We hope you are enjoying Brain Awareness Week this week and hopefully thinking a little more about your brain and brain fitness! Below you have the Brain Fitness Newsletter we sent a few days ago. You can subscribe to this monthly email update in the box on the the top of this page.

We have had another busy month behind us, and we’re looking forward to Brain Awareness Week March 12-18. Keep reading for the details (including a special offer in honor of Brain Awareness Week) …

I. Press Coverage
II. Events
III. Program Reviews
IV. New Offerings
V. Website and Blog Summary, including brain teasers

I. Press Coverage

Set your DVRs – SharpBrains is coming to the small screen! Our television debut will be on CBS 13 West Sacramento’s “Good Day Sacramento” on Monday, March 12.

La Opinion, the most prestigious Spanish-language paper in the US, featured SharpBrains in a recent article “Secreto para triunfar en los exámenes” (Secrets to Triumphing in Exams)

Another great international publication was an article called “Training the Brain as Possible as Training the Body” in the prominent Arabic newspaper Annahar.

And Mark Muckenfuss of The Press-Enterprise in Riverside writes in “Train Your Brain“:

“I would tend to believe that still we underestimate the brain,” says Fernandez, whose background is in educational training and marketing. He notes that recent studies have shown when a brain is injured by a stroke, “those mental structures recreate themselves (with exercise). It means to me there are a lot of things we could really do and many times we are not aware of them. We cannot promise to people you will only keep getting better until you are 200 years old. But I think people still underestimate how flexible the brain really is.”

II. Events

March 8, Alvaro led the Stress Management workshop at Accenture during the Annual International Women’s Day. He presented the latest neuroscience findings about the impact of stress on performance and introduced a variety of techniques to help manage stress.

Brain Awareness Week 2007 is coming March 12-18! In honor of the week, we are offering a $10 discount code on any brain fitness program offered at SharpBrains. To use the coupon from today until March 18th, enter the code BAW2007 into the Discount Coupon field presented during the checkout process and get your $10 discount.

Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes: We are also collaborating with 35 different Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes at universities across the US to share information and our Brain Fitness 101 guide.

We are teaching our class Exercising Our Brains once more in San Francisco and preparing ways to expand to other cities—stay tuned!

Learning & The Brain Conference: Enhancing Cognition and Emotions for Learning: We attended a great conference of educators and neuroscientists sharing ideas to influence each other. Some tremendous speakers were there to talk about the latest discoveries in neuroscience. One of the main themes we left with was that people are a mixture of cognition and emotion, and both elements are essential to function and learn properly.

III. Program Reviews

“John & I keep working the program. I love it! I just completed the second assessment & it showed I have made progress! Thanks also for keeping in touch.”
—Sue Anne, registered nurse, on Comprehensive Brain Workout

“The stress management program is becoming a big time savior – keeps my nerves in check.”
—top business school professor on Freeze-Framer

“SharpBrains’ is the first biofeedback application that I’m aware of that is uniquely marketed to traders. I’ve used biofeedback to monitor my body’s level of arousal during trading and have found it to be quite useful.”
—Brett Steenbarger, trading psychology expert, on Freeze-Framer

“Interactive information, entertaining, amusing, educational, lots of material covered in short time. Good fun! Mr. Fernandez is in his element. Great teacher, witty, his love of his craft is evident.”
—Anonymous evaluation from student, on Exercise Your Brain Workshop

IV. New Offerings

Our new Exercise Your Brain: New Brain Research and Implications DVD has been a popular item since it became available. This one-hour and 20 minute class introduces you to the science of brain fitness and includes many engaging brain exercises you can do on your own or in a group setting. A perfect introduction to brain fitness!

We are pleased to have added the emWave Personal Stress Reliever to our stress management programs. It is a convenient, practical training device that uses the same patented technology as Freeze-Framer to help you reduce stress and shift into The Zone anytime, anywhere.

V. Website and Blog Summary

Just Science sponsored a Week of Science among bloggers who agreed to write about “just science” for one week. Here are a few articles we wrote for that week:

• Cognitive Reserve and Lifestyle
• ADD/ADHD and working memory training: interview with Notre Dame’s Bradley Gibson
• Heart Rate Variability as an Index of Regulated Emotional Responding

Here are some other highlights from our recent posts:

• Best practice for top trading performance: biofeedback
• How can I improve my concentration and my memory?
• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and other stress management techniques
• Is physical fitness important to your brain fitness?
• Brain Fitness Blog Carnival #2
• Exercise Your Brains – Visual Logic Brain Teaser
• Brain Workout for Your Frontal Lobes

Finally, let us ask a favor: we are actively looking for partners who can help us reach more people. Organizations offering advice and programs around health, nutrition, physical fitness, training who may want to partner with us to offer an additional brain fitness component to their members, visitors, readers. Please let us know any suggestions!

Keep exercising your brain!

~Alvaro and the SharpBrains Team