Today - World Alzheimer’s Day, September 21, is a day when the Alzheimer’s Association and other organizations around the globe unite  efforts to raise awareness about the disease and its impact on our families, communities and nations. World Alzheimer’s Day was first launched on September 21, 1994 by ADI.  The fact that 35M people today are living with Alzheimer’s Disease (a 10% increase in just the last 4 years!) should be cause for alarm and, more importantly, cause for action on the part of our health care and health insurance industry leadership, our government elected officials and all of us as individuals. You can read more about Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures and how you can get involved to make a difference in the fight here

The Alzheimer’s Association organizes  Memory Walks across the country to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s research and education. It a great way to join others, get exercise,  and walk for the cause. Learn more  Here.

The popular executive function game Tower of Hanoi has been widgetized for you!  Share it as you will. Have fun!.

Before you try to figure out how the Egyptians built the pyramids, try out your problem-solving skills with this game. In this game, you must configure colored rings on a series of pegs in order to match a target. You can move the top-most ring on each peg to another peg, but you can only move one ring at a time and you can never put a larger ring on top of a smaller ring. From time to time, a given peg may not hold any rings: you may move any available ring you like on to an open space.

Of course, there are many excellent types of food and ingredients for your brain. But which ones are totally natural and easily available?

Let’s cover  five of the brain healthiest foods, starting with… wild salmon! We all know the benefits of salmon, especially wild as opposed to farm-raised salmon. It is a great source of essential fatty acids like omega-3 and is low in saturated fat. It can help you improve your mood, your brain matter, your synaptic connections, your arteries and reduce your risk of stroke and dementia.

At number 2, … Cacao beans! No, sorry, we didn’t say chocolate, just minimally processed cacao beans which can be found in 100% organic non-alkalized cocoa powder or high cacao percentage dark chocolate bars with at least 75% cacao content or even better: 85% and more. Cacao beans help you shape up your brain power, greatly improve your mood and generally make you feel happy!

Now, ever heard of Matcha? Well, if you haven’t, it is a type of finely-powdered Gyokuru green tea, which has absolutely nothing to do with your supermarket tea bags! Drinking Matcha is like consuming the green tea leaf itself and all its health benefits: antioxidants, catechins, vitamins, Fluoride and L-Theanine.

Also discover the acai berry and all the health benefits of blueberries a.k.a. the brain berry! The acai is a South American berry that is high in protein, contains essential fatty acids, antioxidants, vitamins and is generally highly benefiting for the brain!

Last but not least… coffee beans! You may have read that coffee has been shown to reduce the risk of mental decline and diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Coffee beans are very rich with antioxidants, amino acids, vitamins and minerals and freshly-ground roasted coffee bean powder has many brain and body health benefits. Just like cacao beans, however, coffee is best consumed in a pure form like pure espresso.

That’s the brain food roundup for today. Eat well and keep up with your brain workouts!

Source: Brain Ready.com

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.

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….

There are many memory disorders and it can be difficult to understand the differences. I am asked the question all the time “What are the different type of memory loss?” Let me offer a very brief summary here…..

• Normal memory loss: Everybody’s brain ages. As the connections and chemicals in the brain alter with time, many people forget things like names, keys or what the they went in the next room for. This is fairly normal, and does not automatically lead to deterioration if a person is leading a brain healthy lifestyle overall.
• Mild cognitive impairment (MCI): Problems with memory, language, or other problem solving functions may be noticeable to others but they may not yet interfere with daily life activities. For example, a person continually loses their keys and forget a neighbor’s names however, they can still pay bills and do their regular shopping. The presence of MCI often shows up on professionally administered screening tests. It is thought that 1 in 5 people over 70 have MCI.  Some develop Alzheimer’s disease later on and others do not.
• Early stage Alzheimer’s disease: In addition to pronounced memory problems (perhaps forgetting what happened yesterday or forgetting major news events), there can be cognitive troubles such as the inability count backward by 7s, becoming confused while planning meals or managing finances or occasionally even getting lost in the neighborhood. This condition can be diagnosed through testing and a complete medical exam to rule out other potential problems.
• Mid and Late Alzheimer’s disease: This always follows in progression after early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, there are no improvements known, only periods of stabilization with remediation and gradual decline.
• Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease: This is different from early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Early-onset Alzheimer’s starts before age 65, thus the name.
• Dementia: Dementia is not a disease itself, but a set of symptoms including memory loss, cognitive problems, and other effects of deteriorating brain function. Alzheimer’s disease is one form of dementia. Other forms include vascular dementia (caused by very small strokes) and Lewy Body Dementia (of which Parkinson’s Disease Dementia is a subset).
• Senile dementia: This is an old fashioned term that usually refers to what we now call Alzheimer’s disease.

It is also important to note that there can be other causes of memory loss, some of which may just be temporary: These include depression, stress, insomnia, alcoholism, brain tumors, medications, or many other conditions.

Last week I spoke with Adrian Berg of the Longevity Club Radio Show about the HAPPYneuron cross training program, the history of brain science, the impact of technology on the effectiveness of the program and the resulting cognitive health benefits for life.  Listen on (about 5 minutes into the show).

When  I asked our developers to create a Cognitive Exercise Widget that can be shared from person to person over the web, that very afternoon it was done. When I expressed surprise, “It’s only software :-)!”  they told me.

So, click to play and forward to your friends for the joy of sharing. And, as always, tell us what you think.

Does brain health suffer during stressful economic times? How?
Generally speaking, stress does affect your cognitive capacity and ability. Memory performance decrease, it can become increasingly difficult to difficult to focus, etc.. In fact, when you are stressed out, a number of intrusive thoughts affects your working memory performance, and therefore, your ability to concentrate on even small things. The good news is that unlike the downward trend caused by neurodegenerative diseases, this is reversible as soon as the situation is back to normal. Taking proactive steps to manage areas where you have control is important to managing stress that can effect your brain health.

Will a fit brain guard against all the doom and gloom out there?
Yes. A fit brain will be able to deal easily with the small troubles of daily life, by organizing the activities and planning actions. Being able to rely on one’s brain is one trouble less! It must be remembered that the cognition is linked to the brain’s emotional circuit; therefore it all depends on the way each individual reacts in face of doom and gloom. As Schopenhauer used to say in  The World as Will and Representation ; “thus, being able to rely on a perfectly fit brain enables you to come to grips more easily with the various ups and downs that life throws at us.” In other words, even if you cannot change the world, you can change the way you look at it.

Sandrine Belier, Ph. D.