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Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction

On the 7 Habits of Highly Stress-Resilient Minds, cognitive screenings, anti-amyloid drugs, and more

April 27, 2023 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, this time cov­er­ing the lat­est devel­op­ments in stress research, med­i­ta­tion, vir­tu­al real­i­ty, anti-amy­loid drugs, cog­ni­tive screen­ings, and more.

#1. The 7 Habits of High­ly Stress-Resilient Minds

“Any­thing worth doing will have aspects of stress woven through: chal­lenge, dis­com­fort, risk. We can’t change that. But what we can change is our response” – Elis­sa Epel, Direc­tor of the Aging, Metab­o­lism, and Emo­tions Cen­ter at UCSF

#2. Har­ness­ing mind­ful­ness and vir­tu­al real­i­ty sim­u­la­tions to max­i­mize sports performance

Good tips and tools to “sim­u­late or repli­cate real-world per­for­mance anx­i­ety and pres­sure in a con­trolled way, allow­ing pro­gres­sive and man­aged expo­sure to stress.”

#3. 8 week Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR) course found to be as effec­tive as Lexapro (esc­i­talo­pram) to treat adults with anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, and with far few­er side effects

“When peo­ple can come into a clin­ic and be seen by a psy­chol­o­gist or psy­chi­a­trist and giv­en a full evaluation—where the [pro­fes­sion­al] can dis­cuss with the patient the option of med­ica­tion, psy­chother­a­py, or meditation—that will be a good thing” — study’s lead author, Dr. Eliz­a­beth Hoge at George­town University

#4. CMS: anti-amy­loid drug Leqem­bi (lecanemab) doesn’t meet the “rea­son­able and nec­es­sary” stan­dard required for wider Medicare coverage

Brave evi­dence-based deci­sion, fac­ing con­sid­er­able pres­sure — “impor­tant ques­tions still need to be answered to sup­port peo­ple with Medicare, care­givers, and their refer­ring and treat­ing physi­cians to make informed, appro­pri­ate deci­sions about use of any drug in this par­tic­u­lar class” … also, reg­istry-based stud­ies “may be used to assess whether out­comes seen in care­ful­ly con­trolled clin­i­cal tri­als (e.g., FDA tri­als) are repro­duced in the real-world and in a broad­er range of patients.”

#5. Pilot pro­gram by IU and Davos Alzheimer’s Col­lab­o­ra­tive to test AI-pow­ered cog­ni­tive screen­ing at scale

“…The test itself, the Linus Health Core Cog­ni­tive Eval­u­a­tion, is com­prised of a lifestyle-based ques­tion­naire and a

dig­i­tal cog­ni­tive assess­ment, which asks patients to remem­ber three unre­lat­ed words, com­plete the clock draw­ing test, and repeat the three words. The tool then uses arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) to detect sub­tle signs of cog­ni­tive impair­ment and gen­er­ates a score…“[Using that score,] they get a stop­light that’s green, yel­low, or red. And the doc­tor can take a quick look at it and decide, ‘what do I do with this?’”

#6. Pear Ther­a­peu­tics los­es 97% of its mar­ket cap­i­tal­iza­tion since 2021, explores strate­gic alternatives

Unfor­tu­nate news from a pio­neer in dig­i­tal med­i­cine, show­ing how hard it is to bring non-inva­sive inter­ven­tions to mar­ket via clin­i­cal channels.

#7. Beyond bulky VR head­sets: Voice recog­ni­tion, eye track­ing, and nat­ur­al ges­tures in the era of the meta­verse and the “Medi-verse”

“We don’t real­ly know the poten­tial of the meta­verse … includ­ing a poten­tial “Medi-verse” that focus­es on health­care deliv­ery. But … one thing that seems unlike­ly is us con­tin­u­ing to inter­act with the dig­i­tal world through desk­top com­put­ers, smart­phones, and bulky head­sets. More like­ly, we will inter­act with the dig­i­tal world through voice recog­ni­tion, eye track­ing, and nat­ur­al ges­tures like in the sce­nario above.” -- Dr. Cori Lath­an, author of Invent­ing the Future: Sto­ries from a Techno-Optimist

#8. Ten resources, brain teasers and illu­sions to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2023

We have brains; there­fore we feel, and think, and are. Some­thing we cel­e­brat­ed dur­ing Brain Aware­ness Week (March 13–19th) and can and should keep cel­e­brat­ing every day!

 

Have a great month of May

 

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Tagged With: anti-amyloid drugs, cognitive-screenings, digital medicine, lecanemab, Leqembi, Linus Health Core Cognitive Evaluation, meditation, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, Pear Therapeutics, stress research, virtual-reality

8‑week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course found to be as effective as Lexapro (escitalopram) to treat adults with anxiety disorders, and with far fewer side effects

April 19, 2023 by Greater Good Science Center

Cred­it: Brain­Post, with data from Hoge et al (2022)

Anx­i­ety is the most com­mon psy­chi­atric dis­or­der, with over 301 mil­lion ?peo­ple affect­ed around the world. Whether extreme anx­i­ety aris­es in social sit­u­a­tions, is trig­gered by a par­tic­u­lar pho­bia, or man­i­fests as a gen­er­al unease in the world, it can severe­ly affect people’s every­day func­tion­ing and lead to high lev­els of distress.

Luck­i­ly, there are good treat­ments for anx­i­ety, includ­ing Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (or CBT) and var­i­ous phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drugs. Still, CBT takes a high­ly-trained ther­a­pist to admin­is­ter and can be lengthy and expen­sive, mak­ing it inac­ces­si­ble to many peo­ple who need it. And, while drug ther­a­pies can work well and are often cov­ered by insur­ers, they may not be accept­able for peo­ple who wor­ry about the poten­tial side effects of putting a drug in their body. [Read more…] about 8‑week Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR) course found to be as effec­tive as Lexapro (esc­i­talo­pram) to treat adults with anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, and with far few­er side effects

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: anxiety, anxiety disorder, body scans, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, Lexapro, mbsr, medication, meditation, mindful breathing, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, psychiatric disorder, psychiatrist, psychologist, Psychotherapy, SSRI antidepressants, walking meditation

On Stress, Yoga Meditation, and The Evolution Revolution

August 14, 2020 by Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa @ Alzheimer's Research & Prevention Foundation

In the Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dick­ens wrote:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wis­dom, it was the age of fool­ish­ness…. It was the sea­son of light, it was the sea­son of dark­ness. It was the spring of hope, it was the win­ter of despair”

Yes, the peri­od of which Dick­ens wrote is a lot like the present day.

We are liv­ing through extra­or­di­nary times in a com­pli­cat­ed world. [Read more…] about On Stress, Yoga Med­i­ta­tion, and The Evo­lu­tion Revolution

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: anxiety, chronic-stress, cognitive, depression, immune system, insomnia, Kirtan-Kriya, lower cognitive ability, mbsr, meditation, mental health, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, Stress, telomere, Transcendental Meditation, yoga, yoga meditation

Study finds a key ingredient in mindfulness training: Acceptance (not acquiescence)

November 6, 2019 by Greater Good Science Center

Life can be stress­ful. Whether it’s the stress that comes with hav­ing too much work to do in too lit­tle time, ful­fill­ing care­giv­ing oblig­a­tions, or deal­ing with a major ill­ness or set­back, some­times it can be hard to cope.

In response to stress, many peo­ple today are turn­ing to med­i­ta­tion or mind­ful­ness apps (myself includ­ed). But not all mind­ful­ness prac­tice is equal­ly effec­tive for com­bat­ing stress [Read more…] about Study finds a key ingre­di­ent in mind­ful­ness train­ing: Accep­tance (not acquiescence)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance Tagged With: acceptance, breath, Cortisol, mbsr, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness apps, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, Mindfulness-Training, Stress, stressful

New book by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson describes four reasons why long-term meditation can lead to profound improvements in our minds, brains, and bodies

September 22, 2017 by Greater Good Science Center

Mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion is every­where these days. From the class­room to the board room, peo­ple are jump­ing on the mind­ful­ness band­wag­on, hop­ing to dis­cov­er for them­selves some of its promised ben­e­fits, like bet­ter focus, more har­mo­nious rela­tion­ships, and less stress.

I too have start­ed a mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion prac­tice and have found it to be help­ful in my every­day life. But, as a sci­ence writer, I still have to won­der: Is all of the hype around mind­ful­ness run­ning ahead of the sci­ence? What does the research real­ly say about mind­ful­ness?  [Read more…] about New book by Daniel Gole­man and Richard David­son describes four rea­sons why long-term med­i­ta­tion can lead to pro­found improve­ments in our minds, brains, and bodies

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Daniel-Goleman, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness science, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, mindfulness-meditation, Richard-Davidson

Study: Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) beat usual care for chronic back pain

April 7, 2016 by SharpBrains

behavioral healthStudy finds mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion offers relief for low-back pain (NIH release):

“Mind­ful­ness based stress reduc­tion (MBSR) and cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) may prove more effec­tive than usu­al treat­ment in alle­vi­at­ing chron­ic low-back pain, accord­ing to [Read more…] about Study: Mind­ful­ness-based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR) and Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT) beat usu­al care for chron­ic back pain

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: back pain, CBT, chronic low-back pain, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, mbsr, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, non-pharmacological

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