Title: The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness – Practical Advice to Keep Your Brain Sharp

- Two community-based book talks hosted by New York Public Library and supported by the Einstein Aging Study at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Description: A fit brain? Can you exercise your brain and become mentally fit? Can you continue to learn and increase your brain’s capacity at any age? Alvaro Fernandez, CEO and Co-Founder of SharpBrains, says Yes!, and in this program he will show you how. Based on research compiled from leading scientists in fields of Neuroscience, Gerontology, and Cognitive Science, and presented in his book “The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness”, Alvaro Fernandez will provide ways to maintain and improve your cognitive health.

He will:
- Debunk 10 Myths of Brain Fitness
- Examine the 4 Pillars of Brain Maintenance
- Discuss the difference between Mental Exercise and Mental Activity
- Evaluate Brain Training Software
- Explore emerging trends

Book and Bio: Alvaro Fernandez, CEO and Co-Founder of SharpBrains, teaches “Science of Brain Health and Brain Fitness” at UC-Berkeley and San Francisco State University. He is the co-author of The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness.

When and where:
> September 23rd, 10am, New York Public Library, Bronx Library Center. 310 East Kingsbridge Road. (718) 579-4244. More information here.

> September 25rd, 1pm, New York Public Library, Stephen Schwarzman Building Auditorium. Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. 917-ASK-NYPL (917-275-6975). More information here.

“We’ve all heard about dumbing down. But there is plenty of evidence that the opposite is also true. Is this, in fact, the age of mass intelligence?”

Fascinating article in Intelligent Life, a publication by The Economist:

THE AGE OF MASS INTELLIGENCE

- “Millions more people are going to museums, literary festivals and operas; millions more watch demanding television programmes or download serious-minded podcasts. Not all these activities count as mind-stretching, of course. Some are downright fluffy. But, says Donna Renney, the chief executive of the Cheltenham Festivals, audiences increasingly want “the buzz you get from working that little bit harder”. This is a dramatic yet often unrecognised development. “When people talk and write about culture,” says Ira Glass, the creator of the riveting public-radio show “This American Life”, “it’s apocalyptic. We tell ourselves that everything is in bad shape. But the opposite is true. There’s an abundance of really interesting things going on all around us.”

- “Third, what does all this say about the widespread view that societies are dumbing down, educational standards are crumbling and people’s ability to concentrate is collapsing? The reply must be that it cannot be true across the board and that for a significant number, the opposite is the case: people want more intellectually demanding things to see and hear, not fewer. Surely both things are happening at once: part of the population is dumbing down, part is wising up.”

Full article: THE AGE OF MASS INTELLIGENCE

For a related blog article: Exercise your brain in the Cognitive Age

Here are the dates and locations of some upcoming events where I will be presenting. Please introduce yourself if you are attending!

>> September 4-5th, San Francisco, CA: several Brain Health Promotion sessions, at the American Society on Aging conference.

>> October 9th, Vancouver, Canada: Exercising Our Brains 101 and Navigating The Brain Fitness Maze, at the British Columbia Seniors Living Association annual conference.

>> October 11th, San Jose, CA: The Science and Practice of Brain Fitness, at San Jose State University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. (Information here).

>> October 23rd, Pocatello, Idaho: Cognitive and Emotional Training for Healthy Aging, at the Idaho Conference on Health Care. (Information here).

>> November 1st, Berkeley, CA: The Science and Practice of Brain Fitness, at UC-Berkeley’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. (Information here).

>> November 7-9th, Dubai: Global Agenda Councils Inaugural Summit in Dubai, organized by the World Economic Forum. (Information here).

>> November 17th, New York City: The Emerging Brain Fitness Field: Research and Implications, at New York Public Library.

>> December 5th, San Antonio, Texas: The Emerging Brain Fitness Field: Overview of Research and Tools, at the International Council on Active Aging conference. (Information here).

As always, I will share the main take-aways via this blog. I hope to meet some of you down the road!

Hello, I hope you have been enjoying the long weekend (for folks in the US).

Creating a SharpBrains Widget was in my To Do list for a good while, to make it easier to share our content via other blogs and social sites (Facebook…). Finally, it is done!. And surprisingly easy.

What it is: A widget is basically a box you can embed in your blog or webpage. For example, after creating our Exercise Your Brain widget, I just embedded it into our own blog: you can see it in the right column, titled Share Our Blog. There are several options (size, color…), very easy to customize.

Description: Exercise Your Brain. Research-based information on Brain Fitness and Cognitive Health, authored by SharpBrains staff and over 10 neuroscientists, spiced up with fun Brain Teasers.

What you can do: if you have any website or blog where you’d like the widget to appear, you can simply Get your Widget by clicking Here. Choose the options (box size, color theme, article text…) that better fit your site, and copy and paste the HTML. It literally takes 3-5 minutes.

Thank you. I hope we’ll see it appear in a variety of blogs and websites interested in brain topics, so we can expand the conversation!

 

Here you are have the bi-monthly update with our 10 most Popular blog posts. (Also, remember that you can subscribe to receive our RSS feed, or to our newsletter, at the top of this page, if you want to receive this digest by email).

 News and Events

Exercise your brain in the Cognitive Age: The New York Times published two thought-provoking articles on brain and cognitive fitness, one of them featuring SharpBrains.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the past two days, The New York Times has published two excellent articles on brain and cognitive fitness. Despite appearing in separate sections (technology and editorial), the two have more in common than immediately meets the eye. Both raise key questions that politicians, health policy makers, business leaders, educators and consumers should pay attention to.

1) First, Exercise Your Brain, or Else You’ll … Uh …, by Katie Hafner (5/3/08). Some quotes:

- “At the same time, boomers are seizing on a mounting body of evidence that suggests that brains contain more plasticity than previously thought, and many people are taking matters into their own hands, doing brain fitness exercises with the same intensity with which they attack a treadmill.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Very fun interview with Jack and Elaine LaLanne by Dave Bunnell: read it at Meet Fitness Legends Jack and Elaine LaLanne | ELDR.com. See some quotes:

• In 1936, Jack opened America’s first health club in Oakland, California, called the “Jack LaLanne Physical Culture Studio.”
• Through television shows, public appearances, and books—and by selling health-related products—they have been the most vocal and effective evangelists for preventive health the world has ever known.
• “Elaine works out,” Jack replies, “but I work out eight days a week. I spend an hour and a half in the gym, and then a half hour in the pool, and I change my routine every 30 days completely.”
• “You’ve got to go at it hard and work on different muscles,” he continues. “You know how you stay young, don’t you? You work your butt off. Anything you do in life that’s worthwhile, there’s a price to pay.”

Jack recently celebrated his 92nd birthday!

We all have to be very thankful for their life mission: a recent article from the Society for Neuroscience quotes:

“Everybody knows that exercise is good for your heart, but in recent years we’ve gathered compelling evidence that exercise is also good for your brain,” says Fred Gage, PhD, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. “We now know that exercise helps generate new brain cells, even in the aging brain.”

You can check other tips in Read the rest of this entry »