Tag Archives: brain fitness

Brain Health Tips for Going Back to School

Leave a reply

school.jpg Dr. Nussbaum’s brain health lifestyle involves five major components: these include (1) physical activity, (2) mental stimulation (brain fitness, brain games), (3) spirituality, (4) nutrition, and (5) socialization. By integrating the research-based activities from each of these components, we can generate some good ideas for the young student going back to school this year.

1. Get Plenty of Sleep

Getting enough sleep is critical to any student interested in getting good grades. Sleep is an important brain health behavior that falls into the spirituality slice of the brain health pie because it helps the brain to slow down. Interestingly, sleep is a very busy time for the brain because information gets consolidated (encoded more deeply) during specific parts of the sleep cycle. As such, the developing brain of a young child will learn more efficiently and deeply on a good night’s sleep.

2. Eat a Good Breakfast

This is more easily said then done. Our schools typically begin the day very early so it is hard for students to get up early enough to eat. However, breakfast is such an important meal for the brain because it helps to nourish the brain which can promote enhanced attention, learning and memory. Breakfast cereals have plenty of vitamins. Fruit is a great food to consume at any time during the day because it provides energy and is an antioxidant which is healthy.

3. Develop a Routine for Studying

A brain appreciates a routine and studying is one behavior that can be organized and placed on a regular schedule. Homework can be considered a child’s work and prioritized ahead of playtime with the neighborhood children, television, or video games. Working out a reasonable agreement with your child for one hour of study time after school when complete attention will be devoted to the brain focused on homework is needed. During this study time do not be afraid to play some soft classical music in the background as some research suggests enhanced learning can occur.

4. Remain Physically Active

Children that remain physically active tend to score well on tests. This is most likely due to the benefit of exercise and the fact that 25% of the blood and nutrients from each heartbeat go directly to the brain. Providing your child some time to exercise, run, and play is important so long as it gets prioritized and scheduled around homework.

5. Reinforce Good Grades

We all like to get praise and we will repeat behavior that gets praised. You cannot celebrate good grades or a good test score enough. One idea for a positive reward is to permit your child to socialize with friends in a special gathering. Socialization and being around others is healthy for the brain and fun all at once.

Best of brain health this school year!

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

Brain Health in the Corporate World

Leave a reply

boardroom1.jpgBrain health has matured to the point of being ready for introduction and implementation in the work setting and across the corporate world. Enough research exists to demonstrate the human brain is a dynamic system capable of being shaped for health across the lifespan. Dr. Nussbaum’s five factor brain health lifestyle is an approach that is easily applied to any corporate setting. CEOs and companies interested in the wellbeing of their employees should consider adding health of the brain to their wellness program!

Here are some quick tips to begin the process of implementing brain health into their corporate culture.

1. Educate the entire workforce including the leadership team on the basics of the human brain and what research tells us about how to keep your brain healthy. Consider the costs of dementia related care on your workforce and the fact that a high percentage of your workforce is concerned about their own brain health and this becomes a “no brainer” for inclusion in the company wellness program. Brain health should also be part of the orientation program for new employees.

Dr. Nussbaum is available to come to your company and speak to the leadership and workforce about brain health. It is critical to explain the why behind the what regarding brain health and a brain health lifestyle.

2. Integrate the five slices (e.g. brain fitness) of Dr. Nussbaum’s brain health lifestyle into your work culture. This can occur one step at a time with incentives for the employees to engage in the behaviors thought to promote brain health.

A. Work with the dietary staff in the cafeteria to promote brain healthy foods. This includes increases in fruits, vegetables, fish products, nuts, and juices. Reduce the trans fatty acids and fatty foods found in the vending machines

B. Encourage the employees to begin a regular exercise routine that is focused on walking and aerobic exercise. Teach the employees that each time the heart beats 25% of the blood goes directly to the brain! Every employee should be given a company pedometer to wear at work for the purpose of counting steps. We need approximately 10,000 steps daily. Begin interdepartmental competitions on number of steps taken per week or month.

C. Educate and encourage your workforce to learn how to use relaxation exercises and meditation to reduce stress. An overly stressed brain does not learn or process well and this will reduce productivity. Teach the workforce the importance of prioritizing oneself during the day and to identify what his or her major stressors are.

D. Encourage team and company socials to recreate and have fun. Socialization is an important lifestyle for brain health as it promotes mental stimulation while reducing brain passivity through isolation. Helping identify which employees are prone to loneliness and depression can also help to maximize brain function for the work setting. Socialization and opportunities for laughter and dance can help.

E. Encourage and incentivize creativity and mental stimulation (brain fitness, brain games) during the work day. Include computer stations with Fit Brains for staff to engage in daily brain exercise. Promote board game competitions, book clubs, and creative writing or story telling in the work setting.

3. Develop critical measures of outcome and after three months determine if implementation of brain health into the work setting has helped employees (1) feel better about themselves, (2) increase cognitive function, (3) promote emotional satisfaction, (4) increase physical activity, (5) reduced time off, (6) improve quality of life, (7) lower weight, reduce total cholesterol and reduce glucose, etc.

4. Begin the process of including family members in the brain health program as another benefit of working for your company.

5. Identify a core brain health team that keeps the brain health culture alive with semiannual or annual brain health events for the company and families.

This is a start for making your implementing brain health into your work culture.

Try the Fit Brains brain games.




Sex and the Brain

Leave a reply

feet.jpgI am often asked if sex is a healthy behavior for the brain. Sex is a pleasurable behavior between two consenting adults that includes several contributions to brain health.
First, sexual behavior is physically activity and will increase the heart rate, thereby delivering more blood flow and oxygen to the brain. Second, Sexual intimacy involves human touch and is a highly formalized example of human interaction. The chemistry of touch is also critical to a sense of wellbeing and connectedness. Third, the brain typically enjoys experiences that are multisensory. Sexual activity involves nearly all senses resulting in a feeling of pleasure. Fourth, the expression of love is primal and typically associated with sexual behavior. Finally, sexual behavior can alleviate stress and help the brain to temporarily escape the hassles of daily life. In this sense it represents a type of relaxation and stress reduction.

Some research indicates the male brain thinks about sex every 60 seconds. This is different from the female brain that thinks about sex much less often. However, when the two adult brains are aligned and the chemistry of intimacy takes over, sexual behavior can be mutually beneficial to each brain!

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

Brain Tips for the Summer Months

Leave a reply

summer.jpgThe summer months provide a great opportunity to review the health of your brain and to get started following some of the simple steps articulated in Dr. Nussbaum’s Brain Health Lifestyle. You will soon be on your way to building brain reserve, promoting your own brain health, and enhancing your brain’s ability to delay the onset of neurodegenerative disease.

1. Get Moving!

Research indicates that daily walking, aerobic exercise several times a week, dance, gardening, and knitting all have a positive effect on the brain. It is important to note that 25% of the blood and nutrients from each heartbeat goes directly to your brain. In contrast, passivity in midlife increases the risk of dementia later in life. Get your pedometer and start moving, shaking, and planting!

2. Improve Those Eating Habits

Summer finds us on the go between events and the many activities of our children. We develop routines of eating more and more fast food and less time sitting down to eat with the family. It is important to try and promote the following:

A. Consume more water on a daily basis
B. Push the fruit and veggies
C. Minimize the fast food and processed foods
D. Try to consume more fish
E. Eat with utensils and not your fingers and you will eat less and healthier
F. Try to eat seated meal with the family per day

3. Develop a New Hobby or Two

Mental stimulation (e.g. brain fitness, brain games) remains important in the summer months. Get started on that project or activity/hobby you have been resisting. Challenge your brain to develop a new talent or skill this summer. Your brain will thank you!

4. Take Time to Slow Down

Summer can be a time of too much activity. This is not good for the brain as stress can be health demoting. Give yourself 30 minutes every day to do nothing. Learn to turn inward through meditation, prayer, being in nature, or simply taking a walk. Having time to just exist can be very rewarding and a great opportunity for creativity.

5. Have Fun with Others

Socialization is a great thing for the brain as it provides interpersonal chemistry, sharing of ideas, laughter, and learning. Recreation and family functions or adult play can be important to reduce stress and promote happiness.

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

Exercise May Slow Brain Disease

Leave a reply

hiking.jpgAnother study has been published that supports a relationship between physical fitness and brain volume. This study explored the rate of brain shrinkage or cell loss in persons with mild Alzheimer’s disease. Subjects had their peak oxygen demand measured while running on a treadmill and this was related to their brain shrinkage as estimated by MRI scan.

Results indicate that those persons suffering AD who were more physically fit had less brain shrinkage than less-fit participants. Curiously, these same persons did not do significantly better on tests for mental performance. The authors suggested that there were not enough participants to see the difference in cognitive performance and that the study used only one measurement point which prohibited demonstration of a conclusion.

However, this study together with other research further underscores an important relationship between blood flow, cardiac health, and brain health (e.g. brain fitness).

Get your tennis shoes on and get moving!

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

Sunshine on the Brain

Leave a reply

beach1.jpgThe summer months bring warm weather, blue sky, and plenty of sunshine. For some, if not most, we may notice our mood becomes a bit happier. Is there a relationship between the sunshine and our mood? Probably, but why?

Some studies have reported a relationship between Vitamin D that is derived from sunshine and different physiological measures in the human body. Sunlight has also been related to mood with a disorder known as “Seasonal Affective Disorder” in which those not exposed to enough sunlight can become depressed. Indeed, special lights have been prescribed for those with seasonal affective disorder to help their brains gain more ultraviolet exposure to lift their mood.

Sunshine also tends to come with blue sky, relates to an increased ability to get outside and move about in nature, and to recreate more. Each of these factors is important and is related indirectly to mood enhancement.

It is important to pay attention to your own mood and determine what environmental factors may help you feel happier. If sunshine and blue sky lift your spirits try to prescribe yourself increased time outside. You may feel more energy, higher sense of self and increased productivity.

Take the suntan lotion with you!

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

How about Golf and Brain Health

Leave a reply

golfing.jpgBefore all of you jump up and down celebrating another reason to miss work and play 18, let me remind you that this particular blog is speculative with some educated guess mixed in. Having said that, I am happy to for any grant funding to study the effects of playing golf on brain health!

I began to think about the health benefits of golf some time ago, but I grew more interested during a few rounds of the game with my son. As you know, I have proposed and studied five major domains to my brain health lifestyle: these include socialization, mental stimulation (brain fitness, brain games), physical activity, spirituality, and nutrition. Golf certainly includes four of the five components and may include all five.

Golf is a game that is social. In fact, one typically plays the game with another partner and sometimes three other partners. An even more brain healthy opportunity arises when one plays the game alone and is matched with strangers to play the round. This forces a “complex and novel” environment on you that promotes brain health.

Golf is a game that certainly involves physical activity, particularly if you walk and do not ride in a cart. As 25% of the blood from each heartbeat goes to the brain there can be tremendous blood perfusion to the brain during a game of golf. This simply considers the walking and not the swinging and body motion mechanics of the golf swing.

Golf involves mental stimulation in the forms of conversation and story telling with your partners, arithmetic calculations while keeping score which can involve three digits, keeping track of your shots which demands memory, and probably trying to keep track of your partner’s shots so there is no funny business going on. There is also planning, strategy and decision making, judgment, and estimation of distance and space skills involved.

Golf can be a spiritual experience to reduce stress, have fun, slow down, and enjoy nature. Golf courses tend to provide nice scenery and a pleasant surrounding. Golf provides you an opportunity to reflect and to set priorities.

Finally, Golf can include good nutrition if the proper foods and beverages are selected before, during, and after the game. Fruits, vegetables, and fish are always great items in a brain health diet.

I believe golf is a natural activity that provides many aspects of the brain health lifestyle I have discussed and written about. So long as one does not let a poor shot or poor score raise his or her stress level too much!

Hit the links, it might just be good for your brain!

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

Life Expectancy in the United States

Leave a reply

child.jpgRecent data indicates Americans are living longer than ever before as life expectancy hit 78.1 years in 2006. Rates for 14 of the top 15 causes of death fell in 2006 according the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most significant decline in cause of death was attributed to influenza and pneumonia that fell nearly 13% from the previous year.

Life expectancy of 78.1 is up from 77.8 years in 2005 representing a continued rise over the past decades. Women have a life expectancy of 80.7 years while men remain somewhat behind at 75.4 years. Racial disparities also exist with white women’s life expectancy at 81 years compared to 76.9 for black women. White men’s life expectancy was 76 years and black men at 70.

The top two causes of death include heart disease and cancer followed by stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases such as emphysema and then accidents. Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is now the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S.

Gains made in life expectancy represent an opportunity for continued years of quality of life. Getting started earlier in life with a proactive lifestyle (physical activity, brain fitness, brain games etc.) including that designed for the heart and brain can help to maximize the quality with the increased quantity of life.

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

Rhythms, Nature and Brain Health

Leave a reply

waterfall.jpgThe first sound we may perceive as a budding human being on planet earth is the heart beat of our mother. Our brain appreciates rhythm and harmony for stress tends to be limited in such situations. Breathing in a rhythmical manner is taught to reduce stress. Scuba divers describe the peace of being under water when they can hear their breathing in an otherwise quiet environment. Humans continue to migrate to the oceans as a form of vacation where waves provide a rhythm. Others venture to the woods where there is little to distract an inner peace.

These are a few examples of how nature provides our brains with environments that promote rhythm and perhaps stabilize the symmetry of our two brain hemispheres. Our typical daily life takes us out of rhythm and hence causes a stressful disequilibrium in our brain. Research on animals indicates that an environment that is too stimulating leads to slowed brain development. Our challenge is to be conscious of our own daily behavior and the types of environments we expose our brains.

Make it a goal to seek out environments that promote peace and rhythms for your brain. This will help to reduce stress by reducing the amount of stimulation that is not healthy. A walk in the woods, a stroll on the beach, or even witness to a sunset can be more health promoting than you might imagine. Anytime you become conscious of your breathing and surrounding in a safe environment is typically a healthy moment.

The Importance of Sleep for the Brain

1 Reply

Sleep is a highly active time for brain development and brain function. There are four primary stages of sleep including Rapid Eye Movement (REM) when we dream and deep sleep or stage four sleep. It is thought that deep sleep and REM tend to decline with advanced age and these are perhaps the parts of sleep when consolidation of information takes place. As such sleep quantity and quality have a major role in what and how well we process and remember information.

REM sleep occupies about 25% of our total sleep and it is during REM that we dream. We tend to be paralyzed during this part of our sleep so we cannot act out our dreams. Without REM and deep sleep we can become lethargic, depressed, and make mistakes. Significant sleep disorders affect more than 35 million Americans and many more around the world. Sudden sleep is known as narcolepsy and can occur while driving which leads to a high number of fatal car accidents. Sleep Apnea, the first phase of narcolepsy, occurs because of a blockage of the airway and results in sudden gasps for air while sleeping. Apnea is most common in middle age, obese and hypertense males.

When considering lifestyle changes for brain health (e.g. brain fitness, brain games), one of the most important aspects of life is sleep. We tend to not get enough sleep and our brains run on fatigue much of the time. Napping is a lost art and we do not rest enough. As a result, our brains are over-stimulated, stressed, and tired. Consider this blog a permission slip to get a good night sleep and to take a nap sometime this week.