Millions of children across the planet are enjoying their final weeks and days of summer break. Some of these children probably continued their academic habits by reading and attending different types of camps to stimulate their brains. My guess is the vast majority of children had “fun” meaning the academic part of their life has been tabled for the past two months.

Adjusting to the upcoming school year is never easy, regardless of age. With the remaining weeks left before school starts children might be wise to take 30 minutes a day to read and prepare for subjects that they have difficulty. There are some great workbooks at the local bookstores and your local school can most likely provide some worksheets to practice.

Lifestyle changes also need to begin including going to bed at earlier times in anticipation of having to rise quite early for the school day. Getting up earlier in the morning can help avoid the abrupt change from sleeping in to getting up four or more hours earlier that the school year demands.

Finally, children can think and talk about the good things they experience at school such as reuniting with friends and maybe a new pair of sneakers or a new outfit they can wear. The more school can be viewed as a positive the better the transition will be. It is always nice to hear a child say “I am excited to go back to school.”

With the recent news of the loss of the oldest man who was 113 when he died, attention is being paid to the fact that more people are living to 100 than ever before. By the middle of this century there will be approximately 6 million persons who are 100 or older. Indeed, the median age in developed countries to 50 and re-defines “middle age”.

The baby boom generation is certainly more focused on personal health than prior generations, there is more attention to diet and exercise, doctors are treating older individuals aggressively with advanced interventions, and genetics all play a role with living longer.

Japan will have the most centenarians in 2050 with 627,000 or 1% of their total population. Greece, Italy, Monaco, and Singapore will also have high numbers of those living to 100. The United States centenarians will increase from 75,000 to more than 600,000 by 2050. These are persons currently described as baby boomers and there will certainly be increased health care costs related to this demographic shift.

This demographic shift will have enormous impact across all sectors of life and across the globe.

• To reduce unhealthy stress levels, take up yoga, meditate, laugh, exercise, or care for a pet.
• The easiest way to challenge your brain is to choose a “word of the day” and then work the word into a conversation.  Improving vocabulary is a great way to challenge your brain daily.
• Ten minutes of focusing on the positive and visualizing the future each day can change the way you look at life, opening your mind to new possibilities.
• Take advantage of your natural learning booster by believing something is important. If we try to learn without feeling interested, very little of that information will be saved in our memories. When we tell ourselves that what we’re learning is important, our brains join in, triggering our learning circuits.
• Try making a list of ten things you are thankful for – just doing this daily can make a big difference in your everyday attitude and help manage stress. There is a definite connection between healthy living and having a positive outlook on life.

Click here for more tips to encourage a Healthy Brain Lifestyle…

A typical and yet interesting reality is that most women enjoy shopping and most men do not. As one interested in human behavior this is a fascinating finding worthy of some curiosity. The explanation of the differences between the two genders regarding shopping might be found in a basic understanding of the human brain.

Shopping for a male brain is defined as going into a store or mall, selecting the item to be purchased, and getting out of the store as fast as possible. This behavior is task-based, something to be confronted and completed. The male brain operates primarily within the dominant hemisphere, a side of the brain that is task based.

Shopping for a female brain is both task based and process based. For example, a female can do the same thing a male does while shopping by getting the item and getting out. However, upon entering the doors of the mall, the female brain hears music in the background, smells cinnamon rolls baking in the distance, and appreciates the wonderful different colors and textures of the products throughout the store. This is the non-dominant side of the female brain functioning, something that is foreign to the male brain within the shopping mall.

It can be fun to watch the female and male brain try to work together as “shopping” behavior occurs together. Have you ever seen an otherwise happy couple get frustrated with each other in the mall? Perhaps a little understanding of the how and why behind the gender differences can help to make the next shopping trip a good one.

We eat for many different reasons some of which are not healthy. Food is necessary for humans to survive though consumption of food in advanced nations is really not based on survival. Early in our development we hunted and remained vigilant most of the day to gather and consume food for survival. Today, food is so available in many different forms that this primal instinct to eat for survival is gone.

Today, food is consumed to satisfy hunger, maintain a routine of three meals a day, and to cope with emotions of guilt, anxiety, sadness, boredom, low self esteem, anger, and loneliness. Emotional eating is probably never healthy and leads to other problems such as obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. These problems in turn lead to increased risk for heart attack, stroke, and even dementia.

The only way to identify why you are eating is to remain conscious of your thoughts and feelings when you desire food. This will help you understand what is driving you to eat. Clearly we need to consume food for energy and function. However, most people over consume and do so on a subconscious basis. This unhealthy regimen can be addressed and transitioned to a healthy regimen of eating behavior only by becoming conscious of one’s thoughts prior to eating

Here are some activities to promote and stabalize emotional balance

Perhaps the most fundamental and critical behavior of your brain is language. The ability to communicate is necessary to our species and survival. Language is predominantly a left-hemisphere and verbal function. However, language also entails prosody or pitch and tone without words, letters, or numbers. Language involves spontaneity, content, tempo, volume, and comprehension. Language is symbolic, spoken, written, perceived and comprehended.
Read more about Language Skills…

Attention is the most basic and necessary function of the brain. The brain can attend to information from five sensory pathways. While a deeper level of processing is not necessary for attention to occur, it is also true that a deeper level of information processing cannot occur without normal attention. The brain stem and frontal lobe are thought to be important for basic attentional processing. The entire Cortex is likely involved to a degree with basic attention.

Read more about Attention & Concentration…

Listen carefully and you’ll hear the same refrain at a rising number of hospitals. From Massachusetts General to the Mayo Clinic, patients are hearing the first strains of a harmonious movement — the infusion and inclusion of music in the treatment of ailments, from brain disorders to cancer. This goes beyond the psychological smile favorite songs can induce.

Doctors are increasingly studying — and employing — the physiological dance music does with the body’s neurons and blood-carrying cells.

Researchers explore how melodies can help regulate heart, boost hormones

Most advanced nations spend a significant amount of time, money, and energy dealing with poverty and the short and long term consequences for those who live in poverty. Policy statements are drafted and then implemented with varying degrees of success. One thing is certain, no policy has removed poverty suggesting that we either have not implemented the correct policy or poverty is a reality of life.

One aspect of poverty that probably does not receive enough attention is the negative health outcomes that result from such an environment. Studies many years ago demonstrated the negative effects of an un-enriched environment on rats. Interestingly, the brain was significantly affected both structurally and functionally. For humans, poverty really represents an unenriched environment in which poor nutrition, lack of love and attention, crime, drugs, insecurity, and lack of proper mental stimulation exist.

A nation enlightened to development of our youth and to creation of a policy that understands the impact of poverty will confront this reality. Research has demonstrated a correlation between poverty in childhood and increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease later in life. While there are short term consequences of poverty, there are also long term effects particularly when one understands that poverty limits proper development of the human brain.

Perhaps a first step in creating a policy on poverty is to educate the public on the importance of environmental input early in life upon later development of the human brain. Most families will work to follow such educational guidelines if they understand what to do with regard to promoting brain health for their own children. For those who are vulnerable and without resources or adults to provide the enriched environment policies can address what is needed and appropriate resources to help developing children thrive.

Dementia is a clinical term that describes a loss of general intelligence from a previous level. There also needs to be a memory deficit and other cognitive problems such as language or visuospatial prolems. Personality is changed and there is functional decline.

It is important to note that there are approximately 100 different causes of dementia with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) being the number one cause. AD accounts for nearly 50-70% of all dementias and 95% of all dementias are irreversible. Examples of reversible dementias include B12 deficiency, thyroid disorder and depression.

It is important to seek a comprehensive dementia workup if there is any question that a loved one may be demonstrating signs of a dementia.

To Learn more about Brain Plasticity & Cognitive Reserve