Archive for Brain Health
Free Memory Health Seminar For Brisbane Residents
Spring Into Brain Health with this FREE learning event you won’t want to miss
Here’s how to prevent memory loss and boost your brain fitness.
Learn how to strengthen your cognitive powers so you can stress less, have better clarity and protect the brain-based skills that are essential for full, rewarding, and independent living
Register now to lock in your seat.
Why Should You Come?
The numbers paint a story,
- 35% of dementia cases is preventable and you personally can reduce your lifetime risk by 1/3rd by taking simple everyday actions (LANCET, 2017)
- 1 person every 3seconds is diagnosed with dementia.
- Dementia affects more women than men.
- Our brain based skills help us live and enjoy our life and any threat to this can impact your independence.
We’ve put this event together to help us prevent avoidable memory loss.
Here’s What Other Memory Health Seminar Attendees Have Said About The Event
- I thought the presentation was excellent. All should attend.
- A most interesting presentation. I would certainly encourage anyone to attend.
Neuro Therapy News August:
Does Sitting For Long Hours Reduce Blood Flow To The Brain?
If you’ve been on a visit to your GP you’ve likely seen the poster ” What Is Australia’s Biggest Killer?” Under the headline is pictures of a Great White Shark, Crocodiles, Dogs, Cars etc. All with big RED crosses through them. Nope, the biggest killer is sitting, lack of movement.
So it was with interest we read the research from the Liverpool John Moores University in the U.K. who found evidence of reduced blood flow to the brain in people who sit for long periods of time.
We were interested in the cognitive and functional observations of this work especially as decreased cerebrovascular blood flow and function are associated with lower cognitive functioning and increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases.
Here is a summary of their findings
- A small sample size of only 15 participants, researchers were keen to investigate the role of being sedentary had on brain blood supply.
- Results indicate that prolonged, uninterrupted sitting in healthy desk workers reduces cerebral blood flow, however this is offset when frequent, short-duration walking breaks are incorporated.
Stress and How It Impacts Your Gut Microbiome Might Surprise You:
Gut and Brain Health: Learning from Lifestyle Medicine Conference 2018. Part 1.
We’ve all been stressed right?
Be it at work, juggling family commitments, pressing deadlines or trying to get life done. There is a large body of evidence supporting how our bodies are not designed to meet the challenges of the modern environment: multitasking, competing deadlines, technology use, abnormal light, noise exposures for example.
Stress, has long lived in the professional treatment domain of psychology but the growing research base of exercise, diet, rest, sleep are proving to be also part of the treatment equation. You could consider this “lifestyle treatments” and this forming the basis of a rapidly growing field of work under the banner of Lifestyle Medicine.
What is Lifestyle Medicine?
In practical terms, Lifestyle Medicine bridges the gap between health promotion and clinical practice with a multidisciplinary, whole system approach to the chronic and lifestyle-related disease problem.
Lifestyle Medicine is a broad church of health professionals from GPs and medical specialists, allied health practitioners, public health physicians, educators, and researchers with a growing international association footprint.
… .. Click here to read the rest
Brain Exercises Improve Brain Speed In Retirement Community
Can brain exercises improve brain speed? There is no doubt a lot of market hype to demonstrate the benefits of brain training to improve brain performance and to effect a reduction in dementia.
It’s all to clear the cost of dementia is significant for our community and if there is an opportunity to reduce the likelihood of it by 30% what would this mean to the community, to the very precious lives of each and everyone?
The LANCET (2017) showed us you can do something about preventing dementia and at its heart, it appears simple.
The LANCET’s paper shows us the benefit of brain health in action with the potential to prevent dementia in our community.
It’s important to note that “health” is such a subjective and loaded term and skewed by those who spruik it, us, allied health folk included. What’s important is that there are objective measures of brain health and performance to back up program and tool claims in order to help people obtain better brain heath.… .. Click here to read the rest
What Keeps You Sharp?
Memory loss, is the second most feared health concern of Australians according the 2016 Facing the Health of Australians report.
So, when I saw this article from a British research team it prompted me to reflect on our work together and our previous Monday Memory Health Tips.
Let me start by asking you this……
Do you think that lifestyle and genetics are equally important influences on how your thinking skills — including your memory — change as you age? By that I mean, do you think it’s a 50:50 split in how they influence your cognitive fitness?
If you said “ Yes, David that sounds about right” you’re not alone and that was the finding form a large (3000 participant) UK study published this week in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
What Can You Learn From the What Keeps You Sharp Study
The study “What Keeps You Sharp” was considered to be a pulse reading of UK citizens belief of brain health and ageing. Interestingly
- Nine out of 10 people are of the opinion that there are things they can do to maintain or improve their thinking skills; however, when asked if they knew what those things were, less than six in 10 were sure, according to the researchers
What’s good about this is that people appear to have a growth mindset when it comes to their brain health.… .. Click here to read the rest
Win these 15 Best Books For Memory Health Mastery
15 Best Books For Memory Health Mastery
If there was a dollar for every time we present and someone asks, “Is there anything you’d recommend reading?”, we’d be enjoying a few more holiday’s and team dinners.
Behind this question is a reflection of where the person is at. Likely ,
- wanting more information to make better choices,
- wanting clarity admist all the noise,
- wanting a reference when they get stuck,
- wanting to take control of their memory health destiny and are starting down this path.
We’re proud to announce:
The Great Memory Health Book Give Away
Win 15 Best Books For Memory Health Mastery
There is no doubt a clear case to involve the right people with the right skills to help you with your specific problems but for many they want to explore and discover what fits their life, their perspective. Having a handy library of go to books maybe the right step.
So to help get you started and in the spirit of Memory Health Mastery In May we’ve put together this list of 15 Best Books For Memory Health Mastery.… .. Click here to read the rest
Omega-3 Fatty Acids Help Clear “Brain Waste”
A study published in the online edition of The FASEB JOURNAL has revealed yet another reason why it is important for us to include omega-3 fatty acids in our diet. These essential polyunsaturated fatty acids which are found in fish oil appear to help clear out harmful waste products from the brain.
Mice enriched with omega-3s effectively clear metabolites
Research has already revealed that omega-3 fatty acids can be beneficial in many ways, including helping repair the brain after injury, shielding us against age-related mental decline and memory loss as we age, and allaying several psychiatric disorders. This study also shows that omega-3 fatty acids can improve how our glymphatic system (a system responsible for removing waste products like metabolites and peptides from the brain) does its job.
Researchers compared fat-1 mice that were enriched with omega-3s to wild-type mice who were not. The researchers found
- the mice enriched with omega-3s were able to remove brain waste products significantly better than the wild mice.
Some of the wild-type mice were then also given fish oil supplements which contained high levels of omega-3s.… .. Click here to read the rest
Meditation and Cognitive Gains: Positive Cognitive Changes 7 Years After Meditation Retreat
The Shamantha Project has revealed something that has even caught the attention of the Dalai Lama: meditation improves our attention spans.
The project, led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, Center for Mind and Brain, is a first of its kind longitudinal study which is investigating the psychological, cognitive, and biological effects of meditation. Researchers followed up with the participants of the study, who had spent three months at a meditation retreat several years ago, at the six month, 18 month and now seven-year post-retreat mark.
Meditation Helps Sustain Attention in Older Individuals
The 40 participants who remain in the study are reported to have continued to practice some form of meditation for an average of one hour a day over a seven-year period. Here is what the study found:
- There were immediate gains after the three-month meditation retreat.
- Those same gains in attention were partly maintained seven years later.
- This was particularly true for the older participants who were diligent in practicing meditation.
Meditation For Stress Management
Three simple tips of how meditation for stress management allows you to improve your mind.
Diet, exercise and the use of some medications can help stabilise and improve our brain and memory health. But one decades-old technique known as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) may be just the thing that can help improve your brain and your overall health.
MBSR is a simple technique, low cost and very portable.
Put simply, MBSR is about redirecting our attention on the present so that we can relax, heal, and channel our creative selves. There are a variety of techniques that can be used, such as:
- Checking in with yourself: Do you feel stressed? Is there tension in your body? Take a slow, deep breath and imagine that tension being released from your body.
- Focus on your breath: Paying attention to the pace and depth of your breath will immediately draw you back to the present. Many people who use MBSR practice “4-7-8” breathing exercises.
- Experiences “challenges” instead of “chores”: Changing the way we frame situations can turn burdensome activities into educational adventures.
Can Old Brains Grow?
It’s my son’s 9th birthday this Saturday.
I know – I can’t believe it either.
Too fast, too big – oh my how they change.
I seem to be rolling out every parent’s observation.
What’s interesting about this and the reason I mention this is that since his birth to the time in which he is an adult his brain will double in size.
In his early 20s his brain will weigh about 1.4kg and there will be about 100 billion neurons and over a trillion connections.
But is that it for my future adult son?
Is that it for you as an older adult?
The long standing belief was that the process of aging in the brain is largely a story of deterioration and decline. Key to this theory is that new neurons are not developed beyond mid teens. ( Neurons being the working cell/unit of the brain)
A number of studies have supported this position by finding no evidence of neuron growth in the pre-frontal cortex and other areas, however, it is now emerging despite the strong headwinds of traditional beliefs, there are several areas in the brain that grow new neurons.… .. Click here to read the rest
