On mental fitness beliefs, lifestyles and new tools like apps, digital therapeutics, virtual reality, “brain age gaps” and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun cou­ple of math brain teasers. #1. Study on the “ABCs of Men­tal Health” finds that sim­ply believ­ing you can improve men­tal well­be­ing helps actu­al­ly improve it Beliefs mat­ter. #2. “Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics” vs. “Men­tal health apps”: A growing…

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A few brain teasers to flex those cognitive muscles over the weekend

Look around you, wher­ev­er you are, and find three green things that may fit in your pock­ets, and three red objects that are clear­ly too big to fit. Done? OK, now you have six objects. Go ahead and say their names in alpha­bet­i­cal order.  Done? Now name them in reverse alpha­bet­i­cal order. Done? Now count the total number…

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Five quick brain teasers to flex those Attention and Working Memory mental muscles

. Look­ing for some fun cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion to kick­start the week? Below you’ll find a few brain teasers to chal­lenge your atten­tion and your work­ing mem­ory–the abil­ity to keep infor­ma­tion in your mind while manip­u­lat­ing mul­ti­ple units of infor­ma­tion at the same time. Give them a try … they are not as easy as they may sound :-)

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Trend: More healthcare and research facilities offer multipronged brain fitness programs

Can an exer­cise rou­tine real­ly help keep your men­tal “mus­cles” in good shape? (Har­vard Health Let­ter): “Fear of los­ing your mem­o­ry and think­ing skills is one of the great­est con­cerns of get­ting old­er. Maybe that’s behind the increas­ing num­ber of clin­ics offer­ing brain fit­ness pro­grams. “Brain train­ing” isn’t a typ­i­cal exer­cise pro­gram; it incor­po­rates a…

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