stressful

Study finds a key ingredient in mindfulness training: Acceptance (not acquiescence)

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Life can be stress­ful. Whether it’s the stress that comes with hav­ing too much work to do in too lit­tle time, ful­fill­ing care­giv­ing oblig­a­tions, or deal­ing with a major ill­ness or set­back, some­times it can be hard to cope.

In response to stress, many peo­ple today are turn­ing to med­i­ta­tion or mind­ful­ness apps (myself includ­ed). But not all mind­ful­ness prac­tice is equal­ly effec­tive for com­bat­ing stress [Read more…] about Study finds a key ingre­di­ent in mind­ful­ness train­ing: Accep­tance (not acquiescence)

Study finds limited benefits from cognitive bias modification (CBM) training, calls for further research

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Faces along a pos­i­tive-neu­tral to neg­a­tive-neu­tral spec­trum, and a sad face, from Peters et al. (2017)‘s CBM for facial inter­pre­ta­tion train­ing. Cred­it: Uni­ver­si­ty of Bristol

Could cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions be use­ful in treat­ing depres­sion? (Sci­ence News):

“A new study by exper­i­men­tal psy­chol­o­gists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol has exam­ined whether cog­ni­tive bias mod­i­fi­ca­tion (CBM) for facial inter­pre­ta­tion, a dig­i­tal health inter­ven­tion that changes our per­cep­tion for emo­tion­al expres­sions from neg­a­tive to pos­i­tive, might be use­ful in treat­ing depres­sion. [Read more…] about Study finds lim­it­ed ben­e­fits from cog­ni­tive bias mod­i­fi­ca­tion (CBM) train­ing, calls for fur­ther research

Survey: What’s more important to thrive in the 21st century, to manage stressful situations or to process new information quickly?

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Please answer this ques­tion and a few oth­er to help us bet­ter under­stand your thoughts and beliefs about brain health, and how we may be able to serve you bet­ter (should take no more than 5 min­utes to com­plete it):

Take the survey

Thank you!

Study: Families’ Perspectives on ADHD and its Treatment

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In 2005 the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics (AAP) began an ini­tia­tive to pro­mote an approach to care among its mem­bers in which “…the pedi­atric team works in part­ner­ship with a child and a child’s fam­i­ly to assure that all of the med­ical and non-med­ical needs of the patient are met.” A crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant focus of this approach is the role of the fam­i­ly and child — as devel­op­men­tal­ly appro­pri­ate — in the devel­op­ment of an over­all plan of care.

This shared deci­sion-mak­ing approach is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for con­di­tions like ADHD where there is not a sin­gle treat­ment that is the most appro­pri­ate and pre­ferred option for all patients. How­ev­er, [Read more…] about Study: Fam­i­lies’ Per­spec­tives on ADHD and its Treatment

What You Can do to Improve Memory (and Why It Deteriorates in Old Age)

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After about age 50, most peo­ple begin to expe­ri­ence a decline in mem­o­ry capa­bil­i­ty. Why is that? One obvi­ous answer is that the small arter­ies of the brain begin to clog up, often as a result of a life­time of eat­ing the wrong things and a lack of exer­cise. If that life­time has been stress­ful, many neu­rons may have been killed by stress hor­mones. Giv­en theImprove Memory Bill Klemm most recent sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture, reviewed in my book Thank You, Brain, For All You Remem­ber. What You For­got Was My Fault, dead neu­rons can’t be replaced, except in the hip­pocam­pus, which is for­tu­nate for mem­o­ry because the hip­pocam­pus is essen­tial for mak­ing cer­tain kinds of mem­o­ries per­ma­nent. Anoth­er cause is incip­i­ent Alzheimer’s dis­ease; autop­sies show that many peo­ple have the lesions of the dis­ease but have nev­er shown symp­toms, pre­sum­ably because a life­time of excep­tion­al men­tal activ­i­ty has built up a “cog­ni­tive reserve.

So is there any­thing you can do about it besides exer­cise like crazy, eat healthy foods that you don’t like all that much, pop your statin pills, and take up yoga?

Yes. In short: focus, focus, focus.

Chang­ing think­ing styles can help. Research shows that [Read more…] about What You Can do to Improve Mem­o­ry (and Why It Dete­ri­o­rates in Old Age)