Today I have an announce­ment to make. You prob­a­bly are seeing all the arti­cles about Brain Fit­ness in the press and wondering, “What is this all about?”, “Can some­one help me nav­i­gate through all the pro­grams out there?”, “How is Brain Fit­ness rel­e­vant to me in my per­sonal life or at work?”. Well…we are deliv­er­ing a series of work­shops to com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions com­bin­ing mod­ules –includ­ing sci­en­tific overview, the indus­try trends and key play­ers, fun team-building exer­cises– that can be tai­lored to each organization’s spe­cific needs. Ses­sions last from 1 to 6 hours, depend­ing on the group’s com­po­si­tion and agenda and are deliv­ered either in per­son or via web conference.

We want to be able to reach more orga­ni­za­tions, so please let us know of any ideas!

Some recent examples

1. Man­ag­ing Stress for Peak Per­for­mance (we men­tioned some notes on an Accen­ture ses­sion)

New and chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions – such as tak­ing on new respon­si­bil­i­ties– can trig­ger reac­tions in our brain and body that limit or even block our decision-making abil­i­ties. These reac­tions may also harm our long-term brain power and health. Although we can­not avoid change and stress­ful sit­u­a­tions, we can learn how to man­age our stress lev­els to ensure peak performance-even in tough moments. The lat­est neu­ro­science research proves that stress man­age­ment is a train­able “men­tal mus­cle.” This is true for any high pres­sure pro­fes­sion, be it trad­ing, sports, or sim­ply mod­ern life.

2. The Sci­ence of Brain Health and Brain Fit­ness (sim­i­lar to what I will teach at UC Berke­ley OLLI)

Neu­ro­sci­en­tists have shown how the human brain retains neu­ro­plas­tic­ity (the abil­ity to rewire itself) and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (the cre­ation of new neu­rons) dur­ing its full life­time, lead­ing to a new under­stand­ing of what aging means. In this work­shop, we will review the sci­ence behind some of key con­cepts in this field and explore their impli­ca­tions on our lifestyles: con­cepts include neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, the Cog­ni­tive Reserve the­ory for healthy aging, computer-based cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams, emo­tional self-regulation, and the 4 pil­lars for life­long Brain Health.

3. Exer­cis­ing Our Brains for Top Health and Pro­duc­tiv­ity (like our ses­sion at Cisco Sys­tems)

Neu­ro­sci­en­tists have finally shown that, at any age, our men­tal activ­ity influ­ences the gen­er­a­tion of new neu­rons and their con­nec­tions, with clear guide­lines to fol­low. We have all heard “Use it or lose it”. In this work­shop we will learn how to make the most of the lat­est research which sug­gests instead: “Use it and improve it”. We will com­bine both research and fun group activ­i­ties to learn how to exer­cise and improve dif­fer­ent areas of our brains: atten­tion, exec­u­tive func­tions, lan­guage, visual skills, lan­guage, mem­ory, emo­tions, motor coordination.

And what some clients are saying

Cisco Sys­tems: “The Sharp­Brains work­shop was one of the most enlight­en­ing and fun team-building activ­i­ties we have had. I also love the tools that help me apply the stress man­age­ment skills we were taught” – Vladimir Todor­ovic, Man­ager, Cisco Sys­tems.

Accen­ture: 46 per­cent of sur­vey respon­dents strongly agreed they “gained prac­ti­cal skills and knowl­edge” in the Sharp­Brains work­shop they could “start using imme­di­ately.” 69 per­cent strongly agreed “fac­ulty was knowl­edge­able and very well informed.” – Sur­vey of par­tic­i­pants at Accenture’s Inter­na­tional Women’s Day cel­e­bra­tion.

SFSU Osher Life­long Learn­ing Cen­ter: “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.” – Par­tic­i­pant in 2007 “Exer­cis­ing Our Brains” class at SFSU.

Stan­ford Busi­ness School: “I can start see­ing the changes in my stress level take place right in front of my eyes,” said Baba Shiv, a neu­ro­sci­en­tist and pro­fes­sor at Stanford’s Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness, who uses Freeze-Framer 2.0, one of the pro­grams licensed by Sharp­Brains.” quoted in San Fran­cisco Exam­iner, 3/19/07.

Traders: “Traders exposed to stress­ful sit­u­a­tions need to man­age lev­els of cog­ni­tive and phys­i­cal arousal for max­i­mum per­for­mance. Through struc­tured prac­tice, we can learn to improve our abil­ity to enter and remain in states of calm focus. Sharp­Brains brings together best prac­tices, insight­ful infor­ma­tion and the tools uniquely mar­keted to traders.” – Brett Steen­barger, Trader and Pub­lished Author on the Psy­chol­ogy of Trad­ing.

If you are inter­ested in learn­ing more, please Con­tact Us or just leave a com­ment below. Enjoy the weekend!.

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