Can a brain fitness program help me become more creative?

By Caroline Latham | March 22, 2007 |

Here is ques­tion 20 of 25 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Questions.Question:Can a brain fit­ness pro­gram help me become more creative?Key Points: Cre­ativ­i­ty can be trained, like oth­er men­tal muscles.Set up struc­tured time, places, or rou­tines that pro­vide a frame­work for cre­ativ­i­ty to happen.Reducing your stress helps to keep your brain more flexible.Using many parts of the brain as well as try­ing new things will stim­u­late the areas of your brain involved in creativity.

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Newsweek on Evolution, DNA and The Brain

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 13, 2007

Great March 19th issue of Newsweek Mag­a­zine, announc­ing the hir­ing of sci­ence writer Sharon Beg­ley, who leads the cov­er sto­ry on The Evo­lu­tion Revolution. You will find: The New Sci­ence of Human Evo­lu­tion: “The new sci­ence of the brain and DNA is rewrit­ing the his­to­ry of human ori­gins”. Live Talk: Sharon Beg­ley on the new sci­ence of…

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Can Thoughts and Action Change Our Brains?

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 27, 2007 |

We final­ly had time to hear and enjoy the 35-minute inter­view with WSJ sci­ence writer Sharon Beg­ley about her new book, Train Your Mind Change Your Brain. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed. (Thanks Beate!) NPR Talk of the Nation, Feb­ru­ary 2, 2007: “For years, sci­en­tists believed the brain’s struc­ture could­n’t be changed. The new sci­ence of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty says…

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Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and other stress management techniques

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 26, 2007 |

We have explained before how men­tal stim­u­la­tion is impor­tant if done in the right sup­port­ive and engag­ing envi­ron­ment. Stan­ford’s Robert Sapol­sky and oth­ers’ have shown that chron­ic stress and cor­ti­cal inhi­bi­tion, which may be aggra­vat­ed due to imposed men­tal stim­u­la­tion, may prove coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. Hav­ing the right moti­va­tion is essen­tial. A promis­ing area of sci­en­tif­ic inquiry…

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Is physical fitness important to your brain fitness?

By Caroline Latham | February 26, 2007 |

Here is ques­tion 18 of 25 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Questions.Question:Is phys­i­cal fit­ness important?Key Points: Exer­cise improves learn­ing through increased blood sup­ply and growth hormones.Exercise is an anti-depres­sant by reduc­ing stress and pro­mot­ing neurogenesis.Exercise pro­tects the brain from dam­age and dis­ease, as well speed­ing the recovery.Answer:Yes. Accord­ing to Fred Gage, PhD, of the Salk Insti­tute for Bio­log­i­cal Stud­ies, “We now know that exer­cise helps gen­er­ate new brain cells, even in the aging brain.”According to the research of Richard Smeyne, PhD at Saint Jude Children’s Research Hos­pi­tal in Mem­phis, with just two months of exer­cise there are more brain cells and that high­er lev­els of exer­cise were sig­nif­i­cant­ly more ben­e­fi­cial than low­er amounts, although any exer­cise was bet­ter than none.

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The Upside of Aging-WSJ

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 19, 2007

Sharon Beg­ley writes anoth­er great arti­cle on The Upside of Aging — WSJ.com (sub­scrip­tion required) “The aging brain is sub­ject to a drea­ry litany of changes. It shrinks, Swiss cheese-like holes grow, con­nec­tions between neu­rons become spars­er, blood flow and oxy­gen sup­ply fall. That leads to trou­ble with short-term mem­o­ry and rapid­ly switch­ing atten­tion, among other…

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