health than cur­rent practices.

First of all, let us high­light that Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can just pub­lished an excel­lent review of our new book. The author sums it up by say­ing that “…I wish I had read this awe­some guide when I was much younger…I find the emerg­ing field of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty immense­ly excit­ing, and guides like this one are both hope­ful and rea­son­able.” As a read­er points out, the word “awe­some” does not appear often in sci­ence-ori­ent­ed publications…so we are espe­cial­ly proud to see the book mer­it such treatment.

New think­ing:

New sci­ence:

New tools:

That’s it for now. Have a stim­u­lat­ing June!

Train your brain with targeted videogames, not with crossword puzzles

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cognition-road-tour-combinedStudy shows men­tal agili­ty game slows cog­ni­tive decline in old­er peo­ple (Iowa Now): “Wolin­sky and col­leagues sep­a­rat­ed 681 gen­er­al­ly healthy med­ical patients in Iowa into four groups—each fur­ther sep­a­rat­ed into those 50 to 64 years of age and those over age 65. One group was giv­en com­put­er­ized cross­word puz­zles, while three oth­er groups were exposed to a video game called [Read more…] about Train your brain with tar­get­ed videogames, not with cross­word puzzles