The Brain Health News That You Can Use
What’s the brain health news for today? Well, the winner of the 2008 USA Memory Championship was recently announced. His name is Chester Santos and he can memorize a deck of cards in three minutes, learn 100 random words and 100 new names and faces in just 15 minutes. How does he do it?
That’s his secret. He’s willing to teach you, for a price, of course. He recently quit his software job to teach his memory training techniques full time. According to the Associated Press, the brain fitness software market was worth $225 million in 2007, more than doubling the receipts from 2005.
Due in part to Nintendo’s release of the “Brain-Age game” and now the second version of that game, the industry’s income is expected to grow again and again over the next several years. By 2015, analysts expect to see the industry take in billions of dollars.
Want more of the brain health news for today? While the majority of the games and puzzles target aging baby boomers, teenagers and college students are also getting into brain exercises.
Some teachers are using the techniques to improve their student’s ability to remember facts, dates, names, etc. It is estimated that the K-12 market accounted for $60 million worth of the earnings in 2007.
Will any of these techniques help you, specifically? There’s a bit of a question mark on that. While some techniques work for some people, they don’t necessarily work for everyone.
All that you have to do is read a few software reviews to see that. Some people love the games and teasers. Others are not impressed.
In May of 2008, the brain health news was all about the introduction of Posit Science’s new “cognitive behavioral training”. If you took any psychology classes, that term may bring to mind names like Pavlov and B. F. Skinner, whose techniques were not always pleasant.
But, the term actually encompasses a broad range of behavioral therapies that relieve conditions such as depression, anxiety and even schizophrenia. It is common today to rely on mood altering drugs for those conditions, but when cognitive therapies are combined with drug therapy, the results are always more positive.
Posit Science’s program is rather expensive at $395, but it does combine a kind of personalized program with regular assessments for effectiveness. Instead of a single exercise, the program includes a variety of techniques aimed at improving memory, multi-tasking abilities and mental clarity.
In August of 2008, the brain health news from the Washington Post was a little different. While many of us are exciting about the growing number of available options, some experts warn that consumers may be just as well off to save their money.
The Nintendo game, for example, is very inexpensive and the teasers range from a kind of “rock-paper-scissors” to telling time on an upside down clock. Researchers have shown that video games improve a person’s cognitive function, but only when the volunteers were “non-players”.
Well, that’s it for the brain health news of today. The experts all agree that the best advice is to never stop looking for new challenges.
Watch the video related to brain health
Filmmaker Stuart Browning shows the callousness of “single-payer”, government-run health care systems as practiced in Canada.
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What food contribute to your brain's health?About Author
As a counselor, I have been blessed to walk with folks who are making incredible changes in their life. I am father of Shane, 9, and Hannah Marie, 4, and I am 60 so my last high school graduation will happen when I am 84. Then I can semi-retire until Hannah Marie finishes college. Co-creator with my wife Julie of Logan Family Counseling, Inc. in Rockford, Illinois 61103
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We have to stop “The Obama Machine” lest we want to be in this same scenario. I am tired of relying on a government. We the people are the ones who know what is best for us and our children!! Not some rich democrat/republican politician! Rise up everyone, before it is too late. Vote no on the healthcare reform, vote no on cap and trade, and vote no on the federal reserve financial take over! We have the power, we are the people.
We are tired of hearing horror stories about Canada.
Cherry picked examples of a system that is not top rated.
But, as is typical..we hear straw-man arguments about Canadian horror stories.
How about a comparison to alternate systems that work? My kids live in Europe: The German system and the French have pretty good care, no waiting, and the taxes to pay for it are way, way less than US Insurance.
Note to Stuart: The American System is rated #37 overall for quality…# 1 for cost.
Can music make you feel good and lower blood pressure?
Yes. Visit;
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6SYR-4CNGSXH-1&_user=10&_coverDate=08%2F06%2F2004&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=9e6dfe93cb8d513ccd65b0f34a84410c
Does music improve brain function?
Yes, especially if you learn to play music!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060920093024.htm
Music exercises all your brain functions: visual, pattern recognition, fine motor skills, abstract thinking, spatial orientation, imagination, numerical and mathematical concepts, language, memory, problem-solving ability, while reducing psychological stress and increasing health;
http://www.scientistlive.com/news/daily-news/18874/music-improves-verbal-skills.thtml
http://www.musica.uci.edu/mrn/V6I2S99.html
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/27/9240
Just type in: “music improves brain” using your favorite search engine. You will find about a half-million results that point to proof of music’s inherent ability to improve high brain functions, coordinate multiple skill-sets, rewire the cerebral cortex to improve left-right hemisphere communication (playing music actually increases the size and connectivity of the Corpus Callosum). Music increases social confidence and public speaking ability… the list goes on and on.
Learning music is good for everything human. It is non-violent, promotes peaceful artistic cooperation and concentration.
So why is it that all public schools have had their music budgets cut?
Why is it that violent team sports are so popular and still get state funding?
It is a conspiracy or are people just stupid?
It is both.
After enough people get ‘”dumbed down” the mean IQ of our populace becomes lower. Continual pandering to the lowest common denominator in entertainment and news causes continually lowering entertainment and educational standards.
Most visual learning happens in conjunction with “mirror neurons,” those parts of the brain that recognize motions and allow the individual to imitate those motions. Even the dumbest people have them, although they use them for the only most basic survival skills. Just about everyone who can breathe can also walk, talk, throw a ball, hit something with a stick or tackle another person.
These are the basest of survival skills. That’s why baseball, driving, football and fighting are popular. Any moron can do those things.
People who develop interest in music, (or other fine arts and sciences) have better brains. Just as your muscles get better through exercise, your brain improves when you use it. Absolutely nothing in the field of human endeavor exercises multiple levels of brain function simultaneously as thoroughly as practicing music.
To play in a band or orchestra, you must concentrate and cooperate with other musicians in time, in a non-violent, win-win way. The individual wins, the group wins and the people (the audience) wins. There are no losers in good music.
So why did republicans reduce funding to schools for music while continuing to finance violent sports that promote team fighting, win-lose situations? Why did the republican controlled congress wipe out all funding for all public broadcasting which is the last bastion of high-quality music?
Because the neo-con republicans represent the owners of the world, the money masters who seek to enslave the planet. They already have enslaved us, not through force, but through steady degradation of our intellectual capacity and deadening of human sensitivity.
Schools, television and a controlled news media have continually squelched critical-thinking and curiosity while simultaneously promoting bunkum. These pernicious influences are all controlled by the same groups of profiteering plutocrats who directly benefit from war, consumerism and wide-spread ignorance.
YOUR OWNERS want you to remain stupid, fat and comfortable. They want you to believe whatever they tell you. They want you to react out of emotion based on lies. They do not want you to think. They need a large population of mindless slaves who are just marginally capable of doing menial labor in return for contaminated corporate food, endless choices for distraction and blind belief in insane ideologies.
What? …That sounds too far fetched?
Look for yourself!
Use your favorite search engine and search for these connected terms:
“Republican war on science”
“Who owns the media?”
After you spend a few minutes, (let alone a few hours, days, months or years) studying this phenomenon and all the related players, you will come to realize; You are not in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” You live in the land of the chicken-shit slave.
You are a slave to an immoral and illegal monetary system that guarantees inflation and subjugation of the poor. Check out the video; “Money as Debt.”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&q=money+as+debt&total=1492&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
You are a slave, …a rat on a treadmill, …grist, …chattel, …property.
Your children’s futures have been mortgaged to buy undeserved luxury for an elite few while most of the world suffers in hunger, hate and war. If you are among the working middle-class in America, you are getting screwed everyday for the greed of a profiteering pandering ruling class.
If you need a laugh to help you swallow this bitter pill, then check out George Carlin’s diatribe from his stand-up routine: Life is Worth Losing.
This short segment provides the truth about education, stupidity and why it keeps happening.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8198284523392007673&q=george+carlin+your+owners&total=3&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1
As you can see from the ratings, his huge audience and the positive response he gets, there are many who now realize this awful truth.
If you want to stop this horrifying devolutionary trend, then keep reading, learning and playing music… the best music you can find.
It is not the sole solution, but learning music improves your brain. When enough people improve their brains, …who knows what solutions we can find?!
One thing is certain… I have NEVER met a working musician that voted for a Texas petroleum profiteer. We see through their bullshit because REAL musicians, (not rock-stars or rappers) are just too smart. By definition, Real musicians must have functioning brains.
Having said what I have about the “neo-con republicans” certain reactionary idiots might be tempted to label me a “liberal” …as if that was a bad thing. They would, as usual, be completely wrong.
I am conservative in the old-school way. I believe in limited government, low taxes and support constitutional freedoms. That’s why I’m voting for Ron Paul, the only republican who makes sense. Look him up using your favorite search engine. See for yourself why his messages resonate clearly in all True American Hearts.
In the meantime, keep reading, keep thinking, keep listing to and keep playing music.
Music can actually help improve the whole world, one brain at a time.
his psyche might be in a coma, but I think he's fine. I have not heard anything to the contrary. BUT, a KO like that will have significant long term effects in the ring if he continues to box…He will be messed up psychologically for a long time.
Right on! Free Market System!
Bill Maher needs to tell Obama to tell SOCIALISM TO “SUCK IT!”
Technicaly if they did put a different brain in your head, "you" would die and your body would become the host for "them", the donor source!
The consciousness would be the donors, the host would be "your" old body.
But they just study them, my Grandfather donated his when he died.
I don't know about scientific studies…interesting, though constantly changing discoveries that don't prove to be truly useable information, except in the now.
However, I do wish the religious zealots would get a true grip on the balance within all of Creation. Yes, there is the male/female duality, the two sides of the coin, the Adam & the Eve, the Mother & the Father. What they fail to see is that the virtues of male/female, the essence that represents the Godhead, are not limited to environmental body vehicles. If they only understood that there are domains outside of this Earth place where body vehicles are so similar in nature that telling gender by sight is nearly impossible, and there are those that are as chameleons, able to reflect forms other than their own true identity…yet, they still contain the m/f essences…it would blow the doors off their dogma, for sure.
The duality exists even between science & spirituality (note, I did not say 'religion')…Science is the logic–the see-able & touchable, while spirituality is the emotional–the unsee-able the untouchable. Both expressing their knowing of the 'reals' of their environment as they are experienced…both ever-changing concepts of truths…the flipsides of life…the m/f essences.
Good Journey!!!
Talk about uninformed! Medicare is the single largest future liability in the country. That’s what Obama is talking about. The goal is to give government control of the system, assign most costs to people with money and ration care. It’s not complicated. Open your eyes!!
If these people knew they had problems, why on earth, would they get on a ride, that warns you about the dangers you could face, if you have an health problem. If you're an adult, you should know better, as far as kids, the parents should have intervened, if they were there. I would never jeopardize the life of a loved one or myself, just to have fun. It's so senseless, to lose your life, over something, that could have been prevented, if you would have just paid attention to the warning signs.
Elements of this country hate Bush more than they want our soldiers to succeed. Much more.
I honor and thank your friends for their service.
Great question. I have wondered that myself. Perhaps that paritally explains his maverick bravado and out-of-touch attitude.
India’s got a very good top-tier system. They have a lower system, too.
Good video. Our most obvious waste in US are the semicomatose to terminal patients that families insist we keep alive no matter what in our ICU and CCU beds. Usually 3 to 4 specialist are seeing this patient daily and billing someone. Medicare ie you and me most of the time.
So why hasnt’ this happened? We’ve had an open run for shareholders/stock holders profit system my entire lifetime. Yet despite new technologies & procedures, care has gone down hill. Serious procedures, your in an out the same day. Docs in this cost squeezing system are overworked. The rush to see patients leaves them with few min to spend making people “WELL”. It’s all about treating emergencies and acute situations. If the focus changes to keeping people WELL, its all different!
This issue is ultimately about big socialist government power vs our sacred inheritance of INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY AND FREEDOM. The right to make our own decisions as free responsible Americans. You may not know it by listening to the state run media, but 75 to 80% of Americans are satisfied with our current healthcare system. This issue is not about your health. It’s about how much of your individual liberty you will allow big socialist unconstitutional power drunk government to annex.
I don't know who told you health authorities found the practice safe – IT IS NOT!
Health Authorities ARE WARNING ITS A DANGEROUS THING TO DO!
You run the risk of death or living as a vegetable from brain damage when you screw up.., meaning someone will have to feed you, cloth you, clean you, you cant go and hang out with friends…, you have a non existent life.
DO NOT RISK IT. Other kids who practice this will tell their friends that these warnings are just to get you to stop.
Any time you shut off blood flow to the brain, there is a risk of death or brain damage.
You are un-informed and are obviously listing off right wing talking / ditto points.
Please think for yourself AFTER you have visted these countries…dont take a propaganda commercial as gospel.
IF you can afford to try expanding your mind / horizons. Talk to the people in these countries first hand. You wouldnt’ make such an un-informed decision had you met wth the people,