jobs

Jobs with low physical stress and good working conditions linked to larger hippocampus and better memory

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CSU study links phys­i­cal stress on the job with brain and mem­o­ry decline in old­er age (press release):

A new study out of Col­orado State Uni­ver­si­ty has found that phys­i­cal stress in one’s job may be asso­ci­at­ed with faster brain aging and poor­er memory.

Aga Burzyn­s­ka, an assis­tant pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Human Devel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Stud­ies, and her research team con­nect­ed occu­pa­tion­al sur­vey respons­es with brain-imag­ing data from 99 cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal old­er adults, age 60 to 79. They found that those who report­ed high lev­els of phys­i­cal stress in their most recent job had small­er vol­umes in the hip­pocam­pus and per­formed poor­er on mem­o­ry tasks. The hip­pocam­pus is the part of the brain that is crit­i­cal for mem­o­ry and is affect­ed in both nor­mal aging and in dementia.

[Read more…] about Jobs with low phys­i­cal stress and good work­ing con­di­tions linked to larg­er hip­pocam­pus and bet­ter memory

Want to train your brain? Work as a physician, air traffic controller, financial analyst (or similar)

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Brain Firing NeuronsMen­tal­ly stim­u­lat­ing jobs keep your mind sharp post-retire­ment (Tech Times):

“If you want to stay sharp in your gold­en years, it’s best to get the hard yards in ear­ly — a new study has found that peo­ple with men­tal­ly demand­ing jobs fare bet­ter in the years after retirement.…Mental acu­ity and mem­o­ry reten­tion was found to be high­er in retirees who had spent their careers in men­tal­ly stim­u­lat­ing roles, such as [Read more…] about Want to train your brain? Work as a physi­cian, air traf­fic con­troller, finan­cial ana­lyst (or similar)

Update: Work as a Brain Fitness Program

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Here you have the twice-a-month newslet­ter with our most pop­u­lar blog posts. Please brainremem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, sim­ply by sub­mit­ting your email at the top of this page.

There is one type of “brain fit­ness pro­gram” which is not only free but also pays you back. You guessed it, that pro­gram is your “job”. Our occu­pa­tions can pro­vide ben­e­fi­cial men­tal exer­cise if they incor­po­rate the key ingre­di­ents of nov­el­ty, vari­ety, and chal­lenge, and are not a source of chron­ic stress.

We start today’s newslet­ter with two arti­cles relat­ed to the brain val­ue of hav­ing men­tal­ly stim­u­lat­ing jobs.

Your Brain At Work

Your Brain At Work Brochure: Aren’t “tal­ent” and “human cap­i­tal” all about brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive per­for­mance, real­ly? Indi­vid­u­als and Human Resources depart­ments can access excel­lent cog­ni­tive fit­ness tips, an action plan, and a great brochure pro­vid­ed by the Dana Alliance for Brain Ini­tia­tives and the Con­fer­ence Board for our readers.

ABC Reporter Bob Woodruf­f’s Recov­ery from Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury: For­mer US pres­i­den­tial con­tender and Sen­a­tor John Edwards recent­ly grant­ed an inter­view to reporter Bob Woodruff. The most remark­able aspect of the inter­view? Bob Woodruf­f’s spec­tac­u­lar recov­ery from the trau­mat­ic brain injury he suf­fered in Iraq 2 years ago. You can’t miss this inter­view with his wife Lee, where we dis­cuss Bob’s recov­ery process (includ­ing mak­ing a doc­u­men­tary, co-writ­ing a book and oth­er projects at ABC), the Bob Woodruff Foun­da­tion, and the over­all chal­lenge of cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion fol­low­ing trau­mat­ic brain injuries.

Research

San­ti­a­go Ramon y Cajal’s “Rec­ol­lec­tions of My Life”: Remark­able and can­did views on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, learn­ing, aging and life, straight from the auto­bi­og­ra­phy of one of the founders of mod­ern neu­ro­science, who once said “Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculp­tor of his own brain.”

Can food improve brain health?: Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon pro­vides an overview of the effects of food on the brain, build­ing on Fer­nan­do Gomez-Pinil­la’s recent study in Nature Reviews Neu­ro­science. Can­di­dates for “brainy” foods con­tain: Omega‑3 fat­ty acid, folic acid, flavonoids, anti-oxi­dant foods. Please note her warn­ing, though: most of the stud­ies show­ing pos­i­tive effects have been con­duct­ed in mice.

The biol­o­gy of aging: A month­ly vir­tu­al gath­er­ing of blog­gers to dis­cuss Biol­o­gy of Aging top­ics includ­ing research, pol­i­cy, lifestyle guid­ance, and open ques­tions. We are aware that “aging” may not be the sex­i­est  of words in our vocab­u­lary… unless you con­sid­er the most com­mon alternative.

Tech­nol­o­gy

Brain Fit­ness Cen­ters in Senior Hous­ing — A Field in the Mak­ing: The Amer­i­can Seniors Hous­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (ASHA) has released an Spe­cial Issue Brief pre­pared by Sharp­Brains to pro­vide qual­i­ty infor­ma­tion on mar­ket trends, best prac­tices by lead­ing seniors hous­ing and long-term care orga­ni­za­tions, lessons from pilot stud­ies, nav­i­ga­tion­al guid­ance, and more. If you are a pro­fes­sion­al or exec­u­tive in the sec­tor, please con­sid­er pur­chas­ing a copy.

The Future of Com­put­er-assist­ed Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py: Cog­ni­tive ther­a­py is one of the most researched types of brain train­ing, espe­cial­ly in deal­ing with depres­sion and anx­i­ety. Why don’t more peo­ple ben­e­fit today from it? The lack of a scal­able dis­tri­b­u­tion mod­el may per­haps explain that. We pre­dict that tech­nol­o­gy will help com­ple­ment the role of ther­a­pists, help­ing more peo­ple bet­ter cope with change, life, anx­i­ety, and a range of cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al chal­lenges. With­out any stig­ma. Just as nat­u­ral­ly as one trains abdom­i­nal mus­cles today.

Brain Teas­er
Games for the Brain: Quick, can you iden­ti­fy what is going on in these photographs?

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We hope you enjoyed this edi­tion. As always, you are wel­come to share these arti­cles with friends, and to give us feed­back, for extra brain workout.

Brain Health and Alzheimer’s Prevention

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We just received these two very thought-pro­vok­ing essays on Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and brain health, as part of a writ­ing work­shop, led by Susan Hill in Lake­land, Flori­da, with a group of grade 9–11 homeschoolers.

With­out fur­ther ado, here you are both Essays:

Essay A. Pre­vent­ing Alzheimer’s at Work

– By Josh H

5,000,000: that is the num­ber of peo­ple in the Unit­ed States alone who are affect­ed by Alzheimer’s dis­ease. Research has shown that those who held jobs such as san­i­ta­tion work­ers or trash col­lec­tors in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are more at risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease than peo­ple who held jobs such as doc­tors or sci­en­tists at the same age. If every­one knew this, the world would ben­e­fit, and it could impact the lives of everyone.

[Read more…] about Brain Health and Alzheimer’s Prevention

Brain Training and Brain fitness games

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Fun quick arti­cle, titled Review: Lat­est Brain-Teas­ing Video Games, on Brain Train­ing, “Nin­ten­do Brain Age”, “Big Brain Acad­e­my”, “Hot Brain”, “Brain Boost”, “Brain Genius”, “Brain Juice”, “Brain Chal­lenge”, “Mind Quiz”…

Please remem­ber to use our check­lists on How to Select the Right Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram-short check­list or the full length ver­sion-, if you are look­ing for real ben­e­fits beyond entertainment.