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Stress

How ’sleeping on it’ can help the prefrontal cortex regulate emotional responses, making us feel better in the morning

May 26, 2022 by The Conversation Leave a Comment

Instead of lying awake wor­ry­ing, we’re often told to “sleep on it” when mak­ing deci­sions both big and small. And there’s actu­al­ly a sci­en­tif­ic basis for this advice. Sleep can influ­ence our response to emo­tion­al sit­u­a­tions, and helps us to man­age our men­tal health.

To under­stand why sleep and emo­tions are so con­nect­ed, it’s impor­tant to first under­stand what hap­pens in the brain when we encounter some­thing emo­tive. [Read more…] about How ’sleep­ing on it’ can help the pre­frontal cor­tex reg­u­late emo­tion­al respons­es, mak­ing us feel bet­ter in the morning

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: anxiety, brain, depression, Limbic-System, mental health, prefrontal-cortex, sleep on it, Stress

On uncertainty, stress, emotion regulation, and carpe diem

September 9, 2021 by Greater Good Science Center

Ros­ale­da at Par­que del Oeste in Madrid, Spain

Ever since it began, the pan­dem­ic has been a crash course in uncer­tain­ty. Safe behav­iors, school open­ings, vac­ci­na­tion time­lines, the job mar­ket, new variants—these have all seemed to change on a week­ly basis, threat­en­ing our sense of secu­ri­ty and stability.

Uncer­tain­ty is stress­ful and per­haps even harm­ful to our health, research sug­gests, and it can dri­ve us to cling to our social groups to the exclu­sion of oth­ers. But a new study has uncov­ered a sur­pris­ing upside to feel­ing uncer­tain: It might dri­ve us to appre­ci­ate the lit­tle things in life.

In one exper­i­ment, researchers sta­tioned on a side­walk hand­ed out fly­ers that said one of two things: “Life is unpre­dictable: Stop and smell the ros­es” or “Life is con­stant: Stop and smell the ros­es.” A short dis­tance away was a table with a dozen red ros­es on it and a sign match­ing the fly­er they’d just received. [Read more…] about On uncer­tain­ty, stress, emo­tion reg­u­la­tion, and carpe diem

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: emotion regulation, Gratitude, pandemic, savoring, Stress, uncertainty

To lower stress levels (ours and others’), practice cognitive reframing instead of venting

August 19, 2021 by Greater Good Science Center

We all get upset from time to time—some of us more than oth­ers. Whether we’re sad about the loss of a loved one, angry at friends or fam­i­ly, or fear­ful about the state of the world, it often feels good to let it all out. [Read more…] about To low­er stress lev­els (ours and oth­ers’), prac­tice cog­ni­tive refram­ing instead of venting

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: cognitive needs, cognitive reframing, emotional needs, Emotions, human-brain, neural pathways, Stress, venting

The neuroscience behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

July 6, 2021 by The Conversation

With COVID-19 vac­cines work­ing and restric­tions lift­ing across the coun­try, it’s final­ly time for those now vac­ci­nat­ed who’ve been hun­kered down at home to ditch the sweat­pants and reemerge from their Net­flix caves. But your brain may not be so eager to dive back into your for­mer social life. [Read more…] about The neu­ro­science behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: anxiety, brain-teaser, cognitive-function, cognitive-skills, COVID-19, hippocampus, mental health, neuroscience, social distancing, social homeostasis, social memory, Stress

On centenarians, memory, Mars, tDCS, ADHD, digital health, beautiful brains, and more

April 30, 2021 by SharpBrains

Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per (1890–2005)

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing ten time­ly resources and research find­ings for life­long brain and men­tal fitness.

#1. Let’s start with a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry and study 🙂

Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable … (Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in research­ing aging and cog­ni­tive health was inspired by the “fas­ci­nat­ing” sto­ry of Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per, who died at age 115 in 2005 “com­plete­ly cog­ni­tive­ly healthy.”

#2. Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Lisa Gen­o­va, author of the beau­ti­ful nov­el Still Alice, releas­es non-fic­tion book on Mem­o­ry: “It is sober­ing to real­ize that three out of four pris­on­ers who are lat­er exon­er­at­ed through DNA evi­dence were ini­tial­ly con­vict­ed on the basis of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. “You can be 100 per­cent con­fi­dent in your vivid mem­o­ry,” Gen­o­va writes, “and still be 100 per­cent wrong” … Gen­o­va assures her read­ers that only two per cent of Alzheimer’s cas­es are of the strict­ly inher­it­ed, ear­ly-onset kind. For most of us, our chances of devel­op­ing the dis­ease are high­ly amenable to interventions…”

#3. Time­ly tips for the week­end: Shape your envi­ron­ment, shape your mind

  • Sur­round your­self with nature
  • Cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for awe
  • Clear the clutter

#4. “For a mis­sion to suc­ceed, high men­tal and cog­ni­tive func­tion would be absolute­ly crit­i­cal; astro­nauts would be called on to per­form demand­ing tasks in a demand­ing envi­ron­ment. Los­ing 20 IQ points halfway to Mars is not an option … Stress—an emo­tion­al or men­tal state result­ing from tense or over­whelm­ing circumstances—and the body’s response to it, which involves mul­ti­ple sys­tems, from metab­o­lism to mus­cles to memory—may be the chief chal­lenge that astro­nauts face.” Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Over­com­ing astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive and men­tal health challenges

#5. Study: Depres­sion affects visu­al per­cep­tion … mak­ing it more accu­rate (based on a cool opti­cal illusion)

#6. It’s good to have more tools in the neu­ro toolkit…assuming we use them wise­ly: Emerg­ing appli­ca­tions of tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS): e‑sports skills train­ing, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment in old­er adults

#7. Does ADHD treat­ment enable long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess? (Yes, espe­cial­ly when phar­ma­co­log­i­cal and non-phar­ma treat­ments are combined)

#8. Men­tal Health in the Dig­i­tal Age: From dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics to per­son­al­ized men­tal health solu­tions: Pear Ther­a­peu­tics expands plat­form via part­ner­ships with Empat­i­ca, etec­tRx, Key­Wise, and Winterlight

#9. The award was won last year by Indi­an vil­lage teacher Ran­jitsinh Disale; who will be next? Final day to nom­i­nate teach­ers for the $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize 2021

#10. And last, but cer­tain­ly not least, let’s wel­come Men­tal Health Month (May) by appre­ci­at­ing our beau­ti­ful brains

Wish­ing you a men­tal­ly healthy and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Attention & ADD/ADHD, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: adhd, ADHD-Treatment, aging, Alzheimer’s, astronauts, beautiful brains, brain health, centenarians, cognitive decline, cognitive-function, cognitive-health, depression, digital health, digital therapeutics, IQ, MaRS, memory, Pear Therapeutics, Stress, tDCS, Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation

Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Overcoming astronauts’ cognitive and mental health challenges

April 21, 2021 by SharpBrains

– Illus­tra­tion by Zoë Van Dijk

Space Between the Ears (Cere­brum):

A few short months ago, news pro­grams around the globe showed NASA engi­neers and sci­en­tists cel­e­brat­ing as a robot named Per­se­ver­ance suc­cess­ful­ly land­ed on the sur­face of Mars. The mis­sion: cap­ture and share images and audio that have nev­er been seen or heard before. As impressed as most observers were of this major mile­stone, many couldn’t help but won­der when we might be ready to some­day send humans. While it seems the stuff of sci­ence fic­tion and almost incon­ceiv­able, the answer—according to recent NASA planning—is before the end of the 2030s, less than two decades away. [Read more…] about Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Over­com­ing astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive and men­tal health challenges

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Peak Performance Tagged With: Artemis, astronauts, brain-function, brain-teaser, cognitive, cognitive-performance, Gateway, MaRS, mental capacities, mental health challenges, NASA, spaceflight, Stress, stressors

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