lifelong

New book provides practical guidance for women (and men) to rebalance our lifestyles and build Cognitive Reserve

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On one of our “walk and talks” around the lush trails of Rock Creek Park in DC sur­round­ed by bik­ers, run­ners, cars and the occa­sion­al deer, Wendy and Lisa talked about aging. Wendy’s moth­er, who had her chil­dren in her ear­ly 20s, was still join­ing the family’s gru­el­ing sum­mer hikes with her chil­dren and nine grand­chil­dren well into her 60s. Wendy mused about how much old­er she would be when their kids could have their own kids. It dawned on her that her health was not just a here and now issue, but an invest­ment in that future. We agreed to help each oth­er cul­ti­vate the habits and make time to build strength as well as reserves, both phys­i­cal and men­tal, for the long-term. Their goal: to enjoy being active in their 40s and 50s while also lay­ing the ground­work to con­tin­ue being active into their 60s, 70s, and beyond. [Read more…] about New book pro­vides prac­ti­cal guid­ance for women (and men) to rebal­ance our lifestyles and build Cog­ni­tive Reserve

What are the most promising lifestyle and tech options to harness lifelong neuroplasticity?

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What are the most promis­ing lifestyle and tech options to har­ness life­long neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, and what are key road­blocks ahead? (record­ing requires reg­is­tra­tion; view slid­edeck above or Here)

  • Dr. Álvaro Pas­cual-Leone, Direc­tor of the Beren­son-Allen Cen­ter for Non­in­va­sive Brain Stim­u­la­tion at Beth Israel Dea­coness Med­ical Center
  • Dr. David Bartrés-Faz, Prin­ci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tor of the Barcelona Brain Health Ini­tia­tive (BBHI)
  • Dr. Simone Schurle, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor for Respon­sive Bio­med­ical Sys­tems at the Swiss Fed­er­al Insti­tute of Technology
  • Chaired by: Dr. David Bach, Founder and Pres­i­dent of the Platy­pus Institute

Slid­edeck above sup­port­ed ses­sion held dur­ing the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Health & Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th).

Let’s master the digital toolkit to harness lifelong neuroplasticity

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This pre­sen­ta­tion took place at the 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 6–8th, 2016).

–> Learn more about the upcom­ing 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th, 2017).

Fact: Lifelong neuroplasticity means our 7.5 billion brains can “sculpt” themselves

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Much ongo­ing brain health and brain enhance­ment inno­va­tion is enabled by the core fact—called neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty–that the human brain con­tin­u­al­ly changes itself through expe­ri­ence. Neuroplasticity–or brain plas­tic­i­ty– refers to the brain’s abil­i­ty to rewire itself based on expe­ri­ence by gen­er­at­ing new neu­rons and by form­ing new con­nec­tions between neu­rons, among oth­er fac­tors. It was believed for a long time that, after a cer­tain age, the brain became “fixed.” Now we know that the brain nev­er stops chang­ing, and that’s why there’s so much inter­est and hope around ways to har­ness that neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty to lead bet­ter lives, to enhance our brains, to delay brain health decline.

What fol­lows from this fact is that we can strength­en spe­cif­ic cir­cuits of the brain (through edu­ca­tion, our jobs and lifestyles, and also through men­tal exer­cis­es, med­i­ta­tion and neu­rostim­u­la­tion), in order to learn faster, bet­ter and become more resilient.

–> Keep read­ing the arti­cle 5 Facts You Need To Know To Under­stand, Nav­i­gate And Enjoy The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Rev­o­lu­tion over at The Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Study debunks 4 common myths about brain training and lifelong cognitive enhancement

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If the media is your main source of infor­ma­tion about brain train­ing and cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, you will prob­a­bly believe the following:

1) All brain train­ing is the same…

2) …and it sim­ply does­n’t work.

3) Com­mer­cial brain train­ing pro­grams, espe­cial­ly, don’t work.

4) How could they work? Genet­ics is des­tiny, aging is a pre­de­ter­mined process…so by age 60 or 70 or 80, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

If you tracked and ana­lyzed the sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture around cog­ni­tive train­ing, cog­ni­tive ther­a­pies, biofeed­back, med­i­ta­tion, brain reserve and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty in gen­er­al, you’d know those 4 beliefs are wrong. They are myths that pre­vent a more nuanced con­ver­sa­tion about brain-enhanc­ing lifestyles and about the emerg­ing brain train­ing and neu­rotech­nol­o­gy toolkit.

Good news is, a just-pub­lished study should help debunk those myths–especially with regards to com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive training–and pro­vide a bet­ter [Read more…] about Study debunks 4 com­mon myths about brain train­ing and life­long cog­ni­tive enhancement

October 21st in Tokyo: Your Health in A Virtual World

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wfscTo cel­e­brate and help pre­pare for the 2020 Sum­mer Olympics in Tokyo, the Japan­ese Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion, Cul­ture, Sports, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy and the World Eco­nom­ic Forum are host­ing a World Forum on Sport and Cul­ture in Tokyo lat­er this week.

I’ve been asked to par­tic­i­pate in a fas­ci­nat­ing ses­sion on Fri­day, Octo­ber 21st, titled Your Health in a Vir­tu­al World, address­ing the ques­tion How is our soci­etal obses­sion with tech­nol­o­gy chang­ing our health and well-being? [Read more…] about Octo­ber 21st in Tokyo: Your Health in A Vir­tu­al World