health

Without Brain Health, you do not have Health

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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 altered through­out your life? How may it change in years and decades ahead? The good news is that much of the age-relat­ed decline is like­ly avoid­able and even reversible. The fact that you bought and have read this book to the very end tells me you are moti­vat­ed to do some­thing about your brain per­for­mance. Our cog­ni­tive brain health tends to decline over time because we let it, but you can be your own brain health fit­ness coach to max­i­mize brain func­tion. Grow­ing brain research shows that a major­i­ty of indi­vid­u­als can make their brain smarter every sin­gle day. [Read more…] about With­out Brain Health, you do not have Health

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

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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 capac­i­ties … although it will be nec­es­sary to ana­lyze “the how and when” of these uses: they must be eth­i­cal­ly sound and ensure that results are ben­e­fi­cial to soci­ety.” — our very own Álvaro Fer­nán­dez, hop­ing you all agree 🙂

If you pre­fer to read the arti­cle in Span­ish: Cómo hac­er de la tec­nología un ali­a­do en el cuida­do de la salud mental

#2. On neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, young brains, and smartphones

“As with any tool, behav­ior, activ­i­ty, or tech­nol­o­gy, smart phones have the poten­tial to be either a use­ful and high­ly con­struc­tive asset or a destruc­tive and harm­ful diver­sion from life … What is the impact on brain devel­op­ment dur­ing the first 25 years of life when a sig­nif­i­cant part of each day is spent look­ing into a smart phone and the result­ing cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al experiences?”

#3. Explor­ing links between hear­ing loss, demen­tia and the ‘cog­ni­tive reserve’ — plus the role of hear­ing aids

“Cer­tain types of demen­tia, par­tic­u­lar­ly vas­cu­lar demen­tia, are caused when there is less blood flow reach­ing the brain. This can dam­age our brain cells. Recent stud­ies have also shown that the parts of our brain that process sounds (our audi­to­ry sys­tem) have many blood ves­sels and are vul­ner­a­ble to dam­age … Anoth­er area of research is look­ing at whether hear­ing loss indi­rect­ly affects demen­tia risk by mak­ing it hard­er for peo­ple to stay con­nect­ed. Social iso­la­tion is anoth­er known risk fac­tor for dementia.”

#4. Com­put­er-assist­ed cog­ni­tive behav­ior ther­a­py (CCBT) may out­per­form Treat­ment as Usu­al (TAU) in help­ing patients reduce depres­sion, improve 6‑month remis­sion rates

“The find­ings of this ran­dom­ized clin­i­cal tri­al sug­gest that CCBT with a mod­est amount of clin­i­cian sup­port has poten­tial for wider-spread imple­men­ta­tion as an effec­tive, accept­able, and effi­cient treat­ment for depres­sion in pri­ma­ry care.”

#6. Wear­able EEG mon­i­tor­ing start-up Epi­tel rais­es $12.5M to mar­ket seizure detec­tion system

“It is time that EEGs for the brain become as acces­si­ble as EKGs for the heart to patients through­out the coun­try. For too long essen­tial neu­ro­log­i­cal ser­vices have been inac­ces­si­ble to large parts of our pop­u­la­tion” — Dr. Chaud­ery, Prin­ci­pal at Genoa Ven­tures (co-lead investor)

#7. Otsu­ka and Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty start-up Jol­ly Good sign $43M deal to pro­mote Social Skills Train­ing (SST) ther­a­pies, help­ing schiz­o­phre­nia patients first

“The com­bi­na­tion of SST and a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal reg­i­men has been proven in stud­ies to reduce the recur­rence of men­tal dis­or­ders, the com­pa­nies said. Their first joint­ly devel­oped pro­gram will be direct­ed toward schiz­o­phre­nia patients, and they’re pre­dict­ing that the immer­sive nature of Jol­ly Good’s VR will make the SST ther­a­py more engag­ing and effec­tive than stan­dard methods.”

#8. Q&A with Dr. Wendy Suzu­ki on the parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem and har­ness­ing anx­i­ety for good

“Most peo­ple have all heard of the fight-or-flight system—that’s the stress sys­tem, it makes your heart rate go up and you can run away real­ly fast. Well, peo­ple don’t real­ize that through evo­lu­tion in par­al­lel with the fight-or-flight sys­tem evolved an equal and oppo­site part of our ner­vous sys­tem that’s nick­named the “rest-and-digest” part of the ner­vous sys­tem, or parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem. It’s basi­cal­ly the de-stress­ing part of our ner­vous sys­tem. That is what we need to acti­vate to bring our­selves back to equi­lib­ri­um when we’re in a stress­ful state.”

 

Final­ly, as promised, a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills–and more. Enjoy!

#9. Test your mem­o­ry and rea­son­ing skills with these proverbs

#10. Brain teas­er: Will you fin­ish your the­sis on time?

#11. Did you notice the jump? Good rea­son­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing often requires prop­er atten­tion to detail…

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and safe March,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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

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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. [Read more…] about Ten insights on human well-being and poten­tial from two giants we sad­ly lost in 2021: Mihaly Csik­szent­mi­ha­lyi and Ed Diener

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

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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 par­tic­i­pat­ed with a sta­ble income if they stopped work­ing after the offi­cial retire­ment age of 60. We found that peo­ple who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pro­gram and retired with­in one or two years expe­ri­enced a cog­ni­tive decline equiv­a­lent to a drop in gen­er­al intel­li­gence of 1.7% rel­a­tive to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. This drop is equiv­a­lent to about three IQ points and could make it hard­er for some­one to adhere to a med­ica­tion sched­ule or con­duct finan­cial plan­ning. The largest neg­a­tive effect was in what is called “delayed recall,” which mea­sures a person’s abil­i­ty to remem­ber some­thing men­tioned sev­er­al min­utes ago. Neu­ro­log­i­cal research links prob­lems in this area to an ear­ly onset of demen­tia. [Read more…] about Study in Chi­na finds that retire­ment may accel­er­ate cog­ni­tive decline, even for those with sta­ble income

Read, Play, Train: 3 Resolutions and 36 Gift Ideas for a Happier & Healthier 2021

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Dear read­er,

We’d like to share some­thing spe­cial. As we start to cel­e­brate the hol­i­days and wel­come a much need­ed new year, we asked our team and trust­ed advi­sors to com­pile a list of gift (and self-gift) ideas to help us stay sane and healthy in the months ahead, pri­or­i­tiz­ing three habits which have been shown to pro­mote brain health, resilience and pos­i­tive neuroplasticity:

Read: Here’s a selec­tion of 12 fas­ci­nat­ing books to add healthy nov­el­ty, vari­ety and chal­lenge to our read­ing lives — and there­fore to our brains and minds

Play: Here are 12 cre­ative and (most­ly) col­lab­o­ra­tive board games. A peace­ful upgrade from the clas­sic Monop­oly and Risk … we know you know what we mean 🙂

Train: A selec­tion of the equip­ment we have relied on the most to stay fit, resilient and pur­pose­ful this year

For each and every sug­ges­tion, at least one col­league has tried it and tru­ly loved it; and we have ver­i­fied they have many and very pos­i­tive reviews. We are link­ing to their respec­tive pages in Ama­zon web store so that you can com­plete your research there, read­ing the details and user reviews, and because, as an Ama­zon Asso­ciate, we earn a small fee from qual­i­fy­ing purchases.

Hap­py & Healthy Hol­i­days; Hap­py & Healthy New Year!

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

Seven evidence-based reasons to start meditating yesterday

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Yes, start­ing today is OK too.

I start­ed med­i­tat­ing soon after 9/11. I was liv­ing in Man­hat­tan, an already chaot­ic place, at an extreme­ly chaot­ic time. I real­ized I had no con­trol over my exter­nal envi­ron­ment. But the one place I did have a say over was my mind, through med­i­ta­tion. When I start­ed med­i­tat­ing, I did not real­ize it would also make me health­i­er, hap­pi­er, and more resilient.

Hav­ing wit­nessed the ben­e­fits, I devot­ed my PhD research at Stan­ford to study­ing the impact of med­i­ta­tion. I saw peo­ple from diverse back­grounds from col­lege stu­dents to com­bat vet­er­ans ben­e­fit. In the last 10 years, hun­dreds of stud­ies have been released.

Here are sev­en evi­dence-based rea­sons you might want to get on the band­wag­on as soon as you can: [Read more…] about Sev­en evi­dence-based rea­sons to start med­i­tat­ing yesterday