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

By Greater Good Science Center | June 28, 2013

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.

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

By SharpBrains | May 30, 2013

Time 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…

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Update: The Future of Brain Assessments

By Alvaro Fernandez | July 16, 2008

Here you are have the twice-a-month newslet­ter with our most pop­u­lar blog posts. Please remem­ber 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…

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Cognitive Health News Roundup

By Alvaro Fernandez | July 8, 2008 |

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”,…

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From Meditation to MBSR

By Alvaro Fernandez | November 3, 2007 |

Very 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…

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Happier, and Positive Psychology

By Alvaro Fernandez | September 24, 2007

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…

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