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Gratitude

Study: A combined teaching + app gratitude program helps adolescents address anxiety and improve mental health

October 16, 2020 by Greater Good Science Center

Stu­dents and edu­ca­tors have start­ed a new school year in the midst of a pan­dem­ic, an eco­nom­ic cri­sis, a reck­on­ing with racial injus­tice, and a divi­sive polit­i­cal cli­mate. Everyone’s men­tal health is at risk, and schools are search­ing for ways to sup­port young people’s well-being in addi­tion to their aca­d­e­m­ic learn­ing. [Read more…] about Study: A com­bined teach­ing + app grat­i­tude pro­gram helps ado­les­cents address anx­i­ety and improve men­tal health

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: academic learning, educators, GiveThx, Gratitude, gratitude program, improve mental health and wellness, mental health and wellness, pandemic, Positive-Psychology, resilience, social-emotional-learning, students, well-being

Four tips to practice good mental hygiene during the coronavirus outbreak

March 17, 2020 by Greater Good Science Center

__

Just a few days ago my son’s col­lege, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, announced it would be can­celling all in-per­son class­es and finals to help con­tain the spread of the coro­n­avirus. One con­firmed on-cam­pus case prompt­ed the university’s response.

Though the uni­ver­si­ty will incur high costs—they have to deep-clean the whole cam­pus, for example—I, for one, am tru­ly grate­ful for their swift action and putting stu­dents first. It’s one of the many ways that I feel cared for in the midst of this cri­sis, and one of many car­ing acts that I expect to see in the weeks ahead.

Why expect more coop­er­a­tion and com­pas­sion in the face of an epi­dem­ic? [Read more…] about Four tips to prac­tice good men­tal hygiene dur­ing the coro­n­avirus outbreak

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: coronavirus, coronavirus outbreak, emotional reactivity, fear, good hygiene, Gratitude, handwashing, mental hygiene, mindfulness, social hygiene, stay calm, stay focused

Four guidelines for smart use of smartphones

November 14, 2019 by Greater Good Science Center

These days, you can’t go any­where with­out hear­ing about how tech­nol­o­gy is ruin­ing every­thing, includ­ing our hap­pi­ness. There is some truth to this, but it’s not the whole story.

Tech­nol­o­gy can be bad for us—for exam­ple, when social media gives us FOMO (fear of miss­ing out) or traps us in fil­ter bub­bles that pre­vent us from see­ing mul­ti­ple points of view on impor­tant issues. As a soci­ety, we are increas­ing­ly con­cerned that tech­nolo­gies like smart­phones and social media result in more social com­par­i­son, bul­ly­ing, and loneliness—all stum­bling blocks to hap­pi­ness. Tech­nol­o­gy seems to be bad for our hap­pi­ness when it inter­feres with the men­tal, social, emo­tion­al, and behav­ioral process­es that con­tribute to well-being.

But we often fail to real­ize (and dis­cuss) the ways that tech­nol­o­gy can also sup­port hap­pi­ness and well-being—for exam­ple [Read more…] about Four guide­lines for smart use of smartphones

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: boost your health, CBT, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, depression, digital detox, emotion regulation, Facebook, Gratitude, happiness, mental health challenges, mindfulness, resilience, smartphones, social-media, technology, well-being, wellness apps

Study shows how practicing gratitude can help train your brain and improve mental health over time

July 5, 2017 by Greater Good Science Center

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With the rise of man­aged health care, which empha­sizes cost-effi­cien­cy and brevi­ty, men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als have had to con­front this burn­ing ques­tion: How can they help clients derive the great­est pos­si­ble ben­e­fit from treat­ment in the short­est amount of time? [Read more…] about Study shows how prac­tic­ing grat­i­tude can help train your brain and improve men­tal health over time

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: anxiety, college students, counseling, depression, fMRI, fMRI scanner, Gratitude, healthcare, managed health care, Mental-Health, Positive-Psychology, Psychotherapy

Top 10 Cognitive Health and Brain Fitness Books

January 2, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

Here you have The 10 Most Pop­u­lar Brain Fit­ness & Cog­ni­tive Health Books, based on book pur­chas­es by Sharp­Brains’ read­ers dur­ing 2008.

Enjoy!

Brain Rules-John Medina
1. Brain Rules: 12 Prin­ci­ples for Sur­viv­ing and Thriv­ing at Work, Home, and School (Pear Press, March 2008)
- Dr. John Med­i­na, Direc­tor of the Brain Cen­ter for Applied Learn­ing Research at Seat­tle Pacif­ic Uni­ver­si­ty, writes an engag­ing and com­pre­hen­sive intro­duc­tion to the many dai­ly impli­ca­tions of recent brain research. He wrote the arti­cle Brain Rules: sci­ence and prac­tice for Sharp­Brains readers.
2. The Beck Diet Solu­tion: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Per­son (Oxmoor House, March 2007)
- Dr. Judith Beck, Direc­tor of the Beck Insti­tute for Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py and Research, con­nects the world of research-based cog­ni­tive ther­a­py with a main­stream appli­ca­tion: main­tain­ing weight-loss. Inter­view notes here.
3. The Brain That Changes Itself: Sto­ries of Per­son­al Tri­umph from the Fron­tiers of Brain Sci­ence (Viking, March 2007)
- Dr. Nor­man Doidge, psy­chi­a­trist and author of this New York Times best­seller, brings us “a com­pelling col­lec­tion of tales about the amaz­ing abil­i­ties of the brain to rewire, read­just and relearn”. Lau­rie Bar­tels reviews the book review here.
Spark John Ratey
4. Spark: The Rev­o­lu­tion­ary New Sci­ence of Exer­cise and the Brain(Lit­tle, Brown and Com­pa­ny, Jan­u­ary 2008)
- Dr. John Ratey, an asso­ciate clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try at Har­vard Med­ical School, sum­ma­rizes the grow­ing research on the brain ben­e­fits of phys­i­cal exer­cise. Lau­rie Bar­tels puts this research in per­spec­tive here.
5. The Art of Chang­ing the Brain: Enrich­ing the Prac­tice of Teach­ing by Explor­ing the Biol­o­gy of Learn­ing (Sty­lus Pub­lish­ing, Octo­ber 2002)
- Dr. James Zull, Direc­tor Emer­i­tus of the Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­ter for Inno­va­tion in Teach­ing and Edu­ca­tion at Case West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­si­ty, writes a must-read for edu­ca­tors and life­long learn­ers. Inter­view notes here.
6. Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Sci­ence Reveals Our Extra­or­di­nary Poten­tial to Trans­form Our­selves (Bal­lan­tine Books, Jan­u­ary 2007)
- Sharon Beg­ley, Newsweek’ excel­lent sci­ence writer, pro­vides an in-depth intro­duc­tion to the research on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty based on a Mind & Life Insti­tute event.
7. Thanks: How the New Sci­ence of Grat­i­tude Can Make You Hap­pi­er (Houghton Mif­flin, August 2007)
- Prof. Robert Emmons, Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­o­gy at UC Davis and Edi­tor-In-Chief of the Jour­nal of Pos­i­tive Psy­chol­o­gy, writes a sol­id book that com­bines a research-based syn­the­sis of the top­ic as well as prac­ti­cal sug­ges­tions. Inter­view notes here.
8. The Exec­u­tive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civ­i­lized Mind (Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, Jan­u­ary 2001)
- Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­o­gy at New York Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, pro­vides a fas­ci­nat­ing per­spec­tive on the role of the frontal roles and exec­u­tive func­tions through the lifes­pan. Inter­view notes here.
Brain Trust Program 9. The Brain Trust Pro­gram: A Sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Based Three-Part Plan to Improve Mem­o­ry (Perigee Trade, Sep­tem­ber 2007)
- Dr. Lar­ry McCleary, for­mer act­ing Chief of Pedi­atric Neu­ro­surgery at Den­ver Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal, cov­ers many lifestyle rec­om­men­da­tions for brain health in this prac­ti­cal book. He wrote the arti­cle Brain Evo­lu­tion and Health for SharpBrains.
10. A User’s Guide to the Brain: Per­cep­tion, Atten­tion, and the Four The­aters of the Brain (Pan­theon, Jan­u­ary 2001)
— In this book (pre­vi­ous to Spark), Dr. John Ratey pro­vides a stim­u­lat­ing descrip­tion of how the brain works. An excel­lent Brain 101 book to any­one new to the field.

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Aerobic-exercise-brain, attention, Beck-Diet, Beck-Diet-Solution, Books, brain, brain-101, Brain-Fitness, brain-fitness-books, brain-rules, brain-science, Brain-Trust-Program, cognitive, cognitive-health, Elkhonon-Goldberg, executive-brain, exercise, frontal-lobes, Gratitude, James-Zull, John-Medina, John-Ratey, Judith-Beck, Larry-MccCleary, Learning, Norman-Doidge, perception, Positive-Psychology, Robert-Emmons, Sharon-Begley, Spark, teaching, thanks, the-executive-brain, train-your-brain, Use-It-or-Lose-It, user-guide-to-the-brain

10 Brain Fitness New Year’s Resolutions

December 31, 2007 by SharpBrains

Brain Fitness New Year's ResolutionsYou have sur­vived the 2007 shop­ping and eat­ing sea­son. Con­grat­u­la­tions! Now it’s time to shift gears and focus on 2008…whether you write down some New Year res­o­lu­tions or con­tem­plate some things that you want to let go of from last year and set inten­tions and goals for this year — as is a friend’s tra­di­tion on the win­ter solstice.

To sum­ma­rize the key find­ings of the last 20 years of neu­ro­science research on how to “exer­cise our brains”, there are three things that we can strive for: nov­el­ty, vari­ety and chal­lenge. If we do these three things, we will build new con­nec­tions in our brains, be mind­ful and pay atten­tion to our envi­ron­ment, improve cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties such as pat­tern-recog­ni­tion, and in gen­er­al con­tribute to our life­long brain health.

With these three prin­ci­ples of brain health in mind — nov­el­ty, vari­ety and chal­lenge — let me sug­gest a few poten­tial New Years res­o­lu­tions, per­haps some unex­pect­ed, that will help you make 2008 a year of Brain Fit­ness: [Read more…] about 10 Brain Fit­ness New Year’s Resolutions

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: 2008-elections, 2008-Primaries, brain, brain-blog, brain-fitness-software, cognitive-abilities, Critical-thinking, exercise-brains, fitness, fitness-New-Year-Resolutions, Gratitude, health, Learning, lifelong-brain-health, mindful, neuroscience, New-Year-Resolutions, reading, school-board, shopping, subprime-mess

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