stress-and-anxiety

Exercise your brain in the Cognitive Age

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In the past two days, The New York Times has pub­lished two excel­lent arti­cles on brain and cog­ni­tive fit­ness. Despite appear­ing in sep­a­rate sec­tions (tech­nol­o­gy and editorial), the two have more in com­mon than imme­di­ate­ly meets the eye. Both raise key ques­tions that politi­cians, health pol­i­cy mak­ers, busi­ness leaders, educators and consumers should pay atten­tion to.

1) First, Exer­cise Your Brain, or Else You’ll … Uh …, by Katie Hafn­er (5/3/08). Some quotes:

- “At the same time, boomers are seiz­ing on a mount­ing body of evi­dence that sug­gests that brains con­tain more plas­tic­i­ty than pre­vi­ous­ly thought, and many peo­ple are tak­ing mat­ters into their own hands, doing brain fit­ness exer­cis­es with the same inten­si­ty with which they attack a treadmill.”

[Read more…] about Exer­cise your brain in the Cog­ni­tive Age

Jogging our Brains for Brain Vitality, Healthy Aging-and Intelligence!

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Stroop Test

Quick: say the col­or in which each word in this graph­ic is dis­played (don’t just read the word!):

Here you have a round-up of some great recent arti­cles on mem­o­ry, aging, and cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties such as self-control:

1) How to Boost Your Willpow­er (New York Times).

- “The video watch­ers were lat­er giv­en a con­cen­tra­tion test in which they were asked to iden­ti­fy the col­or in which words were dis­played. (Note: now you see why we start­ed with that brain exer­cise…) The word  for instance, might appear in blue ink. The video watch­ers who had sti­fled their respons­es did the worst on the test, sug­gest­ing that their self-con­trol had already been deplet­ed by the film challenge.”

- “Final­ly, some research sug­gests that peo­ple strug­gling with self-con­trol should start small. A few stud­ies show that peo­ple who were instruct­ed for two weeks to make small changes like improv­ing their pos­ture or brush­ing their teeth with their oppo­site hand improved their scores on lab­o­ra­to­ry tests of self-con­trol. The data aren’t con­clu­sive, but they do sug­gest that the quest for self-improve­ment should start small. A vow to stop swear­ing, to make the bed every day or to give up just one food may be a way to strength­en your self-con­trol, giv­ing you more willpow­er reserves for big­ger chal­lenges later.”

Com­ment: learn­ing, build­ing abil­i­ties, are process­es that require prac­tice and grow­ing lev­els of dif­fi­cul­ty. Like train­ing our mus­cles in the gym. So the advice to start small and pro­gres­sive­ly do more makes sense. Many times the ene­my of learn­ing is the stress and anx­i­ety we pro­voke by try­ing to do too many things at the same time…

2) Jog­ging Your Mem­o­ry (Newsweek) Thanks Chris for alert­ing us!

- “No one should expect mir­a­cles soon, if at all. But the deep­er sci­en­tists peer into the work­ings of mem­o­ry, the bet­ter they under­stand [Read more…] about Jog­ging our Brains for Brain Vital­i­ty, Healthy Aging-and Intelligence!

Brain Fitness Training for Trainers

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We are very excit­ed to announce a work­shop host­ed joint­ly by the Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tutes (OLLI) at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley and San Fran­cis­co State Uni­ver­si­ty and Sharp­Brains (us!). We are offer­ing a three-day work­shop for edu­ca­tors and brain fit­ness prac­ti­tion­ers seek­ing instruc­tion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in the Sharp­Brains course, Exer­cis­ing Our Brains.

“Sharp­Brains has intro­duced the first sci­ence-based brain fit­ness cen­ter with infor­ma­tion and pro­grams to help peo­ple of all ages exer­cise their brains. They have offered the pop­u­lar Exer­cis­ing Our Brains course at SF State’s Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute (OLLI) since Octo­ber 2005.”

Are you see­ing all the arti­cles about Brain Fit­ness in the pop­u­lar press and wondering,“What is this all about?, “Can some­one help me nav­i­gate through all the pro­grams out there? “How is Brain Fit­ness rel­e­vant to me in my per­son­al life or at work?. As the lead­ing source of infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion on Brain Fit­ness, we have deliv­ered a series of cus­tomized train­ing ses­sions to com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions that com­bine mod­ules ‑includ­ing sci­en­tif­ic overview, the indus­try trends and key play­ers, fun team-build­ing exer­cis­es- that can be tai­lored to your orga­ni­za­tion’s spe­cif­ic needs. Ses­sions last from 1 to 6 hours, depend­ing on your group’s com­po­si­tion and agen­da and are deliv­ered either in per­son or via web con­fer­ence. If you want more infor­ma­tion on Sharp­Brains work­shops for your insti­tu­tion click on Work­shops.

Who should attend:

Edu­ca­tors and prac­ti­tion­ers who are seek­ing to teach the course Exer­cis­ing Our Brains. Ide­al can­di­dates are: edu­ca­tors who are work­ing in the area of psy­chol­o­gy, health, and well­ness, and who are ide­al­ly already affil­i­at­ed with learn­ing cen­ters eager to offer a brain fit­ness class.


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Brain Awareness Week

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When is Brain Aware­ness Week?

March 12–18, 2007

What Will Happen

The Brain Aware­ness Week is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn more about how the brain func­tions and how to cul­ti­vate a healthy brain. The Dana Foun­da­tion and mul­ti­ple part­ners, such as Sharp­Brains, will lead out­reach events world­wide.

In the blog of the Dana Foun­da­tion we can read today that “To my knowl­edge, the brain is the only organ in the human body that is cel­e­brat­ed and hon­ored for an entire week. This year, 2,000 orga­ni­za­tions in 69 coun­tries will observe Brain Aware­ness Week with activ­i­ties, exhibits and com­pe­ti­tions, most from March 12 through 18.”

SharpBrains-Related Activities During Brain Awareness Week