BetterBrainBetterLife
  • HOME
  • BRAIN TRAINING
    • OVERVIEW
    • DEVICES & PROGRAMS
    • BRAIN TRAINING GAMES
    • MIND TRAINING
  • NOTES & NEWS
  • BOOKS
  • ABOUT
  • FAQS
  • CONTACT

Notes, News and Views

The most exciting frontier in human knowledge right now is the human brain. We focus on sharing research that has a practical bent: food, exercise, sleep, memory improvement, supplements and so on. We also cover personal experiences with brain and mind training. Occasional guest writers share their perspectives on brain enhancement and scientific discovery. Enjoy!

Reversing Alzheimer's: Is This Crazy Talk?

7/28/2016

1 Comment

 
By Paddy Kamen, publisher BetterBrainBetterLife.com
PictureDale Bredesen
Is it possible to turn Alzheimer’s around, to have someone walk back from a diagnosis, return to work, recall foreign languages that were lost to them, and re-grow hippocampal volume? The latest research says yes, but is that research sound? This article covers the details of this groundbreaking research, along with criticism of it. 

What constitutes crazy talk with respect to Alzheimer's treatment may be a matter of opinion. Click 'Read More' below to see where the battle lines are being drawn. 


Read More
1 Comment

E-Readers are Harmful at Night

12/26/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
E-Readers are Great, but Your Brain Needs Sleep!
By Paddy Kamen, Publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife

Did you receive an e-reader as a gift this year? If so, lucky you: they are excellent travel companions and can make the reading experience better (I like the Kindle notes and highlights features and use an iPad also). However, reading from a light-emitting (LE) e-reading device before bed can seriously disrupt your sleep, according to research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston, MA.


Read More
0 Comments

Junk Food and the Brain: The Female Advantage

10/24/2014

1 Comment

 
PictureDeborah Clegg, Ph.D.

 The mouse equivalent of a diet of cheeseburgers and fries causes inflammation in the male mouse brain. But would it do the same for females? No one had bothered studying that until Deborah Clegg, Ph.D. came along. What Clegg discovered may have profound implications for the human brain — and for how we eat.

“We knew that a junk food diet causes inflammation in the male mouse brain. We wanted to find out if the same was true for females. In humans, women are less affected in their overall health by weight gain than are men and we were hoping to discover something about this difference,” says Clegg, research scientist and assistant professor, the Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

But female rodents are more challenging to work with in the lab, because they go through hormonal cycles every three-to-four days. “Females are rarely used in research because of their fluctuating hormones,” said Clegg, in an interview with BetterBrainBetterLife.com. “But we controlled for this and gave them exactly the same diet as the males. Both sexes gained exactly the same amount of weight.”


Read More
1 Comment

What Your Personality Says About Your Brain

9/24/2014

4 Comments

 
Picture
The Edge Effect, by Eric Braverman gives us vital information on the brain and personality.

Melissa Fougere, a naturopathic doctor with a master's degree in neuroscience, finds Braverman's method helps many of her patients, and in a myriad of ways.


You too can use this fascinating technique to begin to better understand yourself or those you care about. Read on!



Picture
By Dr. Melissa Fougere

When was the last time you felt like the best version of yourself? Do you feel balanced? Are you acting in accord with your true nature? Or have you lost your edge?

Disease and symptoms of poor health are messages from the body, a sign that things are not functioning well. It‘s tempting to cover them up with medications, to drink coffee for energy, smoke cigarettes for concentration, to take sleeping pill for insomnia, or use antidepressants to improve your mood. Our physical and emotional symptoms, however, are signs that something needs to be investigated. Once we understand that chronic fatigue, irritability, anxiety, an inability to lose weight, and cravings for sugar, carbohydrates or dairy products are indications that our neural chemistry is in disharmony, we can work towards achieving the amazing health and vitality we were born for. 


Read More
4 Comments

Vitamin D and Schizophrenia

7/26/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
A new meta-analysis of the relationship between vitamin D levels and schizophrenia shows that people with this disease, characterized by hallucinations and delusions, have significantly lower levels of vitamin D in their blood than do controls.

The research, led by Dr. Ahmad Esmaillzadeh of the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in Iran, reviewed 19 studies of the link between vitamin D and schizophrenia in almost 3,000 adults. Sixty-five percent of the participants with schizophrenia were vitamin D-deficient.


Read More
0 Comments

Gut Feelings: Digestion Affects Your Brain

5/28/2014

4 Comments

 
PictureMelissa Fougere, N.D.
It's Amazing How Much Digestion Affects
 Mood, Cognition, Energy, and Anxiety Levels


Can you recall having had a gut-wrenching experience? Do you get nausea when you're stressed out? Do you experience “butterflies” before a big event? Do you ever have a gut feeling about something?



Underlying all these physical and emotional sensations is an often-overlooked network of neurons and nerves that line the tubes and organs that make up your digestive system, or ‘guts’. This network is so significant it’s often referred to as the ”second brain"!                   


Read More
4 Comments

Key to Happiness: Excellent Video

5/10/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Mind training is about gaining perspective on who we are and the mystery of the world around us. This TED X talk by Polly Young-Eisendrath, a psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in Burlington, Vermont, sheds light on how we might shift perspective and gain happiness. 
I had the privilege of meeting Young-Eisendrath and meditating in her home in Vermont some years ago. She is a colleague of my meditation teacher, Shinzen Young  (they are not related). I sense that Polly is making a wonderful contribution to our world and I consider this talk exemplary. She gives some very practical suggestions for learning to be in the moment, and for putting our experience in perspective. This is mind training, and as we know, the way we use our minds directly influences our brains.


0 Comments

Insomnia and the Brain: New Clues and Hope for Insomnia

3/9/2014

0 Comments

 
Reduced Grey Matter, and Too Much Plasticity in the Brains of Insomniacs

By Paddy Kamen, Publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife.com

Having trouble sleeping? Chronic insomnia is bad for your health, and might contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. If you’re an insomniac, your brain may even be losing grey matter.

Two recent research studies highlight differences in the brains of people with sleep problems. A third study breaks new ground in understanding how sleep benefits the brain.

Read More
0 Comments

Beauty and the Brain

2/22/2014

0 Comments

 
Art & Beauty Boost Brain: Three tidbits on art and beauty on mood and stress:

By Paddy Kamen, Publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife.com

One: It turns out that music that is considered ‘sad’ can lift your spirits, but only if you also find it beautiful. Research from the Universities of Kent and Limerick tells an interesting story: http://bit.ly/1eh4bel

Two: Research from the University of Westminster showed that even a brief visit to an art gallery  lowered cortisol (stress hormone) levels: http://bit.ly/1cBTQxo

Three: I swear that reading the poetry of ee cummings is good for my brain, and certainly heightens my mood. I came across a most interesting excerpt from a book on ee cummings by Susan Cheever recently in Vanity Fair: http://vnty.fr/Lisb9O. I would also refer you to the poems: http://amzn.to/NmhuEC.

In closing….

“Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.” Saint Augustine

0 Comments

Is The Anorexic Brain to Blame?

11/21/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
By Paddy Kamen, Publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife.com

Dangerous Eating Behaviors May Originate Physiology of the Brain 
There’s no doubt that western cultures emphasize and value thin body types for women. But to what extent are cultural values responsible for eating disorders? The jury is still out on that, but three studies reveal interesting brain deviations in women with anorexia.

First Study: Anorexics Have Larger Brain Regions

It turns out that anorexics have more gray matter in regions of the brain responsible for taste, satiety and body image.


Read More
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Subjects

    All
    Addiction
    Alcohol
    Alzheimer's Disease
    Anorexia
    Anxiety
    Appetite Control
    Autism
    Betterbrainbetterlife.com
    Blue Light
    Body Work
    Brain Atrophy
    Brain Death
    Brain Disease
    Brain Enhancement
    Brain Exercise
    Brain Games
    Brain Health
    Brain Images
    Brain Injury
    Brain Research
    Brain Shrinkage
    Brain Size
    Brain Training
    Brain Volume
    Brigham And Women's Hospital
    Buck Institute For Aging
    B Vitamins
    Children's Brain Health
    Cognition
    Concussion
    Consciousness
    Creativity
    Deep Brain Stimulation
    Dementia
    Digestion
    Eating Disorders
    EEG
    Emotions
    Equanimity
    E-Readers
    Feldenkrais
    Food For The Brain
    Glial Cells
    Grey Matter
    Grief
    Gut
    Head Injury
    Hearing Loss
    Homocysteine
    Hot Flashes
    Improve Memory
    Lauren Sergio
    Magnetic Stimulation
    Marvin Berman
    McGill University
    Meditation
    Melatonin
    Memory
    Menopause
    Men's Brains
    Microbes
    Microbiome
    Mindfulness
    Mindfulness Meditation
    Mind Training
    Mini-stroke
    Mirror Neurons
    Mood
    Mood Disorders
    Neurology
    Neuropsychology
    Open Focus
    Paddy Kamen
    PTSD
    Quietmind Associates
    Relaxation
    Rob Ford’s Brain
    Schizophrenia
    Seniors
    Shinzen Young
    Sleep
    Stress
    Stroke
    Substitute Decision Makers
    Supplements
    Teenagers
    TMS
    Turmeric
    Video Games
    Vitamin Deficiency
    Vitamin Supplements
    Weight Control
    White Matter
    Women's Brains
    Women's Health
    York University

    Sign Up
    Join Our Mailing List
    Promise: Just interesting stuff 
    and not too often!
© betterbrainbetterlife.com 2016. We respect your privacy. BetterBrainBetterLife will not share your email address with third parties.
Photo used under Creative Commons from Hey Paul Studios