stress-management

Digital mental health intervention by the World Health Organization (WHO) found to lower anxiety and depression, with improvements maintained at 3‑month follow-up

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WHO dig­i­tal men­tal health inter­ven­tion effec­tive in reduc­ing depres­sion among Syr­i­an refugees in Lebanon (press release):

A new dig­i­tal men­tal health inter­ven­tion, Step-by-Step, devel­oped by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) with the Nation­al Men­tal Health Pro­gramme (NMHP) at the Min­istry of Pub­lic Health Lebanon and oth­er part­ners, was effec­tive in reduc­ing depres­sion among Syr­i­an refugees in Lebanon, accord­ing to a study pub­lished in PLOS Med­i­cine. [Read more…] about Dig­i­tal men­tal health inter­ven­tion by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) found to low­er anx­i­ety and depres­sion, with improve­ments main­tained at 3‑month follow-up

Happify Health raises $73M to deepen partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and insurance payers

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Hap­pi­fy Health rais­es $73M to expand its dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic care deliv­ery capa­bil­i­ties (Mobi­Health News):

Found­ed in 2012, Hap­pi­fy is best known for dig­i­tal pro­grams that pro­vid­ed auto­mat­ed self-guid­ed sup­port across var­i­ous areas of men­tal health and well­ness, such as stress man­age­ment for employ­ees or health plan mem­bers. Should the user need addi­tion­al sup­port, the plat­form can also facil­i­tate a refer­ral to third-par­ty coach­ing, ther­a­py, telemed­i­cine or oth­er avail­able resources. [Read more…] about Hap­pi­fy Health rais­es $73M to deep­en part­ner­ships with phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies and insur­ance payers

April 21st virtual lecture to discuss 25 Must-Know Facts about Brain Health, Neuroplasticity and Technology

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BrainFitnessJigsaw_webDear Sharp­Brains friend,

As Dr. Robert Bilder, Tan Le and myself final­ize the cur­ricu­lum for the upcom­ing vir­tu­al lec­ture on April 21st, we are work­ing hard to select the key brain-relat­ed facts that every­one should tru­ly under­stand in order to nav­i­gate the grow­ing stream of news arti­cles, research reports and mar­ket­ing claims. Focus­ing on 25 fun­da­men­tal facts (instead of the 50 ini­tial­ly envi­sioned) will enable us to dis­cuss each in more depth, empow­er­ing par­tic­i­pants with more clear and sol­id take-aways.

With those 25 Must-Know Facts we will zoom into the most sig­nif­i­cant (and often over­looked) areas in the brain fit­ness jig­saw puz­zle you can see above. We won’t dis­cuss gen­er­al­i­ties, we will dis­cuss specifics about:Online_Class-banner_25-facts

  • How the brain works, and what neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty is
  • What new sci­en­tif­ic find­ings mean (and what they don’t mean)
  • Key guide­lines for aer­o­bic exer­cise, nutri­tion, men­tal stim­u­la­tion, stress man­age­ment, socialization
  • The do’s and don’ts in lever­ag­ing tech­nol­o­gy for med­i­ta­tion, refram­ing, bio/ neu­ro­feed­back, cog­ni­tive training
  • How to self-mon­i­tor, find indi­vid­ual pri­or­i­ties, pri­or­i­tize options

We hope you will be able to reg­is­ter and join us! (use this 20%-off dis­count when you reg­is­ter: SB20)

Final­ly, let me answer a few ques­tions we have received from many inter­est­ed participants:

  1. Will I be able to ask ques­tions? Yes, of course. We want this to be a very inter­ac­tive ses­sion, and to respond to your spe­cif­ic ques­tions. We will reserve at least 30 min­utes for Q&A.
  2. What if I can’t attend the lec­ture live? Every­thing will be record­ed (both the lec­ture and the Q&A) so reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants will be able to access it lat­er, start­ing the day after the webinar.
  3. If I reg­is­ter, when do I gain access to all those record­ings from the 2015 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit that you are offer­ing on a com­pli­men­ta­ry basis? Once you reg­is­ter to the April 21st vir­tu­al lec­ture, you will receive an email with­in 24 hours with instruc­tions to access all online record­ings (15+ hours; 30+ amaz­ing speakers…the reg­u­lar price of these record­ings is $125, so we hope as many of you as pos­si­ble can ben­e­fit from this one-time opportunity).

Cheers, and hope to “see you” soon!

To address the upcoming Alzheimer’s “epidemic”, let’s approach 2016 with these 4 Pillars of Alzheimer’s Prevention

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alzheimers-disease-prevention.

As you prob­a­bly know, we are in a health care cri­sis. The num­ber of peo­ple with Alzheimer’s dis­ease con­tin­ues to sky-rock­et as peo­ple age and may reach cri­sis pro­por­tions.  A nation­al goal has been set to pre­vent and cure Alzheimer’s by 2020 or no lat­er than 2025, with a lion’s share of this mon­ey going into drug research, which, while ongo­ing, has thus far has been elusive.

This focus entire­ly on drugs may be chang­ing how­ev­er, as the [Read more…] about To address the upcom­ing Alzheimer’s “epi­dem­ic”, let’s approach 2016 with these 4 Pil­lars of Alzheimer’s Prevention

Teresa Kennedy: Total health includes physical AND mental fitness

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Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy. Photo Credit: Dwayne Watkins
Tere­sa Kay-Aba Kennedy. Pho­to Cred­it: Dwayne Watkins

What excites you the most about your job?
As Pres­i­dent of Pow­er Liv­ing Enter­pris­es, it excites me that we are improv­ing peo­ple’s lives through our mind-body train­ing, coach­ing and con­sult­ing ser­vices, as well as the con­tent we create.

Please tell us about your inter­est in applied brain sci­ence. What areas are you most inter­ested in? What moti­vated you to pur­sue work in your field? 
The brain has always been fas­ci­nat­ing to me. I’m approach­ing it from the mind-body train­ing and con­tent stand­point. I have an MBA from Har­vard and also found­ed the first yoga stu­dio in Harlem 12 years ago. I blend the two now by train­ing exec­u­tives in mind­ful­ness, lead­er­ship and well­ness. [Read more…] about Tere­sa Kennedy: Total health includes phys­i­cal AND men­tal fitness