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reading

On cutting “empty brain calories” by reading a book instead of social media

October 26, 2020 by SharpBrains

Stop doom­scrolling on social media and read a book (For­tune):

2020 is the year I decid­ed to cut back on emp­ty brain calo­ries. That’s right, I swore off the mind­less junk from social media. Because we are all like­ly to con­duct more and more doom­scrolling as the elec­tion nears and 2020 con­tin­ues its infamy, I urge you to stop ingest­ing dig­i­tal junk, and start read­ing a book. [Read more…] about On cut­ting “emp­ty brain calo­ries” by read­ing a book instead of social media

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Books, default network, fiction, functional MRI, reading, simulation, social-media, theory-of-mind

Update: Repetitive negative thinking may increase (or perhaps be caused by) Alzheimer’s pathology

June 25, 2020 by SharpBrains

Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this month 13 research find­ings, resources and brain teasers for life­long brain and men­tal health.

#1. “We found that peo­ple who exhib­it­ed high­er repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing pat­terns expe­ri­enced more cog­ni­tive decline over a four-year peri­od. They also had spe­cif­ic declines in mem­o­ry (which is an ear­ly sign of Alzheimer’s dis­ease), and had more amy­loid and tau deposits in their brain … There’s increas­ing evi­dence that chron­ic stress is both harm­ful to your body – and your brain. But more research is need­ed to under­stand this link.” Repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing may increase (or per­haps be caused by) cog­ni­tive decline and Alzheimer’s pathology

#2. “…even sim­ple cog­ni­tive process­es like mak­ing a shop­ping list now require more brain­pow­er. “Now, rather than think­ing, ‘I’ll just run to the store’, you’re think­ing about what you need, what stores are open and whether it’ll be safe to go there. Let’s say your brain can do four tasks at once. Now all of a sud­den there are 10, and you can’t do any of them” … reboot­ing your work­ing mem­o­ry may also mean cut­ting down on your news con­sump­tion and con­sid­er­ing a break from social media. But the most effec­tive thing to do might sim­ply be to con­vince your­self it’s OK to be strug­gling.” Why stress reg­u­la­tion and work­ing mem­o­ry are core build­ing blocks of life­long resilience

#3. Ten years from now, will we see DSM‑6 or Some­thing Much Bet­ter (SMB)-1? The way we approach Men­tal Health today is bro­ken beyond repair. The ques­tion is, what comes next, and how fast can we get there?

#4. Now, please draw the let­ter J in your mind. Then, draw the let­ter D. Turn it 90 degrees to the left and put it in top of the J. What does this shape resem­ble? Enjoy these three quick brain teasers to exer­cise your work­ing memory

#5. “Read­ing sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy can help read­ers make sense of the world. Rather than lim­it­ing read­ers’ capac­i­ty to deal with real­i­ty, expo­sure to out­side-the-box cre­ative sto­ries may expand their abil­i­ty to engage real­i­ty based on sci­ence … With increas­ing rates of anx­i­ety, depres­sion, and men­tal health issues for youth in the past two decades, it may be the case that young peo­ple, no dif­fer­ent from Amer­i­can soci­ety gen­er­al­ly, are suf­fer­ing from real­i­ty over­load.” — Esther L. Jones, Ph.D Read­ing sci­ence fic­tion can help chil­dren build crit­i­cal think­ing and resilience

#6. “For decades, use of biofeed­back to help suf­fer­ers of anx­i­ety, among oth­er psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tions, has large­ly been lim­it­ed to clin­i­cal set­tings with expensive—and some­what tedious—medical equip­ment. Now, with an assist from devel­op­ers of vir­tu­al-real­i­ty games, effec­tive ther­a­peu­tic biofeed­back is becom­ing more afford­able, acces­si­ble and engag­ing.” Vir­tu­al-real­i­ty gam­ing + afford­able biofeed­back = Anx­i­ety ther­a­py for all?

#7. Now comes the real chal­lenge: get­ting doc­tors to pre­scribe it, insur­ers to pay for it, kids to use it and hope­ful­ly see sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in dai­ly life. FDA clears first videogame to be pre­scribed to kids with ADHD: Endeav­or­Rx by Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs

#8. Hope you enjoy this overview by Dr. Ricar­do Gil-da-Cos­ta at Neu­ro­verse and our very own Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Explore The State of Non­in­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy in 37 min­utes and 1 image

#9. Here with neu­ro­sci­en­tist Mara Dierssen, in Span­ish: Cómo min­i­mizar el impacto del Covid-19 en nue­stro cerebro

#10. Ignor­ing prob­lems does­n’t typ­i­cal­ly solve them — good to see seri­ous attempts to under­stand, detect and address chemo brain. Grow­ing research shows how two of the major can­cer treat­ments, radi­a­tion and chemother­a­py, can lead to long-term cog­ni­tive impairment

#11. “… COVID-19 may lead to any­where from 27,644 to 154,037 addi­tion­al U.S. deaths of despair, as mass unem­ploy­ment, social iso­la­tion, depres­sion and anx­i­ety dri­ve increas­es in sui­cides and drug over­dos­es.” Time to reimag­ine brain & mind care: Four imme­di­ate pri­or­i­ties to flat­ten the men­tal dis­tress curve

#12. Mov­ing beyond Either/ Or Think­ing: Anti­de­pres­sant vor­tiox­e­tine com­bined with cog­ni­tive train­ing may help delay cog­ni­tive decline

#13. Not the worst week to leave Earth, but still plen­ty of men­tal health chal­lenges in space. Request for pro­pos­als to help astro­nauts com­bat behav­ioral health chal­lenges such as stress and isolation

 

Have a good and safe summer,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Alzheimer’s Disease, biofeedback, brain health, Brain Teasers, cognitive, DSM, FDA, mental health, neurotech­nolo­gy, noninvasive neurotechnologies, noninvasive neurotechnology, reading, Stress, Working-memory

Reading science fiction can help children build critical thinking and resilience

June 9, 2020 by The Conversation

Young peo­ple who are hooked on watch­ing fan­ta­sy or read­ing sci­ence fic­tion may be on to some­thing. Con­trary to a com­mon mis­per­cep­tion that read­ing this genre is an unwor­thy prac­tice, read­ing sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy may help young peo­ple cope, espe­cial­ly with the stress and anx­i­ety of liv­ing through the COVID-19 pandemic.

I am a pro­fes­sor with research inter­ests in the social, eth­i­cal and polit­i­cal mes­sages in sci­ence fic­tion. In my book [Read more…] about Read­ing sci­ence fic­tion can help chil­dren build crit­i­cal think­ing and resilience

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance Tagged With: anxiety, COVID-19, creativity, Critical-thinking, depression, literature, mental health, pandemic, reading, resilience, science fiction, Stress

Will self-driving vehicles lead to a surge of brain training?

February 3, 2020 by SharpBrains

Brain train­ing may be required for occu­pants of dri­ver­less vehi­cles (Traf­fic Technology):

“A much-tout­ed per­ceived ben­e­fit of autonomous vehi­cle tech­nol­o­gy is that work­ing and a vari­ety of leisure activ­i­ties could be per­formed dur­ing the time freed up from being behind the wheel.

How­ev­er, [Read more…] about Will self-dri­ving vehi­cles lead to a surge of brain training?

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Filed Under: Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain training, brain training apps, brain training puzzles, cognitive-tasks, driverless, emailing, motion sickness, reading, self-driving car, texting, User Behaviour Forum, watching films

Eight Tips To Understand and Remember What You Read — Especially As You Read Nonfiction

January 16, 2018 by Dr. Bill Klemm

___

Despite Insta­gram, YouTube, Face­book, Twit­ter, and tele­vi­sion, (or per­haps pre­cise­ly because of all of them) tra­di­tion­al read­ing is still an impor­tant skill. Whether it is mag­a­zines, pro­fes­sion­al man­u­als or fas­ci­nat­ing books, peo­ple still need to read, now and in years ahead. And much of it is non­fic­tion mate­r­i­al, where it’s impor­tant to real­ly under­stand and then remem­ber what you are reading.

An unfor­tu­nate rea­son why many peo­ple don’t read much these days is that they don’t read well. Read­ing, for them, is slow, hard work and they don’t remem­ber as much as they should. They often have to read some­thing sev­er­al times before they under­stand and remem­ber what they read.

Why? You would think that every­one learns how to read well at school. Schools do try, but I work with mid­dle-school teach­ers and they tell me that many stu­dents are 2–3 years behind grade lev­el in read­ing pro­fi­cien­cy. Some of the blame can be placed on fads for teach­ing read­ing, such as phon­ics and “whole lan­guage,” which some­times are pro­mot­ed in shal­low ways that don’t respect the need for both approach­es. And much of the blame can be laid at the feet of par­ents who set poor exam­ples and, of course, on the young­sters who are too dis­tract­ed by social media and tele­vi­sion to learn how to read well.

Now the good news. For any­one who missed out on good read­ing skills, it is not too late to improve now. I sum­ma­rize below what I think it takes to read with good speed and com­pre­hen­sion. [Read more…] about Eight Tips To Under­stand and Remem­ber What You Read — Espe­cial­ly As You Read Nonfiction

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: attention-span, Bill-Klemm, brain-tips, comprehension, consolidation, distractions, Internet, knowledge, learn, long-term-memory, memorization, multi-tasking, neuroscience, phonics, reading, reading-proficiency, rehearse, remember, schools, self-quiz, skim, teach, television, think, tips, Twitter, whole-language, Working-memory

Neuroimaging study finds extensive brain rewiring–in just six months–among illiterate adults learning to read and write

June 8, 2017 by SharpBrains

—

Learn­ing to read and write rewires adult brain in six months (New Scientist):

“Learn­ing to read can have pro­found effects on the wiring of the adult brain – even in regions that aren’t usu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with read­ing and writing.

That’s what Michael Skei­de of the Max Planck Insti­tute for Human Cog­ni­tive and Brain Sci­ences in Leipzig, Ger­many, and his col­leagues found when they taught a group of illit­er­ate adults in rur­al India to read and write [Read more…] about Neu­roimag­ing study finds exten­sive brain rewiring–in just six months–among illit­er­ate adults learn­ing to read and write

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: adult-brain, brain regions, Brain-Plasticity, fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging, illiterate, India, literacy, neurobiological, neuroplastic changes, neuroplasticity, reading, rewire-brain

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