Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

productivity

Becoming better mind-wanderers to boost problem-solving and mood

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I’m a big believ­er in day­dream­ing now and then—especially when I’m out hik­ing. There’s some­thing about being in nature that helps me let go of dai­ly cares and allows my mind to wan­der where it will, which feels great and often jump­starts my cre­ativ­i­ty as a writer and musician.

I admit, though, I’ve been trou­bled by research show­ing how mind-wan­der­ing could make me less pro­duc­tive or depressed—the last thing I need! But it turns out this gap between per­son­al expe­ri­ence and sci­ence may best be explained by how researchers have lumped togeth­er dif­fer­ent kinds of mind-wan­der­ing. Not all research has dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed between depres­sive rumi­na­tion (like replay­ing an ongo­ing dis­agree­ment with our spouse in our minds) and pleas­ant day­dream­ing (let­ting our minds wan­der freely). [Read more…] about Becom­ing bet­ter mind-wan­der­ers to boost prob­lem-solv­ing and mood

Seven evidence-based reasons to start meditating yesterday

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Yes, start­ing today is OK too.

I start­ed med­i­tat­ing soon after 9/11. I was liv­ing in Man­hat­tan, an already chaot­ic place, at an extreme­ly chaot­ic time. I real­ized I had no con­trol over my exter­nal envi­ron­ment. But the one place I did have a say over was my mind, through med­i­ta­tion. When I start­ed med­i­tat­ing, I did not real­ize it would also make me health­i­er, hap­pi­er, and more resilient.

Hav­ing wit­nessed the ben­e­fits, I devot­ed my PhD research at Stan­ford to study­ing the impact of med­i­ta­tion. I saw peo­ple from diverse back­grounds from col­lege stu­dents to com­bat vet­er­ans ben­e­fit. In the last 10 years, hun­dreds of stud­ies have been released.

Here are sev­en evi­dence-based rea­sons you might want to get on the band­wag­on as soon as you can: [Read more…] about Sev­en evi­dence-based rea­sons to start med­i­tat­ing yesterday

Three evidence-based ways to develop a resilient mind

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Life throws chaos at us on a reg­u­lar basis—whether it’s our finances, our rela­tion­ships, or our health. In the work world, around 50 per­cent of peo­ple are burned out in indus­tries like health care, bank­ing, and non­prof­its, and employ­ers spend $300 bil­lion per year on work­place-relat­ed stress.

In response, we just keep on push­ing through, sur­viv­ing on adren­a­line. We over­sched­ule our­selves; we drink anoth­er cof­fee; we respond to one more email. If we stay amped up all the time, we think, we’ll even­tu­al­ly be able to get things done.

But all that does is burn us out, drain our pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and lead to exhaustion.

There’s anoth­er way—a calmer way. Cul­ti­vat­ing a more rest­ful, relaxed state of mind doesn’t mean we’ll drown under all our respon­si­bil­i­ties. Instead, research sug­gests it will bring us greater atten­tion, ener­gy, and cre­ativ­i­ty to tack­le them. And sci­ence also points to sim­ple ways we can tap into that calm state of mind to [Read more…] about Three evi­dence-based ways to devel­op a resilient mind

Qantas monitors brainwaves of pilots and passengers to test 19.5‑hour flight from NY to Sydney

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Mon­i­tor­ing brain­waves via dreem wer­able device (Qan­tas)

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Qan­tas’ first 19.5‑hour research flight from New York to Syd­ney takes off (Nine News):

“Qan­tas CEO Alan Joyce, who today is in New York for the research flight, told Today Show via a live cross that he will be select­ing an air­craft for the mam­moth job by the year’s end, in line with a pre­vi­ous time-line.

“The flight is going to be ground-break­ing, as you said. We’ve got 19 hours — we’ve got a lot of sci­en­tists and we’re look­ing at dif­fer­ent ways of mak­ing the oper­a­tion actu­al­ly great for our pas­sen­gers,” Joyce said. [Read more…] about Qan­tas mon­i­tors brain­waves of pilots and pas­sen­gers to test 19.5‑hour flight from NY to Sydney

Mind-wandering may help enhance creativity, job performance and general well-being, studies show

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When writ­ing a song or a piece of prose, I often choose to let my mind wan­der, hop­ing the muse will strike. If it does, it not only moves my work along but feels great, too!

That’s why I was trou­bled by stud­ies that found an asso­ci­a­tion between mind-wan­der­ing and prob­lems like unhap­pi­ness and depression—and even a short­er life expectan­cy. This research sug­gests that focus­ing one’s thoughts on the present moment is linked to well-being, while spac­ing out—which I per­son­al­ly love to do—is not.

Now, new stud­ies are bring­ing nuance to this sci­ence. [Read more…] about Mind-wan­der­ing may help enhance cre­ativ­i­ty, job per­for­mance and gen­er­al well-being, stud­ies show

Beam Riders, MyCognition, The Touchpoint Solution: Top Brainnovations to boost Workplace Productivity and Resilience

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Top Brain­no­va­tion to boost Work­place Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and Resilience (record­ing requires reg­is­tra­tion; view slid­edeck Here). The three Final­ists were:

  • Beam Rid­ers – pitch by Jafar Sab­bah, Founder & CEO
  • MyCog­ni­tion – pitch by Mar­ti­na Rat­to, Cog­ni­tive Scientist
  • The Touch­point Solu­tion (WINNER) – pitch by Dr. Amy Serin, Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist & Co-Founder
  • Judged by: Ariel Garten, Founder and Chief Evan­ge­lism Offi­cer at Inter­aX­on; Char­lie Hartwell, Oper­at­ing Part­ner at Bridge Builders Col­lab­o­ra­tive; Kath­leen Herath, Asso­ciate Vice Pres­i­dent Health & Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty at Nation­wide Insur­ance; Lisa Neu­berg­er, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Strat­e­gy + Inno­va­tion at Accen­ture Cor­po­rate Citizenship

Slid­edeck sup­port­ing ses­sion held dur­ing the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Health & Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th). All ses­sion record­ings avail­able for pur­chase (50+ Speak­ers, 15+ Hours, $150).