Nutrition

It’s World Mental Health Day today: Let’s review how a healthy diet can promote mental well-being

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Should you eat an apple—or a bag of Ore­os? Go to McDonald’s—or the veg­e­tar­i­an restau­rant on the corner?

When we make these every­day food choic­es, many of us think first of our phys­i­cal health and appear­ance. But there’s anoth­er fac­tor we may want to con­sid­er in pick­ing foods: their impact on our men­tal health. [Read more…] about It’s World Men­tal Health Day today: Let’s review how a healthy diet can pro­mote men­tal well-being

New and great book by Steven Pinker reminds us that Technology is not destroying our Minds (but there’s always more Enlightened ways to harness it)

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5 signs the world’s improv­ing, accord­ing to Bill Gates’s new favorite book ever (Mar­ket Watch):

“Bill Gates has long been a huge fan of Har­vard psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor Steven Pinker and his book, “The Bet­ter Angels of Our Nature: Why Vio­lence Has Declined.” In fact, last year the Microsoft founder hailed it as the most inspir­ing book he has ever read, and he urged col­lege grads to read it.

Well, Pinker appar­ent­ly has man­aged to top him­self with his new book, “Enlight­en­ment Now,” which is “like ‘Bet­ter Angels’ on steroids,” accord­ing to Gates … As a taster of what to expect, here are five facts that Gates list­ed as his favorite from the book [Read more…] about New and great book by Steven Pinker reminds us that Tech­nol­o­gy is not destroy­ing our Minds (but there’s always more Enlight­ened ways to har­ness it)

Top Resources for Educators on Learning and the Brain

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In my pre­vi­ous post 10 Brain Train­ing Tips To Teach and Learn I promised to share some of the resources–books, con­fer­ences, and web­sites– that inform my under­stand­ing of teach­ing, learn­ing and the brain. Here’s an updat­ed list: [Read more…] about Top Resources for Edu­ca­tors on Learn­ing and the Brain

The Mediterranean Diet seen to substantially reduce brain shrinkage among older adults

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Less shrink­age: This is your aging brain on the Mediter­ranean diet (Los Ange­les Times):

“The aging brain is a shrink­ing brain, and a shrink­ing brain is, gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, a brain whose per­for­mance and reac­tion time are declin­ing: That is a harsh real­i­ty of grow­ing older.

But new research shows that brain shrink­age is less pro­nounced in old­er folks whose diets [Read more…] about The Mediter­ranean Diet seen to sub­stan­tial­ly reduce brain shrink­age among old­er adults

April 21st virtual lecture to discuss 25 Must-Know Facts about Brain Health, Neuroplasticity and Technology

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BrainFitnessJigsaw_webDear Sharp­Brains friend,

As Dr. Robert Bilder, Tan Le and myself final­ize the cur­ricu­lum for the upcom­ing vir­tu­al lec­ture on April 21st, we are work­ing hard to select the key brain-relat­ed facts that every­one should tru­ly under­stand in order to nav­i­gate the grow­ing stream of news arti­cles, research reports and mar­ket­ing claims. Focus­ing on 25 fun­da­men­tal facts (instead of the 50 ini­tial­ly envi­sioned) will enable us to dis­cuss each in more depth, empow­er­ing par­tic­i­pants with more clear and sol­id take-aways.

With those 25 Must-Know Facts we will zoom into the most sig­nif­i­cant (and often over­looked) areas in the brain fit­ness jig­saw puz­zle you can see above. We won’t dis­cuss gen­er­al­i­ties, we will dis­cuss specifics about:Online_Class-banner_25-facts

  • How the brain works, and what neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty is
  • What new sci­en­tif­ic find­ings mean (and what they don’t mean)
  • Key guide­lines for aer­o­bic exer­cise, nutri­tion, men­tal stim­u­la­tion, stress man­age­ment, socialization
  • The do’s and don’ts in lever­ag­ing tech­nol­o­gy for med­i­ta­tion, refram­ing, bio/ neu­ro­feed­back, cog­ni­tive training
  • How to self-mon­i­tor, find indi­vid­ual pri­or­i­ties, pri­or­i­tize options

We hope you will be able to reg­is­ter and join us! (use this 20%-off dis­count when you reg­is­ter: SB20)

Final­ly, let me answer a few ques­tions we have received from many inter­est­ed participants:

  1. Will I be able to ask ques­tions? Yes, of course. We want this to be a very inter­ac­tive ses­sion, and to respond to your spe­cif­ic ques­tions. We will reserve at least 30 min­utes for Q&A.
  2. What if I can’t attend the lec­ture live? Every­thing will be record­ed (both the lec­ture and the Q&A) so reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants will be able to access it lat­er, start­ing the day after the webinar.
  3. If I reg­is­ter, when do I gain access to all those record­ings from the 2015 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit that you are offer­ing on a com­pli­men­ta­ry basis? Once you reg­is­ter to the April 21st vir­tu­al lec­ture, you will receive an email with­in 24 hours with instruc­tions to access all online record­ings (15+ hours; 30+ amaz­ing speakers…the reg­u­lar price of these record­ings is $125, so we hope as many of you as pos­si­ble can ben­e­fit from this one-time opportunity).

Cheers, and hope to “see you” soon!

Trend: Nestle launches Wellness Club in Japan integrating Nutritionists and Brain Trainers

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wellness-club-japanMatch made in nutri­tion­al heav­en: Nestlé launch­es Well­ness Club (press release):

‘Nestlé Japan has launched the company’s first per­son­alised health sup­port ser­vice. Nestlé Well­ness Club pro­vides sub­scribers with nutri­tion­al sup­port based on data about their phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, dietary infor­ma­tion and brain train­ing scores, [Read more…] about Trend: Nes­tle launch­es Well­ness Club in Japan inte­grat­ing Nutri­tion­ists and Brain Trainers