Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

mental-exercise

20 Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

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holdingbrain——-

June is Alzheimer’s & Brain Aware­ness Month, so let me share these 20 Must-Know Facts to Har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty & Improve Brain Health that come from the hun­dreds of sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical stud­ies we ana­lyzed  [Read more…] about 20 Must-Know Facts to Har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and Improve Brain Health

Mental rotation exercise to challenge your brain’s parietal lobe over the holidays

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Men­tal rota­tion refers to mov­ing things around in your mind. It is one of the main visu­ospa­tial skills we all have…in dif­fer­ent degrees, yes.

Here’s an exam­ple. Please pic­ture in your mind an arrow point­ing to the right. Now, turn this arrow so it points to the left. Done? You have just per­formed a men­tal rota­tion. [Read more…] about Men­tal rota­tion exer­cise to chal­lenge your brain’s pari­etal lobe over the holidays

Quick brain teasers to train your attention and working memory

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brain-teasers—

Here you have a few fun men­tal exer­cis­es to train your atten­tion and work­ing mem­o­ry (the capac­i­ty to hold mul­ti­ple pieces of infor­ma­tion in the mind, and to use them real-time). Giv­en them a try today and over the weekend…they are not as easy as they may sound!

  1. Say the days of the week back­wards, then in alpha­bet­i­cal order. If you speak anoth­er lan­guage, try doing the same in that language.
  2. Say the months of the year in alpha­bet­i­cal order. Then, for extra cog­ni­tive chal­lenge, try doing so back­wards, in reverse alpha­bet­i­cal order.
  3. Find the sum of your date of birth, mm/dd/yyyy. Want more quick brain teasers? Do the same with friends’ and rel­a­tives’ date of birth.
  4. Quick, name two objects for every let­ter in your com­plete name. Work up to five objects, try­ing to use dif­fer­ent items each time.
  5. Wher­ev­er you are, look around and with­in two min­utes, try to find 5 green things that will fit in your pock­et, and 5 red objects that are too big to fit.

[Read more…] about Quick brain teasers to train your atten­tion and work­ing memory

Update: Test your stress level with this fun brain teaser

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pressure-performance-curve-400x300—

Time for Sharp­Brains’ July 2014 e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a wealth of thought-pro­vok­ing insights, sci­ence reports…and this fun brain teas­er to deter­mine your stress lev­el.

New think­ing:

New tools:

New sci­ence:

Final­ly, you may also want to try this teas­er to test your cog­ni­tive bias­es.

Enjoy, and have a great month of August!

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

Alzheimer’s disease can be delayed through lifestyle: New, large study joins growing chorus

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Amyloid_brain–

Hard Evi­dence We Can Slow Alzheimer’s By Exer­cis­ing The Body And The Mind (Forbes):

“Alzheimer’s dis­ease is one of the most feared diag­noses among patients…once the dis­ease has been diag­nosed, there is noth­ing mod­ern med­i­cine can do to stop it.

But it can be slowed, and a new study pre­sent­ed [Read more…] about Alzheimer’s dis­ease can be delayed through lifestyle: New, large study joins grow­ing chorus

The New York Times starts to pay attention: Exercising The Mind to Treat Attention Deficits

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mind_childExer­cis­ing The Mind to Treat Atten­tion Deficits (The New York Times):

“Poor plan­ning, wan­der­ing atten­tion and trou­ble inhibit­ing impuls­es all sig­ni­fy laps­es in cog­ni­tive con­trol. Now a grow­ing stream of research sug­gests that strength­en­ing this men­tal mus­cle, usu­al­ly with exer­cis­es in [Read more…] about The New York Times starts to pay atten­tion: Exer­cis­ing The Mind to Treat Atten­tion Deficits