The Mindful Body argues against mindlessly accepting age-related decline in cognition and health as inevitable

In 1979, Har­vard researcher Ellen Langer invit­ed elder­ly men to spend a week at a retreat designed to remind them of their younger days, sur­round­ed by the art, music, food, games, décor, and more from the late 1950s. After­ward, the men were test­ed and found to have made sig­nif­i­cant gains in hear­ing, mem­o­ry, dex­ter­i­ty, posture,…

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Without Brain Health, you do not have Health

As you go through life, your brain under­goes extra­or­di­nary devel­op­ment. Your brain is the most adapt­able, mod­i­fi­able organ in your body, and it can change both pos­i­tive­ly and neg­a­tive­ly by how you use it each day. Just by read­ing a book such as this one, your brain has been changed. How has your brain been…

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The Do’s and Don’ts of Harnessing Technology (and Anxiety) for Good

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing impor­tant brain & men­tal health news plus a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills and more… #1. Chal­lenge ahead: Har­ness­ing tech­nol­o­gy for good men­tal health “Tech­nol­o­gy can not only help us grow out of unhealthy habits, it is also pos­si­ble to expand human mental…

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Ten insights on human well-being and potential from two giants we sadly lost in 2021: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Ed Diener

Many of us suf­fered ter­ri­ble loss­es in 2021. In the field of pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy, we lost two of our most influ­en­tial schol­ars: Mihaly Csik­szent­mi­ha­lyi and Ed Diener. In their hon­or, I’d like to remem­ber and appre­ci­ate the con­tri­bu­tions they made to the under­stand­ing of human flourishing.

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Study in China finds that retirement may accelerate cognitive decline, even for those with stable income

Peo­ple who retire ear­ly suf­fer from accel­er­at­ed cog­ni­tive decline and may even encounter ear­ly onset of demen­tia, accord­ing to a new eco­nom­ic study (Note: opens PDF) I con­duct­ed with my doc­tor­al stu­dent Alan Adel­man. To estab­lish that find­ing, we exam­ined the effects of a rur­al pen­sion pro­gram Chi­na intro­duced in 2009 that pro­vid­ed peo­ple who…

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