Mind360 Blog

Why fight back when you can play back? Indeed, with Alzheimer’s disease making the news headlines more frequently (a no-brainer considering this terrible disease is claiming so many victims), increasingly more organizations are coming up with new ways to supposedly combat memory-loss problems.

Which methods actually help slow down or prevent the onset of memory loss is widely contested, unsurprisingly, though time will certainly tell which ones do indeed have any positive effects.

New Alzheimer’s Diagnosis Every 70 Seconds

According to The Alzheimer’s Association’s latest report, “5.3 million Americans are living with [Alzheimer’s] today, which translates into a new case of Alzheimer’s every 70 seconds. And as the oldest baby boomers are due to reach age 65 over the next two years, that rate will balloon by midcentury, so that someone will develop Alzheimer’s disease every 33 seconds.”

Read the entire article:

10 Things You Should Know About Alzheimer’s Disease

Strength in Numbers

While the general public is understandably skeptical about the various memory improvement games on the market - and other remedies claiming to stave off memory loss and other cognitive abilities - the number of new science-based enterprises entering the brain improvement game, like Mind360, is certainly a reason for hope.

Steve Daitch is the Social Media Manager at Mind360.com - a leading scientific brain training games developer for boosting your memory, attention, executive functions, reasoning, and other key cognitive skills. As a Mind360 visitor you simply select your own Personal Training Program, which comes complete with a personal coach and constant feedback to ensure your swift and visible progress.

Baby boomers are people too. And like millions of people today, those of us born between 1946 and 1964 also spend too many hours surfing the net searching for things we never manage to find. Let’s face it; generally speaking, we’re not nearly as adept at navigating the Web as those younger than us. Indeed many of us just aren’t getting the attention we’d like or need? Life, it’s fair to say, is still so unfair.

Everything you always wanted to know about memory loss but forgot to ask

There are an estimated 78 million baby boomers in the US and the number of those using the internet is, well, booming! Hence, it’s no wonder increasingly more websites, blogs and portals etc. are popping up regularly online, offering everything from mental fitness to dating. The problem now is being able to quickly decipher which sites truly serve this demographic best.

Sure, you can always Google your way to the best sites, but who’s got time? And besides, why waste more unnecessary time when your Mind360 research team has already done the heavy sifting for you?

And so, without any further ado, allow us to present what we believe to currently be the best websites catering exclusively to the baby boomer population. Stay tuned as we’ll be updating this list on a regular basis.

Top Websites for Boomers

www.eons.com�
www.rl.tv
www.aarp.org�
www.myboomerplace.com�
www.growingbolder.com�
www.boomer411.com�
www.boomj.com
www.tbd.com
www.c-boom.com
www.babyboomercaretaker.com�
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Steve Daitch is the Social Media Manager at Mind360.com - a leading scientific brain training games developer for boosting your memory, attention, executive functions, reasoning, and other key cognitive skills. As a Mind360 visitor you simply select your own Personal Training Program, which comes complete with a personal coach and constant feedback to ensure your swift and visible progress.

The mellow elderly

Many elderly people seem sweet and happy, don’t they? Well, it is not your imagination. Science confirms that they are for a very specific reason.

Negative memory reduction

A research project between members of Alberta and Duke Universities reveals that brain activity in older people specifically causes them to remember fewer negative events than younger people. Further, the events they do remember do not seem so bad, or strike as much of a negative emotional reaction as in younger people.

Changes in brain activity

This is because seniors actually use their brains differently than younger people in storing memory, according to the scientist heading the study. Age related changes were discovered in elderly brain activity when participants of an average age of 70 years old were shown images of either neutral or strongly negative events.

Changes in interaction within the brain

The study, just published this month in the December edition of Psychological Science, clarified that there was no structural change in the emotional center of the brain among the different age groups. The emotional reaction in the elderly is altered as a result of changes in how those emotional centers interact with other parts of the brain such as memory.

Less stress

Another related effect is that when elderly people do remember negative events they are clinically proven to tend to view them as less stressful than younger people do. As far as negative images and memories are concerned, research observed a generally lower response in older people.

The older the memory, the better

In other words, it’s true: we don’t just mellow with age, we get happier.

Feeling sluggish even though you been conserving your energy? That’s your brain talking. We all know how important it is to get a good sleep, but new studies continue to show more and more cognitive benefits from regular sleep patterns.

Recent studies have identified sleep as essential for learning a diverse set of new complex tasks, ranging from spatial and visual memory skill acquisition to learning motor sequences.

Studies also indicate that not only is it important to get good sleep before performing a task, but it is essential to get good sleep after learning a task as well. In fact, empirical observations have demonstrated that among test groups of people learning new tasks, those who slept after learning the new task performed the task much better than those who stayed awake over the same time period before performing the task.

In effect, we need to break up our tasks with sleep.

Learning a new task, or preparing for a new task, each requires sleep afterwards. Sleep allows the brain to rest and absorb the new lessons or challenges that have been put before it.

So don’t just wait until you are tired. Nourish your brain with strategically-timed sleep, such as sleeping through the night to let a lesson sink in, or taking a quick nap after task set-ups. Incorporate well-timed sleep into your schedule for optimal brain performance when you are awake.

Reaction time

Reaction time has always been important in daily life. Today it is more than a trendy expression. Science is identifying the specific ways in which brain training can contribute to acceleration of reaction speed, which can help us with daily functioning activities such as driving.

Improve performance

Whatever our cognitive needs and whatever cognitive stage we are in, research reveals that processing speed enables us to perform the daily activities that our lives demand of us more effectively. And the higher the level at which an individual functions, the more success and fulfillment that individual experiences, no matter what age.

Lasting results for all

New research has confirmed that cognitive training of processing speed has a visible positive impact on daily activities of older adults, with reaction speed one of the key benefits. Further, the positive results of training cognitive speed were observed to have at least a two year impact and proved adaptable to all ages and education levels.

The daily grind

Think about all the challenges that come your way during the day, from your workplace to your home to your driving environment: imagine how much more fulfilling these tasks would be if you performed them at maximum efficiency.

Increase happiness

Science has verified that older adults can benefit as much as the general adult population from having their brains trained. Better results give all of us an increased sense of gratification from our individual tasks. And the satisfaction a job well done brings can make us all a whole lot happier.

The Brain Diet

Ok let’s get right to your brain diet. Spices such as turmeric and sage or minor munchies such as walnuts have been proven to be effective brain food. But don’t worry, there are more substantial (and tasty!) forms of brain nutrition.

Entree

First there’s wild salmon (sushi anybody?). Wild salmon is one of the healthiest forms of nutrition across the board for anybody to eat. It is an essential source of Omega 3 fatty acids, as well as a source of non-animal protein, which the brain loves. Salmon improves your brain matter, and reduces your risk of stroke and Alzheimer’s among other things.

Complements

As for drinks and dessert, the cacao bean is loaded with high concentrations of cognitive enhancers. Yes, that means that chocolate is brain food! But before you run out and buy yourself a Snicker’s bar, remember that popular brands of chocolate have all kinds of additives and preservatives which are actually bad for your brain.

Organic chocolate is the good stuff your brain likes, especially minimally processed and fully organic non-alkalized cocoa powder, which you can add to a high protein drink such as soy milk (or just regular low-fat milk for those of you who aren’t so hardcore).

Munchies

If you have the munchies, high cacao percentage chocolate bars of at least 75% cacao content will feed your brain well.

Tea

Your brain also fancies a nice cup of tea, but only tea with stone ground Gyokuru green tea powder.

Berries

The well known akai berry is another source of Omega 3’s.

Blueberries are an even more amazing berry. They have been found by the FDA in a Tufts University study to actually reverse age-related decline, improve short term memory loss, and help reverse age-related loss of balance.

Cup of Joe

Finally, a cup of coffee can also do the trick, but not just any coffee: it’s all in the beans. Fresh ground gently roasted coffee bean powder is great for the brain—even the caffeine! In fact, science has demonstrated that regular coffee consumption will reduce the risk of mental decline and associated diseases such as Dementia and Alzheimer’s.

So there’s your first official brain diet: your brain is now ready to chow down!

Too Much Information

According to research, driving in many respects poses the biggest everyday challenge to cognition. Driving skills and responsive reflex require more cognitive load than virtually any other activity—even flying a plane.

Cognitive Overload

Cognitively speaking, the response required of the brain while driving overland is overwhelming: the driver must respond to instant estimates of speed and distance, as well as what is taking place in front of and around the vehicle, internally as well as externally.

The Speed of Man

The driver is also often pressed into deciding which way to go while speeding by signs amid multiple sensory inputs of sight and sound, forcing the brain to react at a speed that science says it simply has not evolved for. The brain is made to react at best to the speed at which a human being runs, not the speed of a car.

The Mechanics

Among the multiple cognitive abilities required for driving, research lists attention, perceptuomotor skills, memory, and decision-making. These partially segregated neural systems are required to interact seamlessly in the virtual blink of an eye in automobile operation.

The Solution

Driver testing programs and simulators are highly popular items right now for groups with vested interests in improving driving skills, such as insurance companies and brain injury transition centers.

Product Optimization

Tests are being conducted with the first test samples being elderly drivers to determine the most effective form and characteristics of driving simulators. The goal of program design is to predict and develop necessary individual cognitive skills on a user-by-user basis. Schools, computer software, and on-line tests will make simulation programs available on a widescale basis in the very near future.

Added Benefits

In addition to getting safely from Point A to Point B, sharpening cognition skills for driving can potentially lower fuel costs: specific driving behavior impacts fuel economy, such as removing one’s foot from the gas to stop instead of driving fast and slamming on the breaks.

Tired of trying to remember where you left your keys? Tired of running behind schedule because you couldn’t find your wallet? Well, the time has come to react fast again, to shake your brain up and use it the way you’re used to. The time has come to play games that will exercise your brain the fun way.

Mind 360: The key to the power of cognition