Brain fitness is not about crossword puzzles and blueberries

Top 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…

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The Link between Brain, Stress and Creativity

Baba Shiv: How Do You Find Break­through Ideas? (Stan­ford Busi­ness): “If the brain is expe­ri­enc­ing high­ly phys­i­o­log­i­cal­ly arous­ing emo­tions asso­ci­at­ed with stress, then our first instinct will be to stay away from excite­ment and seek com­fort instead. Stud­ies have shown that 

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Brain fitness class’ monthly Q&A: Memory, stress, emotions, and more

Reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants in the new e‑course How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach can take part in a month­ly online Q&A ses­sion to dis­cuss progress and open ques­tions with the course fac­ul­ty and with fel­low par­tic­i­pants. Below is the tran­script of the Octo­ber 30th Q&A ses­sion, light­ly edit­ed and anonymized. Course Fac­ul­ty (or F):…

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Promoting Mental Agility through Cognitive Control and Mental Representation

The words, The Agile Mind cap­tured my atten­tion imme­di­ate­ly. The title con­veyed ener­gy, inno­va­tion, change, bounc­ing on a tram­po­line in my head. I knew that inves­ti­gat­ing the book would be an adven­ture. As soon as the book The Agile Mind by Wilma Kout­staal was in my hands, I explored the 24-page index, look­ing for my favorite topic,…

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Understanding, and Nurturing, Resilience and Adaptability

Over and over again—in nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, after the SARS epi­dem­ic, fol­low­ing the loss of a child or spouse—Bonanno’s lon­gi­tu­di­nal stud­ies on loss and trau­ma revealed the exact same pat­tern at the pop­u­la­tion lev­el. No mat­ter how bad the trau­ma, rates of PTSD nev­er exceed­ed one-third, and rates of resilience were always found in at least…

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