How ’sleeping on it’ can help the prefrontal cortex regulate emotional responses, making us feel better in the morning

Instead of lying awake wor­ry­ing, we’re often told to “sleep on it” when mak­ing deci­sions both big and small. And there’s actu­al­ly a sci­en­tif­ic basis for this advice. Sleep can influ­ence our response to emo­tion­al sit­u­a­tions, and helps us to man­age our men­tal health. To under­stand why sleep and emo­tions are so con­nect­ed, it’s important…

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Studies suggest we better train the mind as we train the body: with cross-training and in good company

______________________________________________ Dif­fer­ent med­i­ta­tion types train dis­tinct parts of your brain (New Sci­en­tist): “We are used to hear­ing that med­i­ta­tion is good for the brain, but now it seems that not just any kind of med­i­ta­tion will do. Just like phys­i­cal exer­cise, the kind of improve­ments you get depends on exact­ly how you train – and…

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Should Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (not antidepressant drugs) be the first-line treatment for depression?

— Depres­sion: A change of mind (Nature): “Cog­ni­tive ther­a­py, com­mon­ly known as cog­ni­tive behav­iour­al ther­a­py (CBT), aims to help peo­ple to iden­ti­fy and change neg­a­tive, self-destruc­­­tive thought pat­terns. And although it does not work for every­one with depres­sion, data have been accu­mu­lat­ing in its favour. “CBT is one of the clear suc­cess sto­ries in psychotherapy,”…

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Your Trading Brain: Expert or Novice

All trad­ing strate­gies and deci­sion mak­ing are brain-based synap­tic strate­gies. The human brain has an infi­nite capac­i­ty to change, orga­nize and reor­ga­nize itself, pro­gres­sion to trad­ing excel­lence is possible.

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Use It or Lose It, and Cells that Fire together Wire together

Every­one has heard of “Use It or Lose It.” Now…what is “It”? Last week I gave a talk at the Ital­ian Con­sulate in San Fran­cis­co, and one of the areas atten­dees seemed to enjoy the most was learn­ing about what our brains are and how they work, peak­ing into the “black box” of our minds. With­out understanding…

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