New book encourages readers to embrace uncertainty in order to improve decision-making, mental health, and more

Life is uncer­tain. We nev­er know what will hap­pen, and many things are unknow­able. This can make us feel stressed or wor­ried, since the unknown is asso­ci­at­ed with dan­ger. But as jour­nal­ist Mag­gie Jack­son argues in her new book, Uncer­tain: The Wis­dom and Won­der of Being Unsure, there are many ben­e­fits to allow­ing our­selves to…

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Q&A with researcher Robb Rutledge on mental health, expectations, decision-making and, yes, holiday planning!

Have you ever looked for­ward to a con­cert, beach vaca­tion, or par­ty only to find your­self not enjoy­ing it as much as you thought you would? You may be suf­fer­ing from over­ly high expec­ta­tions, says psy­chol­o­gist Robb Rut­ledge of Yale Uni­ver­si­ty. Rut­ledge and his col­leagues have been using smart­­phone-based data col­lec­tion (via a free app called…

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On cognitive reframing and biases, stress, mental health tech, Aduhelm backlash, Britney Spears, and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time nine sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try devel­op­ments to help pro­mote life­long brain and men­tal health. #1. To low­er stress lev­els and improve prob­lem-solv­ing, prac­tice cog­ni­tive refram­ing instead of vent­ing “… vent­ing like­ly doesn’t soothe anger as much as aug­ment it. That’s because encour­ag­ing peo­ple to…

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Sports teams find creative ways to cross-train the brain off-field

__ HOW TO TRAIN THE BRAIN: COGNITIVE TRAINING IN LACROSSE (US Lacrosse Mag­a­zine): “Bon­nie Rosen has always been inter­est­ed in find­ing a train­ing method that extends beyond the lacrosse field. That pur­suit has tak­en her beyond the restraints of phys­i­cal train­ing in its entire­ty. The Tem­ple women’s lacrosse coach uses vir­tu­al real­i­ty technology 

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Three evidence-based ways to develop a resilient mind

___ Life throws chaos at us on a reg­u­lar basis—whether it’s our finances, our rela­tion­ships, or our health. In the work world, around 50 per­cent of peo­ple are burned out in indus­tries like health care, bank­ing, and non­prof­its, and employ­ers spend $300 bil­lion per year on work­­place-relat­ed stress. In response, we just keep on pushing…

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Therapy or antidepressants? Coming soon: Brain activity “fingerprints” to personalize depression treatments

. To Treat Depres­sion, Drugs or Ther­a­py? (The New York Times): “Until recent­ly, many experts thought that your clin­i­cian could lit­er­al­ly pick any anti­de­pres­sant or type of psy­chother­a­py at ran­dom because, with a few clin­i­cal excep­tions, there was lit­tle evi­dence to favor one treat­ment over anoth­er for a giv­en patient

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