Physical-Fitness

Physical exercise doesn’t slow down dementia once it appears, study shows

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Exer­cise ‘does­n’t slow’ pro­gres­sion of demen­tia (NHS Choices):

“A tri­al in which peo­ple with demen­tia took part in a mod­er­ate­ly intense exer­cise pro­gramme for 4 months found their men­tal decline did not slow and may even have wors­ened faster than in peo­ple who did not take part in the pro­gramme [Read more…] about Phys­i­cal exer­cise doesn’t slow down demen­tia once it appears, study shows

Next: Measuring the impact of space flight on cognitive performance and brain fitness

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The flight that brings space weight­less­ness to Earth (BBC Future):

“Five, four, three, two, one…”

Not many air­craft cap­tains give their pas­sen­gers a rock­et launch-style count­down before take-off, but this is no ordi­nary plane. For starters, every­one on board, apart from the crew, is a sci­en­tist and has passed a full med­ical check – includ­ing a heart assess­ment. This is not a trip for ner­vous fliers [Read more…] about Next: Mea­sur­ing the impact of space flight on cog­ni­tive per­for­mance and brain fitness

To address the upcoming Alzheimer’s “epidemic”, let’s approach 2016 with these 4 Pillars of Alzheimer’s Prevention

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alzheimers-disease-prevention.

As you prob­a­bly know, we are in a health care cri­sis. The num­ber of peo­ple with Alzheimer’s dis­ease con­tin­ues to sky-rock­et as peo­ple age and may reach cri­sis pro­por­tions.  A nation­al goal has been set to pre­vent and cure Alzheimer’s by 2020 or no lat­er than 2025, with a lion’s share of this mon­ey going into drug research, which, while ongo­ing, has thus far has been elusive.

This focus entire­ly on drugs may be chang­ing how­ev­er, as the [Read more…] about To address the upcom­ing Alzheimer’s “epi­dem­ic”, let’s approach 2016 with these 4 Pil­lars of Alzheimer’s Prevention

Study: Aerobic exercise improves memory, brain function

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exercise and brainStudy Finds Aer­o­bic Exer­cise Improves Mem­o­ry, Brain Func­tion and Phys­i­cal Fit­ness (press release):

  • “A new study con­duct­ed by researchers at the Cen­ter for Brain­Health at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Dal­las pub­lished online in the open-access jour­nal Fron­tiers in Aging Neu­ro­science found that engag­ing in a phys­i­cal exer­cise reg­i­men helps healthy aging adults improve their mem­o­ry, brain health and phys­i­cal fit­ness. [Read more…] about Study: Aer­o­bic exer­cise improves mem­o­ry, brain function

Brain Fitness: Definition, Priorities, and Links to Neuroleadership and Human Capital

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Yes­ter­day we had a fun ses­sion on Brain Fit­ness dur­ing the Neu­rolead­er­ship Sum­mit tak­ing place now in San Fran­cis­co, explor­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to enhance per­for­mance and health of lead­ers and work­forces by deploy­ing both old tools (like breath­ing and med­i­ta­tion) and new ones (such as biofeed­back and data­base-dri­ven per­son­al­ized brain train­ing solu­tions). Here are a cou­ple of the main ideas I want­ed to introduce:

A. Let’s define Brain Fit­ness as an “inte­grat­ed approach to enhance brain func­tion­al­i­ty”, com­bin­ing as appro­pri­ate lifestyle, inva­sive and non-inva­sive options. “Brain fit­ness” is above all an out­come, a cul­ture, sim­i­lar to “phys­i­cal fit­ness” (jok­ing­ly, I also said that “brain fit­ness” is the part of “phys­i­cal fit­ness” that “phys­i­cal fit­ness” does­n’t yet know what to do with)

B. Then, the ques­tion becomes, “what are the most impor­tant brain func­tions to enhance/ develop/ main­tain?”. Here I shared the fol­low­ing results [Read more…] about Brain Fit­ness: Def­i­n­i­tion, Pri­or­i­ties, and Links to Neu­rolead­er­ship and Human Capital

Let’s Define Brain Fitness and Physical Fitness

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Bev­er­ly San­born, Vice Pres­i­dent of Pro­gram Devel­op­ment at Bel­mont Senior Liv­ing and sched­uled 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit Speak­er, could not final­ly speak at the Sum­mit (she was very well replaced by col­league Jeff DeBevec), but for­tu­nate­ly we can share her thought­ful answers to the fol­low­ing four crit­i­cal questions.

1. How would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fitness”?
Brain fit­ness and phys­i­cal fit­ness are inter­linked. Each enhances the oth­er and both are essen­tial com­po­nents of suc­cess­ful aging. As we age, the abil­i­ty to cope with inex­orable chal­lenge to social-emo­tion­al-eco­nom­ic well-being is root­ed in hav­ing a high lev­el of men­tal alert­ness and a phys­i­cal body that func­tions effi­cient­ly. But fit­ness is not just a hap­py con­se­quence of a hardy gene pool. Fit­ness for both brain and brawn requires a com­mit­ted effort, a lot of stretch and sweat, and the con­stant push to reach beyond the com­fort zone. [Read more…] about Let’s Define Brain Fit­ness and Phys­i­cal Fitness