mental-training

Can mental training in compassion lead to altruistic behavior and better health?

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The first time I ever tried a lov­ing-kind­ness med­i­ta­tion, I was over­come by a feel­ing of com­plete… futil­i­ty. Men­tal­ly extend­ing com­pas­sion to oth­ers and wish­ing them free from suf­fer­ing seemed nice enough, but I had a hard time believ­ing that my idle thoughts could increase kind­ness in the real world.

Turns out I was wrong. [Read more…] about Can men­tal train­ing in com­pas­sion lead to altru­is­tic behav­ior and bet­ter health?

Update: A Fresh Look at Enhancing Brain & Mental Health Across the Lifespan

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kid brainTime for Sharp­Brains’ May 2013 e‑newsletter, which fea­tures a vari­ety of arti­cles offer­ing a more opti­mistic and evi­dence-based approach to brain and men­tal health than cur­rent practices.

First of all, let us high­light that Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can just pub­lished an excel­lent review of our new book. The author sums it up by say­ing that “…I wish I had read this awe­some guide when I was much younger…I find the emerg­ing field of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty immense­ly excit­ing, and guides like this one are both hope­ful and rea­son­able.” As a read­er points out, the word “awe­some” does not appear often in sci­ence-ori­ent­ed publications…so we are espe­cial­ly proud to see the book mer­it such treatment.

New think­ing:

New sci­ence:

New tools:

That’s it for now. Have a stim­u­lat­ing June!

Update: The Future of Brain Assessments

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Here you are have the twice-a-month newslet­ter with our most pop­u­lar blog posts. Please brainremem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, sim­ply by sub­mit­ting your email at the top of this page.

News and Analysis

Com­put­er­ized Cog­ni­tive Assess­ments: oppor­tu­ni­ties and con­cerns: health com­pa­nies and the mil­i­tary are start­ing to use new tools to assess brain func­tions in con­texts that nei­ther neu­roimag­ing nor tra­di­tion­al neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing can reach. This is a crit­i­cal piece of the brain fit­ness puz­zle that is worth keep­ing track of, full of oppor­tu­ni­ties, but also pri­va­cy concerns.

Cog­ni­tive Health News Roundup: recent news cov­er­ing stud­ies on men­tal train­ing and DNA, on nutri­tion and the brain, and more. [Read more…] about Update: The Future of Brain Assessments

Cognitive Health News Roundup

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July is shap­ing up to be a fas­ci­nat­ing month, full of cog­ni­tive health research reports and appli­ca­tions. Here you have a roundup, cov­er­ing food for the brain, cog­ni­tive assess­ments, men­tal train­ing and DNA, and more.

1) Brain foods: the effects of nutri­ents on brain func­tion (Nature Neuroscience)

“Brain foods: the effects of nutri­ents on brain func­tion”, by Fer­nan­do Gmez-Pinilla.

Abstract: [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Health News Roundup

From Meditation to MBSR

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meditationVery nice Los Ange­les Times arti­cle on the grow­ing research behind, and accep­tance of, med­i­ta­tion in main­stream med­i­cine (through what is called Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion, or MBSR): Doc­tor’s orders: Cross your legs and say ‘Om’.

A few quotes:

- “It appears to work. In a new study, pub­lished in Octo­ber in the jour­nal Pain, Natalia Morone, an assis­tant pro­fes­sor of med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh, tracked the effect of mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion on chron­ic low­er back pain in adults 65 and old­er. The ran­dom­ized, con­trolled clin­i­cal tri­al found that the 37 peo­ple who par­tic­i­pat­ed in an eight-week mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion pro­gram had sig­nif­i­cant­ly greater pain accep­tance and phys­i­cal func­tion than a sim­i­lar size con­trol group. Sub­se­quent­ly, the con­trol group took the same eight-week pro­gram and had sim­i­lar results.”

- “As a med­i­ta­tor, I learned the val­ue of being present and how that allows clar­i­ty in pro­cess­ing our dai­ly lives,” Zeltzer said. “The clin­i­cal team sees chil­dren with chron­ic pain who are very dif­fi­cult to treat and have been to many oth­er spe­cial­ists and feel dis­cour­aged by the time they come to us. I felt that learn­ing to med­i­tate would help the team feel a sense of bal­ance and equa­nim­i­ty in the face of the anx­i­ety and dis­tress brought to them by these patients and their families.”

- “SCIENTISTS have stud­ied the effects of med­i­ta­tion on pain for near­ly three decades, ever since 1979, when MIT-trained micro­bi­ol­o­gist Jon Kabat-Zinn, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus and founder of the Cen­ter for Mind­ful­ness at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts Med­ical Cen­ter, used mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion in a 10-week pro­gram to teach chron­ic pain patients how to cope. Kabat-Zin­n’s 1990 best­seller, “Full Cat­a­stro­phe Liv­ing,” described the tech­nique he used — mind­ful­ness-based stress reduc­tion, or MBSR.”

Full arti­cle: Doc­tor’s orders: Cross your legs and say ‘Om’

Relat­ed posts:

- Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR) and oth­er stress man­age­ment techniques

- Mind & Life Institute

Pic: Den­nis Col­lette, via Flickr

Happier, and Positive Psychology

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LifeT­wo, the web­site focused on all aspects of midlife chal­lenges, from midlife cri­sis to midlife career change, is pre­sent­ing a “How to be Hap­py” week, based on the work of Har­vard Pro­fes­sor Dr. Tal Ben-Sha­har and his book “Hap­pi­er”. Dr. Ben-Sha­har teach­es Har­vard’s most pop­u­lar class, on Pos­i­tive Psy­chol­o­gy.

Today is their Day 1: From Hap­py to Hap­pi­er.

A num­ber of good blog­gers are col­lab­o­rat­ing: Hap­pi­ness Project, The Brazen Careerist, MenAlive, The Dat­ing God­dess, Boomer Chron­i­cles, Man-o-Pause, Aging­Back­wards. I will be hon­ored to pro­vide a guest col­umn, this Thurs­day, on how to iden­ti­fy and over­come some com­mon brain-based obsta­cles to being hap­py, and how you apply the lat­est brain sci­ence devel­op­ments in your own quest to be hap­pi­er. In the mean­while, you may enjoy the post On being pos­i­tive, and check out Day 1: From Hap­py to Hap­pi­er.

Enjoy the week!