train-attention

Cognitive Health News Roundup

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July is shap­ing up to be a fas­ci­nat­ing month, full of cog­ni­tive health research reports and appli­ca­tions. Here you have a roundup, cov­er­ing food for the brain, cog­ni­tive assess­ments, men­tal train­ing and DNA, and more.

1) Brain foods: the effects of nutri­ents on brain func­tion (Nature Neuroscience)

“Brain foods: the effects of nutri­ents on brain func­tion”, by Fer­nan­do Gmez-Pinilla.

Abstract: [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Health News Roundup

Mysteries of Brain and Mind

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Sev­er­al recent NYT arti­cles focus on sev­er­al fas­ci­nat­ing fron­tiers of brain sci­ence. We know much more about brain and mind than only 20 years ago, yet expo­nen­tial­ly less than 20 years from now.

A few wor­thy explo­rations on mind­ful­ness, per­cep­tu­al capac­i­ties, and the pow­er of place­bo: [Read more…] about Mys­ter­ies of Brain and Mind

Mindfulness Meditation for Adults & Teens with ADHD

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We have talked about the val­ue of med­i­ta­tion before (see Mind­ful­ness and Med­i­ta­tion in meditationSchools), as a form of well-direct­ed men­tal exer­cise than can help train atten­tion and emo­tion­al self-reg­u­la­tion.  Which oth­er stud­ies have shown how it strength­ens spe­cif­ic parts of the brain, main­ly in the frontal lobe.

Dr. Rabin­er shares with us, below, an excel­lent review of a new study that ana­lyzes the ben­e­fits of mind­ful­ness for ado­les­cents and adults with atten­tion deficits. He writes that “although this is clear­ly a pre­lim­i­nary study, the results are both inter­est­ing and encouraging.”

- Alvaro

Does Mind­ful­ness Med­i­ta­tion Help Adults & Teens with ADHD

– By Dr. David Rabiner

Although med­ica­tion treat­ment is effec­tive for many indi­vid­u­als with ADHD, includ­ing ado­les­cents adults, there remains an under­stand­able need to explore and devel­op inter­ven­tions that can com­ple­ment or even sub­sti­tute for med­ica­tion. This is true for a vari­ety of rea­sons including:
1) Not all adults with ADHD ben­e­fit from medication.
2) Among those who ben­e­fit, many have resid­ual dif­fi­cul­ties that need to be addressed via oth­er means.
3) Some adults with ADHD expe­ri­ence adverse effects that pre­vent them from remain­ing on medication.

[Read more…] about Mind­ful­ness Med­i­ta­tion for Adults & Teens with ADHD

Self-Regulation and Barkley’s Theory of ADHD

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A CDC report esti­mat­ed that, in 2003, 4.4 mil­lion youth ages 4–17 lived with diag­nosed ADHD, and 2.5 mil­lion of them were receiv­ing med­ica­tion treat­ment. Now, which is the core deficit under­ly­ing ADHD-so that treat­ments real­ly address it? and how are ADHD and brain devel­op­ment relat­ed? Keep reading…

ADHD & the Nature of Self-Con­trol — Revis­it­ing Barkley’s The­o­ry of ADHD

— By David Rabin­er, Ph.D

As implied in the title of his book, ADHD and the Nature of Self-Con­trol, Dr. Barkley argues that the fun­da­men­tal deficit in indi­vid­u­als with ADHD is one of self-con­trol, and that prob­lems with atten­tion are a sec­ondary char­ac­ter­is­tic of the disorder.

Dr. Barkley empha­sizes that dur­ing the course of devel­op­ment, con­trol over a child’s behav­ior grad­u­al­ly shifts from exter­nal sources to being increas­ing­ly gov­erned by inter­nal rules and stan­dards. Con­trol­ling one’s behav­ior by inter­nal rules and stan­dards is what is meant by the term “self-con­trol”.

[Read more…] about Self-Reg­u­la­tion and Barkley’s The­o­ry of ADHD

Brain Exercises for the Weekend

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Rubik's Cube brain exerciseHere you have a few fun brain exer­cis­es to train our atten­tion and work­ing mem­o­ry (the abil­i­ty to keep infor­ma­tion cur­rent for a short peri­od while using this infor­ma­tion). Giv­en them a try! They are not as easy as they may sound…

  1. Say the days of the week back­wards, then in alpha­bet­i­cal order.
  2. Say the months of the year in alpha­bet­i­cal order. Easy? well, why don’t you try doing so back­wards, in reverse alpha­bet­i­cal order.
  3. Find the sum of your date of birth, mm/dd/yyyy. Want more exer­cise? Do the same with friends’ and rel­a­tives’ date of birth.
  4. Name two objects for every let­ter in your com­plete name. Work up to five objects, try­ing to use dif­fer­ent items each time.
  5. Wher­ev­er you are, look around and with­in two min­utes, try to find 5 red things that will fit in your pock­et, and 5 blue objects that are too big to fit.

PS: Enjoy these 50 brain teasers to test your cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty. Free, and fun for adults of any age!

 

 

Free give-aways: Sandra Bullock’s Premonition and our Brain Fitness Center

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Some weeks we were con­tact­ed by Sony Pic­tures to pro­vide the Grand Prize for one of their Sweep­stakes pro­grams, for just-released San­dra Bul­lock­’s Pre­mo­ni­tion movie.

We were hap­py to put togeth­er a com­plete Brain Fit­ness Kit, some­thing like a boot camp for the brain (a “brain camp”?), which you can get FOR FREE. The kit is com­posed of:

- One (1) Com­plete Men­tal Work­out Soft­ware pro­gram that helps train mem­o­ry and oth­er skills (ARV: $149.00)
— One (1) Stress Man­age­ment Biofeed­back pro­gram (ARV: $320.00)
— One (1) Exer­cise Your Brain DVD (ARV: $20.00)
— One (1) Brain Fit­ness 101 eBook ($12.00)

- Five (5) pri­vate phone-based ses­sions with our Head Coach (you will hear more about this soon) (ARV: $350.00)
If you want the chance to win this Prize, togeth­er with a $1,000 check, you can sim­ply vis­it Pre­mo­ni­tion Expect the Unex­pect­ed Sweep­stakes pro­gram and fill in your details. There is no cost asso­ci­at­ed with this pro­mo­tion. This is why you are see­ing ban­ners in this site for the first time.

Good luck!