social-interaction

Dance training: The ultimate way to delay brain decline by combining physical, cognitive, and social engagement

by

Study: Danc­ing may off­set some effects of aging in the brain (CSU release):

“A new study led by a Col­orado State Uni­ver­si­ty researcher shows that kick­ing up your heels can actu­al­ly be good for your noggin.

The research team demon­strat­ed for the first time that decline in the brain’s “white mat­ter” can be detect­ed over a peri­od of only six months in healthy aging adults [Read more…] about Dance train­ing: The ulti­mate way to delay brain decline by com­bin­ing phys­i­cal, cog­ni­tive, and social engagement

Alzheimer’s disease can be delayed through lifestyle: New, large study joins growing chorus

by

Amyloid_brain–

Hard Evi­dence We Can Slow Alzheimer’s By Exer­cis­ing The Body And The Mind (Forbes):

“Alzheimer’s dis­ease is one of the most feared diag­noses among patients…once the dis­ease has been diag­nosed, there is noth­ing mod­ern med­i­cine can do to stop it.

But it can be slowed, and a new study pre­sent­ed [Read more…] about Alzheimer’s dis­ease can be delayed through lifestyle: New, large study joins grow­ing chorus

A User’s Guide to Lifelong Brain Health: BrainFit for Life

by

As the Brain Fit­ness indus­try con­tin­ues to gain momen­tum, and peo­ple explore all the incred­i­ble brain-train­ing tools being devel­oped, we hope that enthu­si­asts don’t take their eye off the impor­tance of the phys­i­cal health of the brain and all the sys­tems it com­mu­ni­cates with. The brain is unique in that it hous­es our cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al capac­i­ties in the form of the mind. It is a ‘cog­ni­tive’ organ that hungers for stim­u­la­tion from new expe­ri­ences and chal­lenges. Many brain fit­ness pro­grams strive to sat­is­fy this need. Yet the brain is also a phys­i­cal organ that plays by many of the same rules as the heart, lungs, liv­er and kid­neys. To stay healthy and per­form opti­mal­ly it requires qual­i­ty nutri­tion, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and opti­mal sleep. The brain, espe­cial­ly, relies on a healthy vas­cu­lar sys­tem to effi­cient­ly deliv­er oxy­gen and key nutri­ents and remove waste. In fact, the brain uses approx­i­mate­ly 20% of the oxy­gen we breathe to sat­is­fy its high-ener­gy demands. Giv­en that the brain only weighs about 2% of the body, we can con­sid­er it an ener­gy hog and we must cater to its needs very carefully.

Nutri­ents play key roles in brain func­tion. Sev­er­al have shown effi­ca­cy in clin­i­cal tri­als treat­ing cas­es of mood dis­or­ders, cog­ni­tive decline and of course ben­e­fit­ing the phys­i­cal health of the brain. Nutri­ents are both the raw mate­ri­als employed in cre­at­ing new neur­al con­nec­tions and [Read more…] about A User’s Guide to Life­long Brain Health: Brain­Fit for Life

Your Brain At Work, by the Dana Alliance and The Conference Board

by

Sev­er­al months ago we came across an excel­lent resource for cognitive/ brain fit­ness aimed at help­ing com­pa­nies offer qual­i­ty brain health infor­ma­tion to their employees.

While it is true that we often tend to believe all this “brain fit­ness” stuff is most rel­e­vant to our par­ents and/ or grand­par­ents, trust me, if you are read­ing this, you need it. Every­one with a brain can ben­e­fit from learn­ing about how his or her brain works and how to main­tain it with prop­er care.

And, from a com­pa­ny’s point of view, aren’t “tal­ent” and “human cap­i­tal” real­ly all about brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive performance?

Your Brain At Work - Dana Foundation and the Conference BoardThe Con­fer­ence Board and the Dana Alliance for Brain Ini­tia­tives (descrip­tions below) pub­lished in 2008 a 44-page book­let to “teach sim­ple, prac­ti­cal strate­gies for incor­po­rat­ing brain-friend­ly prac­tices into day-to-day life”.  Your Brain at work: Mak­ing the sci­ence of cog­ni­tive fit­ness to work for you is the first of three planned book­lets on cog­ni­tive fitness.

The Con­fer­ence Board and the Dana Alliance have allowed Sharp­Brains to share the fol­low­ing Action Plan with our read­ers, straight from Your Brain at work brochure. At the bot­tom of this post we also share instruc­tions on how indi­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies can get their own copies of this excel­lent brochure. [Read more…] about Your Brain At Work, by the Dana Alliance and The Con­fer­ence Board

Exercising the body is exercising the mind

by

I apol­o­gize for the long delay in get­ting back to this col­umn but I have a good excuse. We just recent­ly had a baby, and boy, that takes care right there of the phys­i­cal exer­cise need. Between car­ry­ing the baby upstairs and down­stairs, run­ning to get the baby, get­ting out of the bed and pick­ing the baby up and putting the baby down a cou­ple of times a night no you need not wor­ry about get­ting your dai­ly exer­cise dose in…Now, the major­i­ty of the answers to my post on the brain virtues of phys­i­cal exer­cise sug­gests that most peo­ple think that the brain ben­e­fits of phys­i­cal exer­cise are most­ly to be under­stood as com­ple­men­tary effects of a healthy life style.

Is this cor­rect? In my post today I will attempt to answer this question.

First, while gen­er­al­ly health­i­er peo­ple seem to have health­i­er brains, the phys­i­cal exer­cise effect on the brain seems to be inde­pen­dent of oth­er things. One of the most impor­tant devel­op­ment in neu­ro­science was when the offi­cial dog­ma claim­ing that there was no neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (pro­duc­tion of new brain cells) in the adult brain was top­pled. Now we know that the brain is “plastic” mean­ing that, under the right cir­cum­stances, the brain can change [Read more…] about Exer­cis­ing the body is exer­cis­ing the mind