train-your-brain

Update: To train your brain, work as a physician, air traffic controller, financial analyst, or similar

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glass-brain
Glass Brain Project, cour­tesy of Adam Gaz­za­ley @ UCSF

 

Time for Sharp­Brains’ April 2014 e‑newsletter. If you’re look­ing for new think­ing, research and tools to enhance life­long brain health, let us sug­gest you’re in the right place!

New think­ing:

New research:

New tools:

brain circuitsFinal­ly, we want to thank the 65 read­ers of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness and Cómo inver­tir en su cere­bro who have tak­en the time to leave excel­lent reviews via Ama­zon online stores (46 in the USA, 9 in Spain, 6 in the UK, 4 in Cana­da, and 1 in Mex­i­co so far). Thank You! Gracias!

Every­one — have a great month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Protect Your Asset by Being Your Own Brain Fitness Coach

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Last week I had the good for­tune of spend­ing four days in Nue­vo Val­lar­ta, Mex­i­co, with over 300 amaz­ing indi­vid­u­als from 40+ coun­tries who had been named Young Glob­al Lead­ers by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum. The sum­mit agen­da was insight­ful and inspir­ing, con­ver­sa­tions with oth­er par­tic­i­pants always proved to be eye-open­ing and stim­u­lat­ing, and the over­all atmos­phere was con­struc­tive. You can read more about some of those con­ver­sa­tions here.

What I’d like to high­light in this arti­cle is the remark­able (and option­al) activ­i­ty that start­ed off every day at 7 in the morn­ing. Called “Pro­tect Your Asset” [Read more…] about Pro­tect Your Asset by Being Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach

Train your brain to focus on positive experiences

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(Editor’s Note: we are pleased to bring you this arti­cle thanks to our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Greater Good Mag­a­zine).

The Neuroscience of Happiness

Best-sell­ing author Rick Han­son explains how we can rewire
our brains for last­ing happiness
By Michael Bergeisen

We’ve all been there: obsess­ing over a faux pas we com­mit­ted at a par­ty, infu­ri­at­ed by an unkind word from a col­league, rumi­nat­ing over a tough break-up with a spouse or friend. We suf­fer some misfortune—big or small, real or imagined—and the pain or humil­i­a­tion sticks with us for hours, days, or even years afterward.

“The mind is like Vel­cro for neg­a­tive expe­ri­ences,” psy­chol­o­gist Rick Han­son is fond of say­ing, “and Teflon for pos­i­tive ones.”

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Draw­ing on some of the lat­est find­ings from neu­ro­science, Han­son has spent years explor­ing how we can over­come our brain’s nat­ur­al “neg­a­tiv­i­ty bias” and learn to inter­nal­ize pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences more deeply—while min­i­miz­ing the harm­ful phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of dwelling on the negative.

For years, research has shown that, over time, our expe­ri­ences lit­er­al­ly reshape our brains and can change our ner­vous sys­tems, for bet­ter or worse. Now, neu­ro­sci­en­tists and psy­chol­o­gists like Han­son are zero­ing in on how we can take advan­tage of this “plas­tic­i­ty” of the brain to cul­ti­vate and sus­tain pos­i­tive emotions.

In his recent book, the best-sell­ing Buddha’s Brain: The Prac­ti­cal Neu­ro­science of Hap­pi­ness, Love, and Wis­dom, Han­son describes spe­cif­ic prac­tices that can pro­mote last­ing joy, equa­nim­i­ty, and compassion—and backs it all up with sound science.

Han­son recent­ly spoke with host Michael Bergeisen about some of these very prac­ti­cal, research-based steps we can all take to rewire our brains for last­ing hap­pi­ness. Below we present a con­densed ver­sion of the dis­cus­sion. [Read more…] about Train your brain to focus on pos­i­tive experiences

NeuroActive Bike at Lady of America fitness centers

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Neu­roAc­tive Bike: America’s First and Only Mind-Body Fit­ness Equip­ment Launched at Lady of Amer­i­ca Fit­ness Cen­ters (press release)

- “The patent-pend­ing bike, engi­neered by Dr. Berg­eron and BCA (Brain Cen­ter America)’s inter­na­tion­al team of brain spe­cial­ists, makes its U.S. debut this NeuroActive Bikemonth at Lady of Amer­i­ca (LOA) fit­ness centers.”

- “Users of the Neu­roAc­tive Bike may select from 22 brain-stim­u­lat­ing exer­cis­es that train dif­fer­ent parts of the brain, includ­ing: mem­o­ry of names and faces, 3D visuo-spa­tial skills, con­cen­tra­tion, word nam­ing and arith­metic. As they ped­al, they manip­u­late a wire­less mouse to inter­act with the com­put­er and com­plete the Neu­roAc­tive Program”

In our 2008 mar­ket report we offered Top 10 Brain Train­ing Future Trends, includ­ing:

“2. Phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise will be bet­ter inte­grat­ed. Phys­i­cal exer­cise has been shown to increase the rate of neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, where­as men­tal exer­cise helps ensure the sur­vival of any new­ly cre­at­ed neu­rons. Today both activ­i­ties usu­al­ly take place in very dif­fer­ent set­tings: the for­mer, in health clubs, the lat­er, in uni­ver­si­ties. We pre­dict that the bor­ders between them will become more dif­fuse. Expect new pro­grams such as brain fit­ness pod­casts that allow us to train work­ing mem­o­ry as we jog or exer­cise bikes with built-in brain games.”

Top 10 Cognitive Health and Brain Fitness Books

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Here you have The 10 Most Pop­u­lar Brain Fit­ness & Cog­ni­tive Health Books, based on book pur­chas­es by Sharp­Brains’ read­ers dur­ing 2008.

Enjoy!

Brain Rules-John Medina
 1. Brain Rules: 12 Prin­ci­ples for Sur­viv­ing and Thriv­ing at Work, Home, and School (Pear Press, March 2008)
- Dr. John Med­i­na, Direc­tor of the Brain Cen­ter for Applied Learn­ing Research at Seat­tle Pacif­ic Uni­ver­si­ty, writes an engag­ing and com­pre­hen­sive intro­duc­tion to the many dai­ly impli­ca­tions of recent brain research. He wrote the arti­cle Brain Rules: sci­ence and prac­tice for Sharp­Brains readers.
2. The Beck Diet Solu­tion: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Per­son (Oxmoor House, March 2007)
- Dr. Judith Beck, Direc­tor of the Beck Insti­tute for Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py and Research, con­nects the world of research-based cog­ni­tive ther­a­py with a main­stream appli­ca­tion: main­tain­ing weight-loss. Inter­view notes here.
3. The Brain That Changes Itself: Sto­ries of Per­son­al Tri­umph from the Fron­tiers of Brain Sci­ence (Viking, March 2007)
- Dr. Nor­man Doidge, psy­chi­a­trist and author of this New York Times best­seller, brings us “a com­pelling col­lec­tion of tales about the amaz­ing abil­i­ties of the brain to rewire, read­just and relearn”. Lau­rie Bar­tels reviews the book review here.
Spark John Ratey
 4. Spark: The Rev­o­lu­tion­ary New Sci­ence of Exer­cise and the Brain(Lit­tle, Brown and Com­pa­ny, Jan­u­ary 2008)
- Dr. John Ratey, an asso­ciate clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try at Har­vard Med­ical School, sum­ma­rizes the grow­ing research on the brain ben­e­fits of phys­i­cal exer­cise. Lau­rie Bar­tels puts this research in per­spec­tive here.
5. The Art of Chang­ing the Brain: Enrich­ing the Prac­tice of Teach­ing by Explor­ing the Biol­o­gy of Learn­ing (Sty­lus Pub­lish­ing, Octo­ber 2002)
- Dr. James Zull, Direc­tor Emer­i­tus of the Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­ter for Inno­va­tion in Teach­ing and Edu­ca­tion at Case West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­si­ty, writes a must-read for edu­ca­tors and life­long learn­ers. Inter­view notes here.
6. Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Sci­ence Reveals Our Extra­or­di­nary Poten­tial to Trans­form Our­selves (Bal­lan­tine Books, Jan­u­ary 2007)
- Sharon Beg­ley, Newsweek’ excel­lent sci­ence writer, pro­vides an in-depth intro­duc­tion to the research on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty based on a Mind & Life Insti­tute event.
7. Thanks: How the New Sci­ence of Grat­i­tude Can Make You Hap­pi­er (Houghton Mif­flin, August 2007)
- Prof. Robert Emmons, Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­o­gy at UC Davis and Edi­tor-In-Chief of the Jour­nal of Pos­i­tive Psy­chol­o­gy, writes a sol­id book that com­bines a research-based syn­the­sis of the top­ic as well as prac­ti­cal sug­ges­tions. Inter­view notes here.
8. The Exec­u­tive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civ­i­lized Mind (Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, Jan­u­ary 2001)
- Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­o­gy at New York Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, pro­vides a fas­ci­nat­ing per­spec­tive on the role of the frontal roles and exec­u­tive func­tions through the lifes­pan. Inter­view notes here.
Brain Trust Program 9. The Brain Trust Pro­gram: A Sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Based Three-Part Plan to Improve Mem­o­ry (Perigee Trade, Sep­tem­ber 2007)
- Dr. Lar­ry McCleary, for­mer act­ing Chief of Pedi­atric Neu­ro­surgery at Den­ver Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal, cov­ers many lifestyle rec­om­men­da­tions for brain health in this prac­ti­cal book. He wrote the arti­cle Brain Evo­lu­tion and Health for SharpBrains.
10. A User’s Guide to the Brain: Per­cep­tion, Atten­tion, and the Four The­aters of the Brain (Pan­theon, Jan­u­ary 2001)
— In this book (pre­vi­ous to Spark), Dr. John Ratey pro­vides a stim­u­lat­ing descrip­tion of how the brain works. An excel­lent Brain 101 book to any­one new to the field.

Brain Training and Cognitive Health: September News

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A round-up of inter­est­ed news dur­ing the month:Brain Health News

1) Train­ing Young Brains to Behave (New York Times)

2) Head Games (OpEd in New York Times)

3) Will Geron­tol­ogy rec­og­nize the Brain? (Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging event)

4) Brain func­tion gets a boost from walk­ing (Los Ange­les Times)

5) An idea whose time has (final­ly) come (McK­night’s Long Term Care News)

6) Train your brain (Finan­cial Times Germany)

7) Toman auge ejer­ci­cios que adies­tran la mente (Mile­nio, Mexico)

8) Trois nou­vellestudes IDATE : Seri­ous Games (Pub­li-News, France)

Links and com­men­tary below. [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing and Cog­ni­tive Health: Sep­tem­ber News