July 4th is almost here and there are likely to be BBQs, family gatherings, community events, fireworks and more on the agenda over the next few days.  Is this good for your brain? “Absolutely”, says the scientific community who have studied the positive effects of socializing on the brain - specifically delaying brain decline and reducing stress.  To give you a little incentive to get out there and mingle, here are a few articles to consider:

• Socializing Appears to Delay Memory Problems
  
• Multiple Benefits of Socializing for Older Women
  
• How important is socialization?

Convinced?  So get together with family and friends and have a great 4th of July weekend. Your brain will thank you!

The globalization of business, advances in technology, and the new knowledge economy are transforming our jobs and how we do them. Learning on the job isn’t a luxury these days; it’s absolutely necessary. And that is where your brain at work comes in.

Want to know why programing your Blackberry should be a challenge and not a punishment? Why constantly learning new things will help you learn better over time? What time of day your brain is most likely to keep new information? Why is learning on the job is beneficial for everyone?

The Dana Foundation has launched a new website - Your Brain at Work - that connects the latest research to practical suggestions for working, and living, smarter - on an off the job. Check it out.

Do you have trouble remembering things? Of course, working on memory strategies can help a lot. But what if you even forget to do your memory workout? Now, with the new “Workout Reminders” feature, you can tell the HAPPYneuron Coach to email your personalized workout on a schedule that suits you.  You may never forget your brain workout again!

To schedule your workout reminder, Login and click “My Workout Reminders”. You can select as many days a week as you like and any type of workout. Of course, to be sure you receive your reminders, you may need to make coach@happy-neuron.com a ’safe recipient’ in your email program. The FAQ can tell you how for your particular email program.

As always, to see sustainable cognitive improvements, workouts are recommended up to 45 minutes, 3 times per week and continue for 10+ weeks. Staying on track with your cognitive workout program just got little easier.

Don’t forget to tell us if you like the feature.

The 5th annual Games for Health Conference was held in Boston.  It was co-sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, from whom HAPPYneuron was a proud award recipient last year. I presented about enabling better tools for professionally guided Cognitive Remediation programs. The slides can be found here…..

According to a new, long-term research study by neurological experts at the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center, both African-American and white older patients with Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment have an increased risk of mortality.  Research results were published in the June 2009 issue of Archives of Neurology.

Alzheimer’s disease has emerged as a leading cause of death in the United States, and it substantially reduces life expectancy in those diagnosed with the disease. To date, there have been relatively few population-based studies of survival rates in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and its precursor, mild cognitive impairment.  Because these studies have primarily focused on the disease and its impact on white persons, little is known about survival rates in African Americans.

The results of the study conducted by Rush suggest that compared to people without cognitive impairment, risk of death was increased by about 50 percent among those with mild cognitive impairment and was nearly three-fold greater among those with Alzheimer’s disease. These effects were seen among African Americans and whites and did not differ by race. Read more about the study here….

The Alzheimer’s Association recently published an article on the 10 signs of Alzheimer’s disease. The first sign is occasional memory loss, like not being able to remember important dates or events, further signs are difficulties in planning or solving problems, completing everyday tasks, confusing time and place and not knowing how and why you arrived to a particular location. You can read about the different types of memory loss here and learn more about the 10 signs of Alzheimer’s disease here…

In recent years scientists have become intensely interested in what could be called a super memory club. At a retirement community in Southern California fewer than one in 200 persons out of 20,000 are living past 90 without a trace of dementia. It is a group that, for the first time, is large enough to provide a glimpse into the lucid brain at the furthest reach of human life, and to help researchers tease apart what is essential in preserving mental sharpness to the very end. Read this fascinating article at the New York Times online

The Cognitive Progress graphs have been upgraded this week, showing more of your  progressive improvements since the beginning of your cognitive training with HAPPYneuron.

There are six progress charts – one showing your overall HAPPYneuron Performance Index (HPI) progress, and one for each of your cognitive functions of Memory, Language, Attention, Visual-Spatial skills and Executive Function. As always, you can drill down for more detailed information in each area. Check it out and give us your comments.

Now, according to a study published on April 3 in the journal Science, researchers from University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health found more evidence that sleep resets the brain to allow more growth and learning the next day.  Read about their fascinating research here. So get a good night’s sleep - your brain will thank you for it.

As baby boomers approach retirement age, the field of cognitive fitness has begun to gain more prominence. In this interview with health blogger, David William, I speak about the magnitude of the economic impact of Alzheimer’s and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), the strategies that can be used to slow mental decline, and how HAPPYneuron is helping to educate the industry. Read here or Listen here….