SharpBrains » Diagnostic-Tests http://www.sharpbrains.com Brain Fitness and Cognitive Health news Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:08:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Brain Fitness Newsletter: December Edition http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/12/30/brain-training-magazine-december-edition/ http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/12/30/brain-training-magazine-december-edition/#comments Sun, 30 Dec 2007 20:31:54 +0000 Alvaro Fernandez http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/12/30/brain-training-magazine-december-edition/ Brain exercise, brain exercisesI hope you are having a joyful holiday season, and wish you a Happy and Prosperous 2008. The Brain Fitness field has made a great deal of progress in 2007, and we are looking forward the New Year.

Here you are have the Monthly Digest of our Most Popular Blog Posts. You can consider it your monthly Brain Fitness/ Exercise Newsletter.

(Also, remember that you can subscribe to receive our blog RSS feed, or to our monthly newsletter at the top of this page if you want to receive this monthly Digest by email).

Let me first of all introduce you to our new “Author Speaks Series“, where we will give leading scientists and experts a forum to present their new brain-related books. We are honored to kickstart the series with Larry McCleary, former acting Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Denver Children’s Hospital. You can read Here his article on how to keep a brain-friendly lifestyle. This series will complement our ongoing Neuroscience Interview Series.

Brain Fitness in the News

Brain Fitness @ PBS: PBS featured a fantastic special program on neuroplasticity and brain fitness during the month of December. Before you ask: as of today, the DVD of the program is still not available in PBS online shop. We expect to see it there in 2-3 weeks. We will keep you informed.

The Huffington Post started featuring a column written by me: you may enjoy taking a look at Alvaro Fernandez – Living on The Huffington Post.

Jogging our Brains for Brain Vitality, Healthy Aging-and Intelligence!: a roundup of several great recent articles on memory, aging, IQ and cognitive abilities such as self-control.

Health & Wellness

Brain Training: No Magic Bullet, Yet Useful Tool. Interview with Elizabeth Zelinski: Dr. Zelinski, leading researcher of the IMPACT study, shares fascinating insights. For example: “…cognitive enhancement requires the engagement in a variety of activities, those activities must be novel, adaptive and challenging-which is why computer-based programs can be helpful. But even at a more basic level, what matters is being engaged with life, continually exposed to stimulating activities, always trying to get out of our comfort zones, doing our best at whatever we are doing. A major typical misconception is that there is only one general intelligence to care about. In reality, we have many different cognitive abilities, such as attention, memory, language, reasoning, and more, so it makes sense to have different programs designed to train and improve each of them.”

How to Evaluate and Choose a Brain Fitness Program: To help you navigate the growing number of computer-based programs and games, we published this 10-Question Checklist, based on dozens of interviews with scientists, experts and consumers.

Travel and Engagement as Good Brain Exercise: As we’ve seen, novelty, variety and challenge are the key guidelines for “brain exercise” that help build new neural connections, force one to be mindful and pay attention, improve abilities such as pattern-recognition, and generally contribute to lifelong brain health. In this post we feature the brain building / mind expanding experience of a SharpBrains friend working in Namibia.

Alzheimer’s Prevention and Diagnostic Tests: analysis of several recent articles on emerging research behind Alzheimer’s diagnostic and prevention.

Corporate Wellness and Training

Cognitive Reserve and Intellectually Demanding Jobs: a recent study shows how “Intellectually demanding work was associated with greater benefit to cognitive performance in later life independent of related factors like education and intelligence.”

Cognitive Health and Baby Boomers- 6 Points to Keep in Mind: based upon an excellent McKinsey report titled Serving Aging Baby Boomers, we discuss a variety a news articles, including interesting numbers, some bad news, and some good news.

Lifelong Learning Is Changing My Brain: Andreas, the neuroscience PhD student who spent last summer working with SharpBrains, writes some reflections on his experience and on how scientists and business professionals can learn from each other.

Brain Teasers

Traveler IQ Game: Check out this stimulating online game…

Events

Learning & The Brain Conference, February 5-7 2008, San Francisco: Sign up now for this great conference for educators who want to learn about the latest brain research findings and implications. I will be speaking at the conference giving an overview of innovative cognitive training programs. The organizers are offering a Special Discount for SharpBrains readers until January 25th 2008, so click here if interested.

If we don’t talk beforehand…Happy New Year!

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You can also enjoy our previous editions of our Brain Fitness Newsletter:

- November Edition

- October Edition

- September Edition

- August Edition

- July Edition

]]> http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/12/30/brain-training-magazine-december-edition/feed/ 11 I have to exercise my brain, too http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/03/15/i-have-to-exercise-my-brain-too/ http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/03/15/i-have-to-exercise-my-brain-too/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:53:39 +0000 Alvaro Fernandez http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/03/15/i-have-to-exercise-my-brain-too/ I was exposed to a fun brain exercise on Monday: attend my first-ever live TV program, be ready for 3 very precise questions…and then be asked others.

The anchors were fun. It was fascinating to observe, behind the scenes, the making of a news program: constant last-minute apparent chaos, the lawyer in the “ask the lawyer” segment nowhere to be found…but everyone seem to had a fun time. And good mental stimulation-as long as they manage stress well.

Here you have the 3-minute clip from the local CBS’ Good Day Sacramento program, with a brief Q&A and a couple of brain teasers (Count the Fs and Stroop Test).

The 3 questions I was expecting were:

- What is Brain Awareness Week? see Dana’s and partners’ outreach events worldwide.

- What is SharpBrains? see Our Vision for Brain and Mind Fitness.

- What is the involvement of SharpBrains during Brain Awareness Week? check Brain Awareness Week.

Next time I will give more clear directions and maybe improve my English a bit too if I can…

If you want more teasers, here you have Top 10 Brain Teasers.

]]> http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/03/15/i-have-to-exercise-my-brain-too/feed/ 7 Brain Health Newsletter, March Edition http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/03/14/march-madness-in-brain-fitness-march-newsletter/ http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/03/14/march-madness-in-brain-fitness-march-newsletter/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:30:00 +0000 Caroline Latham http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/03/14/march-madness-in-brain-fitness-march-newsletter/ 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. 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."]]> 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:

Here are some other highlights from our recent posts:

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

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