smartbrains

A few slow-paced breaths are enough to significantly reduce physiological stress

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, shar­ing impor­tant brain & men­tal health news plus a cou­ple fun brain teasers to test your men­tal self-rota­tion skills.

#1. Study: Edu­ca­tion and lifestyle helped over a mil­lion old­er Amer­i­cans avoid seri­ous cog­ni­tive prob­lems in 2017

Let’s kick­start 2022 with some good news: “The preva­lence of seri­ous cog­ni­tive prob­lems in the US pop­u­la­tion aged 65 and old­er declined from 12.2% to 10.0% between 2008 and 2017. Had the preva­lence remained at the 2008 lev­els, there would have been an addi­tion­al 1.13 mil­lion old­er Amer­i­cans with seri­ous cog­ni­tive prob­lems in 2017.”

#2. Study: A few slow-paced breaths are enough to sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce phys­i­o­log­i­cal stress

And more good news: “Our find­ings showed that guid­ing a group of chil­dren through one minute of a slow-paced breath­ing exer­cise in an every­day set­ting can, in the moment, sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er the aver­age lev­el of phys­i­o­log­i­cal arousal” — Jele­na Obradovic at the Stan­ford Grad­u­ate School of Education

#3. APA: With dig­i­tal men­tal health going main­stream, will/ should psy­chol­o­gists be able to “pre­scribe” interventions?

“The asso­ci­a­tion is also work­ing with stake­hold­ers to address the fact that, at present, FDA-approved products—even those with a psy­chol­o­gy basis—need to be pre­scribed but that most psy­chol­o­gists lack this author­i­ty. To help fix this prob­lem, APA and oth­ers “are work­ing to devel­op a more inno­v­a­tive reg­u­la­to­ry mod­el that fits these soft­wares bet­ter and doesn’t use the word ‘pre­scrip­tion,’” said Vaile Wright, PhD, APA’s senior direc­tor of health care inno­va­tion. To aid in this effort, in Sep­tem­ber 2021, the FDA des­ig­nat­ed APA an “expert part­ner orga­ni­za­tion,” which will allow the asso­ci­a­tion to pro­vide exper­tise on behav­ioral change tech­nol­o­gy and methodology.”

#4. Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pio­neer Akili Inter­ac­tive plans to go pub­lic in mid-2022 at a $1B valuation

“By har­ness­ing advances in cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science and con­sumer tech­nol­o­gy, Akili is chang­ing the neu­ropsy­chi­atric treat­ment par­a­digm. Akili’s patent­ed and clin­i­cal­ly val­i­dat­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form rep­re­sents a new cat­e­go­ry of soft­ware-based med­i­cine: advanced and pro­pri­etary dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics that are designed to direct­ly tar­get neur­al phys­i­ol­o­gy to bet­ter serve the needs of patients and their families.”

Great com­pa­ny and team, very promis­ing approach…and quite tough con­text in the mar­kets (com­pa­ra­ble com­pa­ny Pear Ther­a­peu­tics went pub­lic in Decem­ber at $10/ share; closed Jan­u­ary 28th at $3.89/ share). The Times They Are a‑Changin’

#5. Are ADHD med­ica­tions over­pre­scribed or under­pre­scribed? (Quick answer: both)

Longer answer: “The main take­away from this study is that a only a minor­i­ty of chil­dren and teens with ADHD receive med­ica­tion treat­ment for the con­di­tion. And, rel­a­tive­ly few youth who don’t meet ADHD diag­nos­tic cri­te­ria are receiv­ing ADHD med­ica­tion. While rec­og­niz­ing that the actu­al num­bers pre­sent­ed are only esti­mates, it is there­fore rea­son­able to con­clude that under-treat­ment is sub­stan­tial­ly more com­mon than over-treatment.”

#6. Lyra Health, Big Health and Mantra Health raise a com­bined $332M to com­mer­cial­ize dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics for mental/ behav­ioral health

Hope­ful­ly this will lead into much high­er fund­ing for RCTs to explore the short-term and long-term Pros and Cons of a range of promis­ing interventions.

#7. Head­space Health acquires AI-dri­ven dig­i­tal men­tal health start-up Sayana

“Sayana per­son­al­izes users’ expe­ri­ences based on their check-ins and mood trends, sur­fac­ing high-qual­i­ty con­tent and self-care exer­cis­es root­ed in cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT), accep­tance com­mit­ment ther­a­py (ACT) and dialec­ti­cal behav­ioral ther­a­py (DBT), as well as breath­ing exer­cis­es” … “We’ve got­ten to the point now where con­tent rec­om­men­da­tions via AI are high­er qual­i­ty by engage­ment rate than rec­om­men­da­tions from providers them­selves. The AI rec­om­men­da­tions for con­tent are used more fre­quent­ly,” [Rus­sell Glass, CEO, Head­space Health] said.

#8. On schools, men­tal health, dig­i­tal sur­veil­lance, stu­dent pri­va­cy and parental input

“In the past year, school dis­tricts in Cal­i­for­nia and else­where have con­tract­ed with dig­i­tal sur­veil­lance com­pa­nies to spy on stu­dents at school and home, cit­ing the need for men­tal health sup­port dur­ing the pandemic.
Despite being a vig­i­lant and involved par­ent, I found out only recent­ly that my own kids, who attend high school in the Coro­na-Nor­co Uni­fied School Dis­trict, have been under con­stant dig­i­tal sur­veil­lance for the past year.”

This is not a wise way to intro­duce new tech­nolo­gies, much less those aimed at improv­ing men­tal health (of stu­dents, of par­ents, of staff). Your take?

 

Last but not least, as promised, a cou­ple fun brain teasers to test your men­tal self-rota­tion. What is men­tal self-rotation?

It is the cog­ni­tive skill to imag­ine your­self in dif­fer­ent loca­tions in space and to imag­ine your­self mov­ing accord­ing­ly. We need that skill in every­day activ­i­ties such as read­ing a map or find­ing our car in the park­ing lot. Enjoy!

#9. Test your con­cen­tra­tion and men­tal self-rota­tion skills with this quick brainteaser

#10. Men­tal rota­tion exer­cise to chal­lenge your brain’s pari­etal lobe

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy February,

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

The Ten Habits of a Sharp Brain

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As our final arti­cle for 2011, let us repur­pose one of Sharp­Brains’ most pop­u­lar blog posts since 2006. It may give you a few point­ers to sharp­en those New Years Res­o­lu­tions. Let’s sum­ma­rize some lifestyle guide­lines we can all fol­low to enhance and main­tain a sharp brain through life...

  1. Learn what is the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”. A basic under­stand­ing will serve you well to appre­ci­ate your brain’s beau­ty as a liv­ing and con­stant­ly-devel­op­ing dense for­est with bil­lions of neu­rons and synapses.
  2. Take care of your nutri­tion. Did you know that the brain only weighs 2% of body mass but con­sumes over 20% of the oxy­gen and nutri­ents we intake? As a gen­er­al rule, you don’t need expen­sive ultra-sophis­ti­cat­ed nutri­tion­al sup­ple­ments, just make sure you don’t stuff your­self with the “bad stuff”.
  3. Remem­ber that the brain is part of the body. Things that exer­cise your body can also help sharp­en your brain: phys­i­cal exer­cise enhances neurogenesis.
  4. Prac­tice pos­i­tive, future-ori­ent­ed thoughts until they become your default mind­set and you [Read more…] about The Ten Habits of a Sharp Brain

AARP’s Best Brain Fitness Books

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We are hon­ored to announce that AARP has includ­ed our very own book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (182 pages; $14.95) in its new List of Best Books on Brain Fit­ness, which will be unveiled dur­ing AARP’s upcom­ing Life@50 Nation­al Event. We hope this list will help many more indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions learn about our resource: giv­en that 80% of respon­dents to a recent AARP sur­vey select­ed “Stay­ing Men­tal­ly Sharp” as their top pri­or­i­ty, we cer­tain­ly know there is a sig­nif­i­cant need for qual­i­ty information!

AARP’s Best Books Guide


Brain Fitness


The Dana Guide to Brain Health, by Floyd E. Bloom, M. Flint Beal, and David J. Kupfer (Dana Press, 2006).

The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp, by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Elkhonon Gold­berg. (Sharp­Brains Inc., 2009).

Save Your Brain: The 5 Things You Must Do To Keep Your Mind Young and Sharp, by Paul Nuss­baum. (McGraw-Hill, 2010).

The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Sur­pris­ing Tal­ents of the Mid­dle-Aged Mind, by Bar­bara Strauch (Viking, 2010).

The Mem­o­ry Bible: An Inno­v­a­tive Strat­e­gy for Keep­ing Your Brain Young, by Gary Small (Hype­r­i­on, 2003).

___________

Also Rec­om­mend­ed:

The Mature Mind: The Pos­i­tive Pow­er of the Aging Brain, by Gene Cohen (Basic Books, 2006).

The Brain That Changes Itself, by Nor­man Doidge (Pen­guin, 2007).

Spark: The Rev­o­lu­tion­ary New Sci­ence of Exer­cise and the Brain, by John Ratey and Eric Hager­man (Lit­tle, Brown and Co., 2008).

Think Smart: A Neu­ro­sci­en­tist’s Pre­scrip­tion for Improv­ing Your Brain’s Per­for­mance, by Richard Restak (River­head, 2010).

Com­piled by:
Office of Aca­d­e­m­ic Affairs, AARP

The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains — Time for Brain Fitness Resolutions?

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Giv­en many of us are start­ing to pre­pare New Year Res­o­lu­tions, let’s revis­it one of Sharp­Brains’ most pop­u­lar-ever arti­cles that can help us all refine our Brain Fit­ness Res­o­lu­tions…

The Ten Habits of High­ly Effec­tive Brains

  1. Learn what is the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”. A basic under­stand­ing will serve you well to appre­ci­ate your brain’s beau­ty as a liv­ing and con­stant­ly-devel­op­ing dense for­est with bil­lions of neu­rons and synapses.
  2. Take care of your nutri­tion. Did you know that [Read more…] about The Ten Habits of High­ly Effec­tive Brains — Time for Brain Fit­ness Resolutions?

Book Announcement: The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness

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Our first book is avail­able in Amazon.com!

Back­ground: In 2005 I read two books by my now co-author, Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, that changed my career and life. Dr. Gold­berg pre­sent­ed an excit­ing overview of emerg­ing brain research debunk­ing many old myths. Reflect­ing on what I was learn­ing, I thought, “If all this is true, there is a rev­o­lu­tion in the mak­ing that will impact edu­ca­tion, health­care, the way we learn and the way to take care for our brains. Some­one will need to act as a trans­la­tor, ana­lyst and edu­ca­tor, to help indi­vid­u­als and soci­ety at large appre­ci­ate the impli­ca­tions of this research and start using this knowl­edge here and now.”

After sev­er­al meet­ings with Dr. Gold­berg, who kind­ly respond­ed to my ini­tial unso­licit­ed let­ter, we decid­ed to part­ner and cre­ate Sharp­Brains with a mis­sion to “to pro­vide indi­vid­u­als, com­pa­nies and insti­tu­tions with inde­pen­dent, high-qual­i­ty, research-based, infor­ma­tion and guid­ance to nav­i­gate the grow­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness market.”

Since then, we have launched one of the most pop­u­lar brain web­sites, blogs and newslet­ters, two annu­al mar­ket reports that have become the stan­dard in our field, a life­long learn­ing cur­ricu­lum taught in mul­ti­ple uni­ver­si­ties, and we are now pleased to bring to you our first book. We hope you enjoy it.

Book descrip­tion: While most of us have heard the phrase “use it or lose it,” very few SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness. The Bookunder­stand what “it” means, or how to prop­er­ly “use it” in order to main­tain brain func­tion and fit­ness. The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness is an invalu­able guide that helps read­ers nav­i­gate grow­ing brain research and iden­ti­fy the lifestyle fac­tors and prod­ucts that con­tribute to brain fit­ness. By gath­er­ing insights from eigh­teen of the world’s top sci­en­tists and offer­ing tools and detailed descrip­tions of over twen­ty prod­ucts, this book is an essen­tial guide to the field of brain fit­ness, neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and cog­ni­tive health. An acces­si­ble and thought-pro­vok­ing read, The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness edu­cates life­long learn­ers and pro­fes­sion­als in health­care, edu­ca­tion, busi­ness, etc., on emerg­ing trends and fore­casts of what the future will hold.

Praise for the book

“Final­ly, an insight­ful and com­plete overview of the sci­ence, prod­ucts and trends to debunk old myths and help us all main­tain our brains in top shape. A must-read for every­one with a brain – an instant classic.”
—Glo­ria Cavanaugh, for­mer Pres­i­dent & CEO of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging and found­ing Board mem­ber of the Nation­al Alliance for Caregiving

“The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness offers a valu­able and stim­u­lat­ing blue­print for any­one who wants to grow old­er sus­tain­ably — that is, with sound mind and good humor. Fer­nan­dez and Gold­berg are the pio­neers we’ve been wait­ing for to help us do exact­ly that. Buy­ing this book is the ulti­mate no-brainer.”
—Joel Makow­er, Exec­u­tive Edi­tor, GreenBiz.com, and author, Strate­gies for the Green Economy

“A mas­ter­ful guide to the brain train­ing rev­o­lu­tion. Promis­es to stim­u­late a much need­ed con­ver­sa­tion that will nudge soci­ety to build a new brain fit­ness cul­ture on sol­id, research-based, foundations.”
—P. Murali Doraiswamy MD, Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try, Duke Uni­ver­si­ty and Co-author of The Alzheimer’s Action Plan

“Our cur­ricu­lum and research cir­cle will begin sum­mer work by read­ing The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, a much-need­ed new resource to help us bet­ter under­stand our brains and minds and how to nour­ish them through life.”
—Susan E. Hoff­man, Direc­tor, Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute at UC Berkeley

“All of us research­ing healthy brain func­tion owe Sharp­Brains a debt of grat­i­tude for pro­mot­ing a sci­ence-based approach to brain health edu­ca­tion and offer­ing an unbi­ased view of the land­scape. Now, with The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg serve up plen­ti­ful food for thought to sat­is­fy the grow­ing num­ber of adults who are hun­gry for a healthy mind.”
—Joshua R. Stein­er­man, M.D., Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy and Direc­tor of the Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive Dis­ease Clin­i­cal Tri­als Pro­gram at Albert Ein­stein Col­lege of Med­i­cine, Mon­te­fiore Med­ical Center

“I am a neu­ro­sur­geon and have a great inter­est in the rapid­ly advanc­ing field of neu­ro­science, espe­cial­ly the areas of neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty. New devel­op­ments hap­pen so fast that it is dif­fi­cult to keep up. This book by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Elkhonon Gold­berg offers a spec­tac­u­lar intro­duc­tion to the field, valu­able both to the pub­lic at large and health­care professionals.”
—Guy Otis Daniel­son III, MD, Pres­i­dent of the Neu­ro­Care Net­work Tyler, Texas

“Final­ly, a book that makes sense out of the con­fus­ing brain fit­ness move­ment! I believe brain fit­ness could very well be the next big thing. Baby boomers like me are get­ting old­er and we want to stay men­tal­ly sharp, main­tain if not strength­en our cog­ni­tive skills, and above all avoid men­tal decline and Alzheimer’s dis­ease. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there’s been many con­flict­ing claims and con­fus­ing prod­ucts that has made it dif­fi­cult for me and thou­sands of oth­ers peo­ple to decide just what we should do. Sharp­Brains’ guide is an hon­est, clear­ly writ­ten exam­i­na­tion of brain fit­ness con­cepts, the under­ly­ing sci­ence, and the best prod­ucts and ser­vices out there. It’s a first-class, pio­neer­ing resource that sum­ma­rizes all I need to know about how to stay sharp for many more years.”
—David Bun­nell, founder of PC, PC World, Mac­world and BioWorld

Con­tin­ue read­ing about (and order!) The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp

Maintain Your Brain and Stay Sharp: An Upcoming Guide and Resource

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You may be read­ing all about brain fit­ness and brain train­ing. It seems every week brings a new bar­rage of arti­cles and stud­ies which often con­tra­dict what you read the month before: Does Gingko Bilo­ba help delay Alzheimer’s Dis­ease? Can phys­i­cal exer­cise help you stay sharp as you age? Which com­put­er-based “brain fit­ness pro­grams”, if any, are worth your money?

All this cov­er­age reflects very excit­ing sci­en­tif­ic find­ings but also pos­es a key dilem­ma: How to become an informed life­long learn­er and con­sumer when there are few and con­tra­dic­to­ry author­i­ta­tive guidelines?

The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (to be pub­lished in May 2009; $24.95) aims to fill that void. This guide is the result of over a year of exten­sive research includ­ing more than a hun­dred inter­views with sci­en­tists, pro­fes­sion­als and con­sumers, and a deep lit­er­a­ture review. Below you have some of the main find­ings from our effort. The guide not only cov­ers these aspects in more depth and offers prac­ti­cal guid­ance, but also includes 18 inter­views with promi­nent sci­en­tists to help you under­stand the research better.

Can we intro­duce you to your Brain?

The Guide will start at the obvi­ous start­ing point: The Human Brain. In order to make informed deci­sions about brain health, one needs to first under­stand the basic orga­ni­za­tion of the human brain and how it tends to change as we get older.

* The brain is com­posed of a num­ber of regions serv­ing dis­tinct func­tions. For­get IQ: our life and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty depend on a vari­ety of brain func­tions, not just one.

* There is noth­ing inher­ent­ly fixed in the tra­jec­to­ry of how brain func­tions evolve as we age. Your lifestyle, actions, and even thoughts, do matter.

The 4 Pil­lars of Brain Maintenance

Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty is the life­long capac­i­ty of the brain to change and rewire itself in response to the stim­u­la­tion of learn­ing and expe­ri­ence. The lat­est sci­en­tif­ic research shows that spe­cif­ic lifestyles and actions can, no mat­ter our age, improve the health and lev­el of func­tion­ing of our brains.

What fac­tors seem to have the most influ­ence? [Read more…] about Main­tain Your Brain and Stay Sharp: An Upcom­ing Guide and Resource