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mental-activity

To boost attention and other cognitive skills, learn AND continually practice a second language

April 28, 2016 by SharpBrains

language learningStudy: Short-term lan­guage learn­ing boosts cog­ni­tive agili­ty (UPI):

“Stud­ies have shown learn­ing a sec­ond lan­guage can improve a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive functions…Scottish researchers found that stu­dents demon­strat­ed improved atten­tion abil­i­ties after just a week of lan­guage learn­ing [Read more…] about To boost atten­tion and oth­er cog­ni­tive skills, learn AND con­tin­u­al­ly prac­tice a sec­ond language

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: attentional inhibition, cognitive, cognitive-abilities, Cognitive-functions, language, language learning, Learning, mental-activity

Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions

May 22, 2013 by SharpBrains

brain exerciseIn a mod­ern soci­ety we are con­front­ed with a wide range of increas­ing­ly abstract and inter­con­nect­ed prob­lems. Suc­cess­ful­ly deal­ing with such an envi­ron­ment requires a high­ly fit brain, capa­ble of adapt­ing to new sit­u­a­tions and chal­lenges through­out life. Con­se­quent­ly, we expect cross-train­ing the brain to soon become as main­stream as cross-train­ing the body is today, going beyond unstruc­tured men­tal activ­i­ty and [Read more…] about Can brain train­ing work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Peak Performance Tagged With: BBC brain training, brain, Brain-Fitness, brain-functions, brain-reserve, Brain-Training, brain-training-games, cognitive-reserve, emotional-regulation, executive-attention, mental-activity, speed-of-processing, Working-memory

Why Scientific Literacy and Learning Enhance Brain Function and Neural Health

January 29, 2013 by Hemal Pathak, PhD

Often in dis­cussing health relat­ed find­ings with non-sci­en­tists, I’ve found that sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­cy in the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion tends to be inad­e­quate for eval­u­at­ing sci­en­tif­ic claims. A sur­pris­ing num­ber of peo­ple are reluc­tant to study sci­ence despite the poten­tial to ben­e­fit from the vast amount of use­ful knowl­edge being accu­mu­lat­ed by sci­en­tists. Neil DeGrasse Tyson dis­cussed a sim­i­lar issue with the New York Dai­ly News sev­er­al years ago (A Cry to Pass the Sci­ence Test, 2006). In a time when sci­en­tif­ic infor­ma­tion is con­stant­ly reshap­ing our under­stand­ing [Read more…] about Why Sci­en­tif­ic Lit­er­a­cy and Learn­ing Enhance Brain Func­tion and Neur­al Health

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: BDNF, health-literacy, Learning, memory, mental ability, mental-activity, neural-health, neurotrophic, scientific literacy

To Harness Neuroplasticity, Start with Enthusiasm

January 31, 2012 by Dr. Helena Popovic

We are the archi­tects and builders of our own brains.

For mil­len­nia, how­ev­er, we were obliv­i­ous to our enor­mous cre­ative capa­bil­i­ties. We had no idea that our brains were chang­ing in response to our actions and atti­tudes, every day of our lives. So we uncon­scious­ly and ran­dom­ly shaped our brains and our lat­ter years because we believed we had an immutable brain that was at the mer­cy of our genes.

Noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. [Read more…] about To Har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, Start with Enthusiasm

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Pages: Page 1 Page 2 Page 3

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance Tagged With: Alzheimer, Brain-Fitness, brain-rules, dementia, Learning, Mental practice, mental-activity, meta-analysis, neurology, Neurons, neuroplasticity, neurotransmitters, Physical-Exercise, synapses

Brain Fitness Book: talks, interviews, reviews

October 30, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

Next Tues­day, Novem­ber 3rd: I’ll be pre­sent­ing the Sharp­Brains Guide to a business/ entre­pre­neur­ial audi­ence at the San Fran­cis­co Chap­ter of the Asso­ci­a­tion for Cor­po­rate Growth (you can reg­is­ter online).

Descrip­tion: While most of us have heard the phrase “use it or lose it,” very few under­stand what “it” means, or how to prop­er­ly “use it” in order to improve brain func­tion and fit­ness. This talk will pro­vide an overview of the most recent research, guide­lines and resources to “Use It and Improve It”, sum­ma­riz­ing the main find­ings and top­ics from the new book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness. We will debunk 10 com­mon brain fit­ness myths; dis­cuss how the brain works and the 4 pil­lars of brain main­te­nance; explain the dif­fer­ence between men­tal exer­cise and men­tal activ­i­ty and iden­ti­fy prac­ti­cal ways to inte­grate this research into our work and lives for max­i­mum brain health and performance.

To order book: Here. (has been among Amazon.com’s Top 10 Pre­ven­tive Med­i­cine books basi­cal­ly since publication!)

Over the last few weeks I have giv­en a cou­ple of Alvaro presenting 2AARP-spon­sored talks, both in Eng­lish and in Span­ish (this was my first Span­ish pre­sen­ta­tion on a top­ic I most­ly dis­cuss in Eng­lish, so I did get some extra brain points by try­ing to trans­late “neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty” and “hip­pocam­pus” on the fly), and had a great cou­ple of meet­ings with AARP staff to explore col­lab­o­ra­tions. AARP can obvi­ous­ly play a major role in how ratio­nal­ly this whole cat­e­go­ry of “brain fit­ness” evolves.

Here you have a cou­ple of my favorite recent media interviews:

4‑minute Video inter­view on the Gilbert Guide:
Book Reveals Secrets Once Only Known to Scientists

30-minute radio inter­view on WMBR (MIT cam­pus radio station):
Par­a­digm Shifts: Brain Fit­ness (mine is the sec­ond inter­view, starts around the middle)

Final­ly, a grow­ing num­ber of blog­gers are review­ing the book. This is what they say:

  • Brain Fit­ness for Coach­ing and Lead­er­ship (Ed Batista at Stan­ford Busi­ness School)
  • Is Your Brain a Couch Pota­to (Doc Gur­ley at SF Gate)
  • Essen­tial ref­er­ence for brain fit­ness, cog­ni­tive health, neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty (High­light Health)
  • Fit­brains learn how to learn (Dr. Lar­ry McCleary)
  • Learn about cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing (Teen Health 411)
  • A great ded­i­ca­tion: to your Unique Brain, and Unique Mind (Play with your mind)
  • Very valu­able inter­views (Nucle­us Learning)
  • Author­i­ta­tive research and per­spec­tive (Green­stein Institute)

You can order The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness here.

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: AARP, acg, book, brain, brain fitness reviews, brain-book, brain-fitness-book, Brain-health, brain-performance, cognitive-fitness, cognitive-functioning, cognitive-health, Learning, mental-activity, mental-exercise, neuroplasticity

Brain Fitness at New York Public Library, next week

September 17, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

Title: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness — Prac­ti­cal Advice to Keep Your Brain Sharp NYPL

- Two com­mu­ni­ty-based book talks host­ed by New York Pub­lic Library and sup­port­ed by the Ein­stein Aging Study at Albert Ein­stein Col­lege of Medicine.

Descrip­tion: A fit brain? Can you exer­cise your brain and become men­tal­ly fit? Einstein Aging StudyCan you con­tin­ue to learn and increase your brain’s capac­i­ty at any age? Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO and Co-Founder of Sharp­Brains, says Yes!, and in this pro­gram he will show you how. Based on research com­piled from lead­ing sci­en­tists in fields of Neu­ro­science, Geron­tol­ogy, and Cog­ni­tive Sci­ence, and pre­sent­ed in his book “The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness”, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez will pro­vide ways to main­tain and improve your cog­ni­tive health.

He will:
— Debunk 10 Myths of Brain Fitness
— Exam­ine the 4 Pil­lars of Brain Maintenance
— Dis­cuss the dif­fer­ence between Men­tal Exer­cise and Men­tal Activity
— Eval­u­ate Brain Train­ing Software
— Explore emerg­ing trends

Book and Bio: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO and Co-Founder of Sharp­Brains, teach­es “Sci­ence of Brain Health and Brain Fit­ness” at UC-Berke­ley and San Fran­cis­co State Uni­ver­si­ty. He is the co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness.

When and where: 
> Sep­tem­ber 23rd, 10am, New York Pub­lic Library, Bronx Library Cen­ter. 310 East Kings­bridge Road. (718) 579‑4244. More infor­ma­tion here.

> Sep­tem­ber 25rd, 1pm, New York Pub­lic Library, Stephen Schwarz­man Build­ing Audi­to­ri­um. Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. 917-ASK-NYPL (917–275-6975). More infor­ma­tion here.

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Albert-Einstein-College-of-Medicine, brain-training-software, cognitive-health, cognitive-science, Einstein-Aging-Study, Exercise-your-brain, fit-brain, gerontology, mental-activity, mental-exercise, mentally-fit, neuroscience, new-york-public-library, NYPL

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