Use-it-and-improve-it

Workshop on Brain Fitness: The Science and Practice

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LectureFyi, I will be teaching this work­shop soon, as part of our col­lab­o­ra­tion with sev­er­al Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Institutes: 

 

San José State University’s Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute (web­site) presents 

Title: Brain Fit­ness: The Sci­ence and Practice.

When: Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 2, 2008 9:30–3:30

What: Neu­ro­sci­en­tists have shown how the human brain retains neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty (the abil­i­ty to rewire itself) and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (cre­ation of new neu­rons) dur­ing its full life­time, lead­ing to a new under­stand­ing of what aging means. In this class, we will review the sci­ence behind some of the key con­cepts in this field and explore their impli­ca­tions on our lifestyles in a fun and engag­ing way. We have all heard “Use it or lose it.” Lat­est research sug­gests, “Use it and improve it!” [Read more…] about Work­shop on Brain Fit­ness: The Sci­ence and Practice

emWave in Golf Digest

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We often talk about how stress man­age­ment is as impor­tant as cog­ni­tive train­ing for brain fit­ness. We have also seen how traders can improve their per­for­mance by learn­ing how to man­age emo­tions of anx­i­ety and fustration.

Golf Digest has just pub­lished an arti­cle on how golfers can see their game improved thanks to stress man­age­ment pro­grams. Golf Digest’s Edi­tion includes the arti­cle Play­ing with heart: Peb­ble Beach’s top teacher wants to choke­proof your game, explain­ing how Laird Small, direc­tor of the Peb­ble Beach Golf Acad­e­my and the 2003 PGA of Amer­i­ca Teacher of the Year, has been using these pro­grams for a num­ber of years.

Even more inter­est­ing­ly, it also relates how [Read more…] about emWave in Golf Digest

Stress Management Workshop for International Women’s Day

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Today is Inter­na­tion­al Wom­en’s Day 2007.

Glob­al con­sult­ing com­pa­ny Accen­ture orga­nized a series of events, and I was for­tu­nate to lead a fun work­shop on The Neu­ro­science of Stress and Stress Man­age­ment in their San Fran­cis­co office, help­ing over 125 accom­plished women (and a few men) learn what stress is, its impli­ca­tions for our brain func­tion­ing, per­for­mance and health, and of course some tips and tech­niques to devel­op our “stress man­age­ment” mus­cles. It was an hon­or to be able to wrap up a great event that includ­ed Dis­trict Attor­ney Kamala D. Har­ris, two of the co-authors of This is Not the Life I Ordered, a video by Sen­a­tor Dianne Fein­stein, and some great Accen­ture women.

We dis­cussed how stress is the emo­tion­al and phys­i­o­log­i­cal reac­tion to a threat, whether real or imag­ined, that results in a series of adap­ta­tions by our bod­ies. And how stress man­age­ment can bring a vari­ety of ben­e­fits: sus­tained peak per­for­mance, cog­ni­tive flex­i­bil­i­ty, mem­o­ry, deci­sion mak­ing, and even longevity.
You can see a very inter­est­ing exam­ple of the rela­tion­ship between atten­tion, mem­o­ry and stress with this exper­i­ment: Atten­tion and work­ing memory

Let me share some key take-aways from the work­shop, togeth­er with some exer­cis­es we used to illus­trate key points: