tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-300143642024-03-13T04:44:35.867-07:00Brain ReservesBrain Health and Fitness, Baby Boomers, Business, and Living --
Life is the game that must be played. E.A. RobinsonSherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-89380551867415621702009-05-06T22:06:00.000-07:002009-05-07T09:16:27.133-07:00Building New Lives, Building a Team<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/SgJs-VMCjSI/AAAAAAAAADY/tBebyOCduX0/s1600-h/cover-home.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 136px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/SgJs-VMCjSI/AAAAAAAAADY/tBebyOCduX0/s200/cover-home.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332944726855421218" border="0" /></a>I savor my newspaper reading on Sunday mornings along with sleeping late, steaming cups of French roast, music streaming through the house, and generally luxurious laziness. After living in Manhattan for almost 15 years before moving to the Oakland Hills in the Bay Area, my Sunday paper of choice is still the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/">New York Times</a>.<br /><br />Early in 2007, I picked up the Sunday paper from the front lawn in my pyjamas and bare feet and ran back in the house before the neighbors noticed. My eyes opened wide to see that the town--<a href="http://www.cityofclarkston.com/">Clarkston, GA-</a>-in the center front-page<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/us/21fugeeshtml?_r=1"> story</a> was <span style="font-weight: bold;">my</span> town, where I went to high school and my parents lived for 40 years. Clarkston is a small town about 15 miles from Atlanta that has experienced enormous changes in the last few years. Its apartment complexes built in the 70s and 80s have become the first homes for large numbers of refugees, processed in Atlanta and resettled to Clarkson, from all over the world. These refugees represent every continent, dozens of languages, and a vast array of skin colors, ethnic backgrounds, religions, and histories of horrible occurrences--persecution and death, for example.<br /><br />All of this, of course, is in great contrast to the conservative, previously all or mostly all-white Clarkston residents who have lived there for decades, well before the apartments complexes were built and before the refugees began arriving in large numbers. As the author, Warren St John, pointed out, Clarkston is right next door to Stone Mountain, the home for many years of the Ku Klux Klan.The Times' article detailed this recipe for turmoil, both between refugees and town residents and among the many refugees themselves from so many vastly different areas of the world.<br /><br />I know Clarkston well. I went to high school on North Indian Creek Drive in Clarkston. Our house was located about three miles south (and an hour on the circuitous school bus route) on Indian Creek Drive on several acres of land bounded on one side by Indian Creek and Snapfinger Creek on the other with trees, birds, a pond, enough lawn for playing softball and croquet and to hate the chore of mowing it all by myself. It was rural and idyllic. I left the Clarkston area to attend college and graduate school and to see the world as a Peace Corps Volunteer in North Africa. My siblings moved to more rural suburbs and our house was sold a few years ago but not before we noticed all the changes in the area. And I, given my Peace Corps background, became a dedicated traveler and proponent of global understanding. Little did I realize that I could have just stayed in Clarkston and learned as much or more about our new and diverse world.<br /><br />The amazing Times article told the fascinating story of a female soccer coach from Jordan who put together a team of teen boys from multiple countries speaking multiple languages to play league soccer--their person trials and town clashes. Warren St. John has now expanded that story into a fascinating book--<span style="font-style: italic;">Outcasts United</span>-- that uses the Clarkston story to examine what's happening in our world, well beyond the Clarkston city limits. We really do live in a global society now but can we cope with all the differences among people in our communities? Can we emphasize the similarities and begin to work together in meaningful ways? How can we even begin to communicate and find and nurture the best in our young people? How can we learn to respect each other so that we can find and enjoy the richness of this diversity?<br /><br />I just finished reading <a href="http://www.outcastsunited.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Outcasts United, A Refugee Team, An American Town</span></a>. In fact, I couldn't put it down. Bravo! This riveting story combines touching personal narratives with thoughtful observations that serve as a catalyst to some deep thinking about our current and future world. And it's all happening right now in my little, sleepy home town of Clarkston, GA, as it probably is in small towns all over America. For a look at Clarkston's new soccer team members, check out their <a href="http://www.fugeesfamily.org">site.</a><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-65107894549762090302009-03-23T20:00:00.000-07:002009-03-23T22:24:28.981-07:00Open Source TechnologiesToday I attended a conference on the state of Open Source technology--the Global Open Source Colloquium, sponsored by <a href="http://www.sdforum.org/">SD Forum</a>, a Silicon Valley-based organization for technology entrepreneurs, and Microsoft, among other sponsors. From all reports by participants, ranging from industry analysts to venture capitalists to CEOs of open source companies to developers, Open Source is alive and well, especially in this downtrodden economy where price for value is more important than ever. I was excited to hear the CEO, Michael Doyle, of<a href="http://www.medsphere.com/"> Medsphere</a> talk about using the VA Hospitals' Vista Open Source electronic medical record software to adapt to the greater world of hospitals out there. Combined with the fairly dramatic incentives in the Obama budget for hospitals to get going on the EMR, we may actually be able to see progress soon. I certainly hope so.<br /><br />The other big success story mentioned numerous times was Sugar CRM, clearly a value-oriented alternative to SalesForce.com and growing at a whopping 20%+ annually, which is basically unheard of in this economy. But folks still need to sell. Something.<br /><br />The issue has always been: how to make money with Open Source so that reinvestment and growth can occur and so investors will want to put their dollars into the stew. The answer seems to be in hybrid, partial, and mixed Open Source models. Build something proprietary on top, in the middle, or on the side and charge for that. Training, service, and hardware are not the way to go--thin margins and great uncertainty prevail. Outside of the US, revenues are driven by governments' need to cut costs. Standards on everything from contracts to who does what when are still a bit squishy but everyone agreed, creating community is the most important thing about Open Source. Loyal believers can make an app grow and grow fast. The key is looking at that what to do and how to charge as free downloads begin to move up the charts fast. After all, all this work does take $$$s to develop and maintain.<br /><br />My take away: Many VCs will shut their doors this year. The ones who are left are likely to look at companies differently than they have in the past and hopefully, will abandon the herd mentality and choose ideas on their merits. Open Source technologies, especially creative plays on them, will have a shot at getting funding and growing into what will later be their natural place in the ecosystem.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-88535824692635228432009-03-22T19:59:00.000-07:002009-03-22T20:40:59.866-07:00I Like Feeling Productive!I feel so fortunate to be living in Northern California with farmers' markets close by, overflowing with fabulous local produce. I usually go to the <a href="http://www.urbanvillageonline.com/markets/temescal.php">Temescal Marke</a>t on Sunday morning because I like the low-key atmosphere, the long lines for a personally brewed cup of organic coffee (I rarely stand in it but I like seeing it), and lots of parking since it's in the DMV lot. I arrive in my Prius and load up my reusable bags and trot over to my favorite vendors.<br /><br />Spring is on the way and I can tell. Winter squashes are no longer the mainstay and artichokes, asparagus, and butter lettuces are in abundance. I am almost always seduced by the allure of fresh food at the market. I therefore overbuy. To avoid my husband's sarcastic comments, I then spend Sunday cooking "for the week." Today I listened to James Brown, Mariza, and Angelique Kidjo, and cut up beautiful blood oranges, red onion, and fennel (great with a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper to be eaten alone or mixed with baby lettuces). I then moved on to lovely red chard, starting with my standard approach: some minced garlic cooked for a couple of minutes in olive oil ready for the cleaned chard stripped from the chunky stem. I usually throw in a handful of raisins, some hot pepper flakes, salt, and pepper, and a hearty lemon squeeze. So delicious. And so simple.<br /><br />On to an Aisan noodle dish--adapted from <a href="http://www.pbs.org/everydaycooking/">Everyday Cooking</a> on PBS. My niece, Margot Olshan, is a regular chef so I watch every chance I can. I also go to her restaurant--<a href="http://www.margotcafeandwinebar.com">Margot Cafe and Wine Bar</a> in Stamford, CT-- every chance I can. Really delicious!! The noodle dish is so easy and good cold (I'm thinking lunch tomorrow): soba noodles for 7-8 minutes in boiling salted water, remove to a bowl, and use the same boiling water for 6-8 ounces of cut green beans for 7 minutes. Remove to the bowl. Add some diced silken tofu, a couple of minced green onions, and a quick sauce of 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, 2 tsp. of sesame oil, a pinch or so of sugar, and 2 tbsp fresh lime juice. If I have any fresh cilantro, I throw that in, too. Really great after a night in the fridge. Meanwhile, I've been cleaning and cutting cauliflower (the white, orange, and green "spacemen" types), turnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, red and orange beets. So easy. Mix with some olive oil, thyme, salt & pepper and roast in a hot oven for 45 minutes. Roasted veggies are good as a side dish, as a main dish, or in salads during the week.<br /><br />In the middle of the afternoon, I took off for a charitable event--a tasting of fabulous desserts to raise money for <a href="http://www.rubiconprograms.org">Rubicon Programs</a>, who've helped over 1000 people find jobs. My host is writing a novel, in fact two at once. I became depressed because I am not as disciplined and don't feel I've done anything significant lately. But I got back , hit the kitchen, and felt productive again. Forgot to mention the delicious curried cream of broccoli soup from Jane Brody's Good Food Cook Book, one of my faves.<br /><br />Work. Yes. A good feeling. Yes. Ready for the week. Yes. Nutritious and tasty. Yes.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-25428109835123424082009-01-23T19:48:00.000-08:002009-01-23T21:02:22.490-08:00Is Travel Addictive?For me, travel is addictive. I really like getting out of my comfort zone when I'm traveling and in a different culture, language, and place. I just got back from a month in Vietnam and Cambodia and I'm ready to take off again in a totally different direction. I think it is a good addiction. My father was a Navy guy who had traveled all over the world and loved learning about the cultures and geography of the rest of the world. I treasured the slides from Turkey, the linens from Ireland, the stories from Russia, the glassware from Italy (and the stories), and the silk slippers from North Africa. I was convinced my father had been everywhere. And indeed, he had been to most places in the world except for the Pacific. Although when I moved to the Bay Area in California, he told me about his trip around South America from New York to the Port of Oakland! So maybe I came by this urge to travel naturally. My younger siblings are not so interested, I've noticed. I can't get enough.<br /><br />So starting from much earlier than my Peace Corps days in North Africa, I've enjoyed learning about other cultures,their history, art, commerce, food, language,writers, and religion. I've been fascinated about the nuance of other ways of looking at the world. Point of view can be influenced by so many things and it's so interesting to parse through those "things."<br /><br />Here's my theory: travel (the way I do it) is both physical and intellectual. I'm not a "tour" person because I really like to have some idea about how real people live so I stay in very low-cost hotels, travel by bus and train when I can so I can see more and interact more with real people, and eat street food or choose small, local restaurants whenever possible. I like to talk to folks in other countries to find out what they're thinking about and how they see the world. I walk everywhere, miles and miles a day when I'm traveling.<br /><br />I think the combination of intense learning and intense physical activity is additive. It just feels good. Our brains and bodies know it's good for us. That makes us want more! I'd love to see some research on this topic! This is the best way I know to create new neuronal pathways and synapses as a brain fitness prevention tactic! I forgot to add: it's fun! (And maybe that's the most important thing about travel.)<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-40031741954754439322009-01-20T07:34:00.000-08:002009-01-20T09:45:49.444-08:00Miss Sarah Thornton: This Day Is for You!Like so many Americans, I can remember when things were very different. I can remember when there were segregated schools, restrooms, and water fountains. Worse, I can remember racial jokes and epithets spoken as everyday social currency, accepted and encouraged. I can remember lawyers and politicians and educated professionals turning a superior, patronizing eye toward any person with black skin, not stopping to consider that person as real human being, unless he or she had on a service uniform or cared for and loved the family’s children or cleaned the floors and toilets of their house.<br /><br />I grew up in the rural Deep South. I remember when the college I attended accepted its first two black students, who so bravely made their way to class, almost always alone and often taunted on the way. I remember the triumphant passage of the Civil Rights Act. I also remember my job as one of very few white teachers in a previously black middle school in a small town in northeastern Georgia as court-ordered desegregation rolled into town, changing it forever. The local all-white academy slurped up large numbers of white students from the community, and fear, mystery, and the tingle of change surrounded this new, and to some of us, exciting and formidable endeavor.<br /><br />I also remember Miss Sarah Thornton, one of my fellow teachers or her “colleague,” as she liked to describe me. Sarah, an experienced English teacher, loved her job, rejoiced in her students, and enthusiastically embraced learning and change. Sarah was pretty, young, professional, smart, and always meticulously dressed in skirts and blouses, high heels, a good watch, and tasteful jewelry. She exuded enthusiasm about her great responsibility to help build young minds, encourage thinking and right doing, and lay the groundwork for life-long intellectual curiosity, especially using reading as an avenue to that end. Sarah Thornton was Black, when it was just beginning to be cool and progressive to use the term “Black,” just as the description “Negro” or usually “Negra” in the south, began to pass out of existence in everyday language, and before “African-American” replaced both.<br /><br />Sarah and I had the same prep hour and so usually found ourselves alone in the tiny teachers’ lounge on a daily basis. We began to talk, at first sharing our lesson plans and teaching ideas. We were both determined to succeed in this new and different world of integrated schools. We wanted our students, our colleagues, black and white, our school principal and superintendent, and especially the parents to be proud of our students and even more proud of the great education they were getting from us. As time went by, we began to share more and feel more comfortable with each other. Our conversations evolved into discussions about life, family, beliefs, and hopes for the future. We found we had similar values. We each wanted to understand the other. We could see a time beyond the divide of color and we knew we were important soldiers in that war. We were exhilarated with our insights and plans and shared our hopes with each other. We became good friends.<br /><br />As I moved on to new places, new degrees, new careers, Sarah continued teaching in our school, always enthusiastic and eager to learn. She kept up with me via irregular, late-night calls to where ever I happened to be--Boston, Manhattan, and Westchester. I remember her last call to me. She had had a mysterious illness, which she refused to name or describe in our conversation and she obviously was not feeling well. But I knew she really wanted to talk even though her voice was a wisp of its former self. Sarah always asked questions about my work. Business was not really something she understood. But she wanted to and I felt that deeply. Because it was my work and she cared about me. As the late night crept by, Sarah said a long good-bye, softly but earnestly. I can see her in my mind’s eye holding the telephone to her ear in her bed in her small house by the railroad down the dirt road off the highway rimmed by pine tress and cotton fields. We connected as people important to each other as we always had. Sarah died shortly after that call.<br /><br />The inauguration of our new president, Barack Obama, is a moment, a time, an era that Sarah would have loved. In fact, she would have gone wild in her professional, actually quite conservative, and appropriate way. She would have known, as I do, that this huge change in this country is symbolic—it is one incredible man at an incredible time. But it happened. It’s a huge step I did not think I would see in my lifetime. And Sarah would have agreed with me. We would have buzzed on the phone about the platform that at least allows people of all backgrounds to come together and talk about our problems and issues and work hard to figure it out. Just as Sarah and I did in that hot, small room with the old lumpy sofa we called a teachers’ lounge so many years ago.<br /><br />I contributed to the campaign, worked on it, and voted for Obama. I was also a volunteer at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Every step of the way, I thought of Sarah. And today, as President-elect Obama becomes President Obama, a tear comes to my eye. I’m talking with Sarah in my mind. We’re excited and challenged by these incredible events. We know it will be difficult to translate these feelings into the reality of making it all work. But we are ready to chip away at this task together. We know the drill, Sarah and I.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-70313988413924895752008-03-30T19:12:00.000-07:002008-03-31T12:41:29.815-07:00Travel: Food for Our Learning Machines (Our Brains)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/R_BQ7D7lfbI/AAAAAAAAABg/e1fAYlNO-18/s1600-h/IMG_0976.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 228px; height: 205px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/R_BQ7D7lfbI/AAAAAAAAABg/e1fAYlNO-18/s200/IMG_0976.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183732146701172146" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/R_BQej7lfaI/AAAAAAAAABY/6ONX7DZ-A5M/s1600-h/Rockpool.Sydney.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 220px; height: 222px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/R_BQej7lfaI/AAAAAAAAABY/6ONX7DZ-A5M/s200/Rockpool.Sydney.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183731657074900386" border="0" /></a><br />As I was consulting the map for the upteemth time in Sydney, I was thinking about standing on my head to get a more realistic view of where I wanted to walk next. I began thinking about how good traveling is for our brains. I walked miles and miles (or km and km) everyday. I know that's good for me. I read maps (straightforwardly or on my head). I planned ahead--where would I go, what did I want to see, where would I be likely to have lunch or dinner, what would I do, what did I want to accomplish? My goodness! I was using those executive function skills to excess.<br /><br />And Sydney was great! I went to all the museums and especially enjoyed the Aboriginal art. I walked around Darlinghurst and Paddington and went to lots of great galleries and shops. I ferried over to Manly and took the bus to Bondi Beach. I then walked the Spit Bridge to Manly walk (10 km) and the fabulous Bondi Beach to Coogee Walk, one of the great walks in the world.<br /><br />My favorite: the rockpools. I felt like Burt Lancaser in "The Swimmer." Haven't seen that one? Get it from Netflicks. He relived his life swimming pool to swimming pool in Westchester County, NY (where I used to live). The Rockpools are the swimming pools that have been built into the rock formations along the coast of Sydney. They typically have two concrete walls built into the rocks that then form a pool, anywhere from 20-30 meters to 50-60 meters. They're all salt water pools. The tide washes over and refreshes the pool with a few new fish every day. I love these pools. With my goggles on, it's like the best snorkeling in Hawaii. There are 26 of them around Sydney. Why in the world doesn't the rest of the world have these? They are wonderful! I roamed around Sydney, swimming from pool to pool along my walks. Fabulous.<br /><br />One of my favorites was the women's pool near Coogee. Although small--20 meters or so-- it was so lovely and friendly. Lots of scantily clad women and kids were jumping in the water, climbing over the crabs crawling along the walkway. I loved the outdoor shower and I unabashedly climbed out of my suit and into my clothes for the rest of the walk. Refreshing to be among the mermaids on the hill.<br /><br />Everywhere I went, swimming, people asked me: "what about the presidential process?" They all admitted easily to hating Bush. But they were curious about what was next? They were worried about us.<br /><br />I said, " I don't know what will happen but we hate Bush, too. We're just in a terrible mess. In every possible way."<br /><br />All the men who wanted to race me in the rockpools nodded in agreement. They want things to be better for us. Because it will be better for them, too.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-58447938512192366302008-02-07T10:37:00.000-08:002008-02-07T11:34:32.442-08:00In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/R6tQrQkiu1I/AAAAAAAAABI/RYq4S0JdOIg/s1600-h/InDefenseFood_cover_thumb.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/R6tQrQkiu1I/AAAAAAAAABI/RYq4S0JdOIg/s200/InDefenseFood_cover_thumb.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5164310101823241042" border="0" /></a>Even though I had read Michael Pollan's lead-up article to this book in the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/">New Yorker</a> and his other<a href="http://www.michaelpollan.com/"> books</a>, I found this one a page turner--fun to read and truly informative. <br /><br />Already oft-quoted, the first words of the book summarize his extensive research and beliefs about food: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." In other words, <span style="font-weight: bold;">don't</span> eat anything that has not traditionally been called food (recognizable by our grandmothers as food), which cuts out most processed concoctions in fast-food chains and much on grocery store shelves.<br /><br />Eat plants because we need the complex interactions of the nutrients they contain. Pollan points out that there's no way to figure out which traces of what affect the whole nutritional value of what we need to eat. Singling out one vitamin, for example, and taking supplements of it is far, far inferior and may be quite deleterious to our health because we miss out on all the other interactions among minterals and vitamins in our food that we need to be healthy. Bottom-line: we just don't know enough yet so don't mess with the foods that have kept people healthy for centuries. I recognize this argument as one put forth by the scientists involved in the <a href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiary/AlzheimersDisease/tb/3108">Washington Heights-Inwood-Columbia Aging</a> project. After analyzing the diets of the participants, they concluded that those who had consumed a "<a href="http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Alzheimers/6-04-18-AlzheimersRisk.htm">Mediterranean Diet"</a> (another way of saying "eat plants") had a dramatically lower risk of Alzheimer's. They hypothesized that one reason was because of the complex interactions of the many, many trace nutrients in plants<br /><br />We've all been through the butter-margarine as engineered butter debate from the 50s on. And we finally now know that margarine is terrible for us, butter not so much (if we use it with a very light hand). There are many other examples of this kind of food engineering that moves beyond not making sense into really bad stuff.<br /><br />I never really understood the arguments against genetically modified food until I read this book. I now realize that going for the most calories per acre cuts out the zillion varieties of fruits and vegetables that we have enjoyed--and all the complex mixture of nutients in that vast array. I now shop frequently at my local Farmers' Market and I have enjoyed the aesthetics and the taste of more variety. For example, have you seen those red and green cauliflowers sitting beside the omnipresent white ones? The green ones look like space helmets or part of an animation project. I'm discovering new tastes and new recipes and enjoying myself immensely in the process.<br /><br />The "not too much" food is especially relevant to Americans who have a huge love of quantity. It's high time we copied the French on this one: quality trumps quantity every time.<br /><br />I hope this book stays on the bestseller list forever. We all need to be aware of what we've done to our food supply and take steps to make meaningful and lasting changes.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-993485151020115472008-01-28T14:53:00.001-08:002008-01-28T15:47:48.724-08:00vibrantBrains: San Francisco Brain Gym<a href="http://www.vibrantbrains.com">vibrantBrains,</a> a gym to exercise our brains, has recently opened in San Francisco. We all buy into the health club idea for our bodies so why not one to tone our brains, too? The vibrantBrains folks have created a pleasant, bright space on Sacramento Street, close to cafes, shops, and residential areas. They have the front of the club filled with interesting books, including some bestsellers, by scientists and others on various aspects of brain research and how the brain works; the middle part of the club is filled with state-of-the-art computers with headphones nearby. A lounge area with comfy chairs and tea, coffee, and water always available fills the floor-to-ceiling windowed alcove at the back of the club and is a great place to chat with other members. They have developed Neurobics Circuit Training, which incorporates a number of scientifically based software programs that enable a club member to work on different skills for each visit or a variety of skills within a workout and at a huge discount over trying to find and purchase these programs individually. These games and exercises, based on hard science, emphasize different skills, such as memory, reasoning, visual scanning, word recall, and quantitative facility, or a combination of many of these skills at once. They also focus on increasing speed and accuracy, with practice.<br /><br />Just as we need to lift weights to insure that are our muscles are strong enough to swim or dance, we also need to strengthen our speed and accuracy with memory, reasoning, and visual scanning skills to make sudoku or a crossword puzzle fun. Or to make a challenging book enjoyable to read.<br /><br />For those who want to add more intensity (and hard science), vibrantBrains also makes other programs available at a discount to its members, including Dr. Gary Small's (from the UCLA Center for Aging) <a href="http://www.aging.ucla.edu/memorytraiing.html">Memory Fitness Course</a> and <a href="http://www.positscience.com">Posit Science's Brain Fitness Program</a>.<br /><br />The vibrantBrains innovative founders, Jan Zivic and Lisa Schoonerman, may just have latched onto a trend that Boomers and others must incorporate into our lives to keep that notion that "60 is the new 40" alive and well. And just to enjoy our lives more. They will also offer a speaker series soon as well as book clubs and other related activies.<br /><br />I, along with most people I know, have figured out that I need a variety of exercises for my body, from aerobic ones like swimming and dancing, to weight training to flexibility training, such as yoga and Pilates, just to maintain. It's high time we added in specific exercises to tone the various everyday brain skills we need to maintain and even increase the quality of our lives. Better memory, reasoning, language, quantitative, and visual-spatial skills have to make living just more interesting and more fun.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-23832531072459030752007-07-06T08:56:00.000-07:002007-07-06T09:18:18.097-07:00An Active Mind Is a Healthy MindHow many studies do we have to see before we accept that exercising our brains makes them highly likely to be healthy throughout our lives? The Chicago Aging Study from the Rush University Medical Center has just released results of yet another aspect of their large, multi-year study. This time, more 700 than folks with an average age of 80 were observed. The people who regularly and consistently engaged in cognitively stimulating activities--reading the newspaper, playing chess, seeing plays, reading and visiting the library--were 2.6 times less likely (almost three times less likely!) to develop dementia and Alzheimer's than those who did not engage in such activities. Even mild cognitive impairment, typically associated with age, was greatly delayed and reduced. <br /><br />I find it interesting that so many of the activities described were interactive ones. In other words, other people were involved, as in a chess partner or seeing a play or going to the library. I believe we will find in future studies that positive interactions with others is a significant method of motivating us to keep our minds in gear.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-42160728018168781662007-07-04T13:13:00.000-07:002007-07-04T13:39:45.302-07:00Chocolate Is HappinessWe've known for quite some time that eating dark chocolate can lower blood pressure and help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. But now, due to research at the University of Cologne led by Dr. Dirk Taubert and published in this month's <a href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/298/1/49"><span style="font-style: italic;">JAMA</span></a>, we know that very small amounts (30 calories) of dark chocolate eaten regularly (actually every day in the study) can have a significant effect. What is small? Just one small square of the usual-sized chocolate bar of the $1.99 (or more, depending on how fancy you get) type.<br /><br />There are two things I love about this study, OK, three: (l) chocolate is really good for us (if we don't eat too much); (2) small amounts make a difference; and (3) like so many other things about our bodies and minds, regular, consistent intake of small to moderate amounts of dark chocolate is the key to maximizing the healthy effects and lowering cardiovascular risk (around 8% in the study, which is significant). So savoring that tiny sliver of delicious, dark chocolate placed beside your coffee cup in your neighborhood French bistro really makes sense. No need for guilt. Instead, feel grateful for cocoa polyphenols!<br /><br />This news was big enough to make the front page of the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/04/MNG42QQSUE1.DTL">San Francisco Chronicle</a> today. We love our food, especially chocolate, here in the Bay Area.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-25742937086172224342007-06-26T11:29:00.000-07:002007-06-26T12:04:45.524-07:00More TransitionsQuixit, Inc., the company I started in 2005 to distribute scientifically based casual online games that focus on specific cognitive skills, such as attention and memory, was acquired yesterday by SBT, a French firm based in Lyon, France. As of today, I will no longer be affiliated with the new company, now called HappyNeuron, Inc. In my roles as CEO of neuroscience technology companies, Quixit and previously Scientific Learning Corporation, I have enjoyed getting to know the scientists, researchers, journalists, publishers, and many others so keenly interested in trying to figure out how to add to our knowledge base about healthy lifestyle choices, the impact of nutrition and exercise on brain health, and the major effects of mental stimulation in keeping our minds healthy and agile. So much is known yet so little has made its way to most people. And there is so much work that needs to be done. I look forward to the now-frequent research reports coming out almost on a weekly basis from respected research institutions on these topics and applaud those in the trenches working to prevent and treat diseases of the mind.<br /><br />I continue to be curious about and interested in brain fitness and how we all can lower the probabilities of age-related cognitive decline, especially Alzheimer's and other kinds of dementia. I've seen first-hand how devastating the effects can be on the patient, family, and friends. The good news? We can all hope and expect that we will see great strides in our lifetimes in what we know about these horrific diseases of the mind.<br /><br />Change typically forces new learning and is an excellent way to keep our brains in shape. So change is in the air for me and I welcome this opportunity to move into something new and different.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-63487657967375737132007-06-20T19:32:00.000-07:002007-06-20T19:58:07.077-07:00Evening: Conflict, Regret, Resolution, PeaceI have recently gone through losing my mother first to dementia and then to death. I of course felt that my experiences were unique. And probably universal, although knowing how exactly is a little difficult. The movie, <span style="font-style: italic;">Evening</span>, proves that lots of other people have probably lived through similar situations. The fights between siblings (just too much tension builds up). The last gasp of incredible focus and energy that comes from saying good-bye. The memories that both warm and invade almost every moment. The tears. The regrets. The guilt. The love. The amazing ability of the mind to worry about mistakes and to grasp redemption and resolution and come to peace.<br /><br />I was lucky enough to see an early preview of <span style="font-style: italic;">Evening</span> at the beautiful, restored art deco theater, the Smith Rafael Center in San Rafael, California, also the home of the California Film Institute, sponsor of the Mill Valley Film Festival. The cast of this film is truly amazing: Vanessa Redgrave and her daughter, Natasha Richardson, Meryl Street and her daughter, Mamie Gummer; Glenn Close, Claire Danes, Eileen Atkins, Patrick Wilson, and Hugh Dancy. Just to see all these incredible actors in one film was a wonderful experience.<br /><br />The director, Lajos Koltai (formerly a cinematographer of films such as <span style="font-style: italic;">Being Julia)</span> and one of the writers, Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize winner for his novel, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hours</span>, were on hand for Q&A after the film. The film was inspired by Susan Minot's beloved novel.<br /><br />Asked if the film is a "chick flick," both Cunningham and Koltai said, emphatically, "No!" I agree. It explores universal conflicts that come up between parents and children, between siblings, and between memories, yearnings, and a desire to feel that we've lived every moment to its fullest and made the best decisions that we could have made, that we loved well and lived well.<br /><br />A lovely film. It will be coming out in theaters on June 29. Try to see it.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-17654744339914594962007-06-15T14:02:00.000-07:002007-06-15T15:21:36.084-07:00In Search of Memory<span style="font-style: italic;">In Search of Memory, the Emergence of a New Science of Mind</span>, by Eric R. Kandel, is not what I had in mind for summer reading. I was looking for a mystery when I wandered over to the nonfiction area of my little neighborhood bookstore. Kandel's book looked interesting, was highly portable in paperback, and a possible choice for my upcoming plane trip. I knew Eric Kandel was at Columbia and was a Nobel Prize winner for his work on the mind but that was about it.<br /><br />I read a few pages, overcame my belief that this one could likely be dry as dust and bought it. It turns out that Mr. Kandel is quite a writer in addition to being a great scientist. He pulled me in immediately with his descriptions of his early life in Vienna and I never got out again. From there, I was whisked into his love affair with medicine and science and the mind, not to mention real people, like his wife and children. He intertwined his love of art, music, fine wines, and good friends with his fascination with the behavior of the aplysia's cells and the biology of memory. He also managed to sneak in a chronology of scientific research on cognition and the mind from its early beginnings until today and in an understandable, extremely interesting way.<br /><br />He included a poem, written by his young daughter, titled (of course) "The Aplisa." "An aplisa is like a squishy snail. In rain in snow in sleet in hail. When it is angry, it shoots out ink. The ink is purple, not pink. An aplisa cannot live onland. It doesn't have feet so it can't stand. It has a very funny mouth, And in winter it goes to the south." Kandel was clearly obsessed and his family knew it. The rest of us on the planet should be thankful for his compulsive curiosity about what was happening in the cells of the aplysia. We are also fortunate that a number of other creative scientists were beginning to think about the mind differently than in the past at around the same time so they could build on each others' work. They were beginning to realize that so many of the mind's functions are controlled by the biology of the cell. Amazing that understanding the chemical reactions in the cells of one of earth's smallest organisms has enabled gigantic progress in our understanding of what we like to think is one of the most complicated organs on earth, the human brain.<br /><br />For a magnificent review, please take a look at the <a href="http://neurophilsophy.wordpress.com/2006/07/20/book-review-in-search-of-memory-by-eric-r-kandel-510pp-ww-norton-30/">Neurophilosophy</a> blog. Better yet, read the book. A great story. A wonderful life.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-12848879300956864272007-06-14T09:54:00.000-07:002007-06-14T10:38:45.494-07:00Sicko: We Must Change US Health Care NowLast night I was invited to the first Bay Area screening of <span style="font-style: italic;">Sicko, </span><a href="http://www.michaelmoore.com/">Michael Moore's</a> new film about health care. Funny, tragic, entertaining, thoughtful, and energizing; see it! The audience cheered and clapped in a standing ovation for almost 10-15 minutes, similar to the reception the film received at the <a href="http://www.festival-cannes.fr/index.php/en">Cannes Film Festival</a>.<br /><br />Mr. Moore was there for a Q&A. "What can we do to change things? How long will it take us?" were recurring questions in different guises from the audience. In other words, why do so many other countries in the world look after their citizens' health through universal health care but in the US, health care is seen as just another business with the P&L always top of mind, resulting in horrendous treatment for many of our poorer citizens, in debt and bankruptcy for those unable to meet the financial obligations caused by a disease or accident, or in many people avoiding proper care and treatment, resulting in even higher costs for the whole system and for taxpayers.<br /><br />His answer, "First, we can prevent many health problems by eating fruits and vegetables and moving our bodies." He pointed out that he is now walking 30 minutes a day and has made small changes in his diet that have enabled him to lose 30 pounds in the last three months. And he's right, prevention is the best way to deal with the cost of getting sick in our country and lifestyle changes can result in lower cholesterol, lower blood pressures, and healthy blood sugar levels--all keys to preventing major chronic and debilitating diseases.<br /><br />Secondly, "follow the money." He encouraged the audience to find out which of our elected officials--Senators, Representatives, the President--are getting financial support (and how much) from the health care industry. We really need to know who has a vested interest in not changing our system, resulting in exclusion of people from adequate care who can't pay and escalating drug and patient care prices. The culprits are pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and for-profit HMOs and hospital chains. But even more important and unethical are our elected officials who take big bucks in campaign support from these entities. Of course, they are then beholden to the health care industry and little to no change is the result. We voters and citizens need to demand that this unethical practice stop, immediately. <br /><br />Given the demographics of our country and the inevitable ills of the aging Boomer generation, the US must solve this health care problem fast. Everyone needs adequate access to good health care. Because we care. Because it the right thing to do. Because it is the only way to keep our country strong.<br /><br />As Michael Moore pointed out, "We are a wealthy nation. We can find billions when we need to kill people (as in Iraq). Why not use our money to help people live?"<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-6179214419375574242007-05-19T11:10:00.000-07:002007-05-19T11:16:35.234-07:00TransitionsI flew in on the red-eye from the West Coast to Atlanta, rented a car, and drove the rental car 45 minutes northeast to the small town where my mother lives just as the sun was coming up. I’ve made this trip from west to east coast numerous times over the last few months and several times in a crisis mode, as I am now. My mother has gotten weaker and smaller and more vulnerable with each passing week, kicked off by a debilitating virus at the end of December.<br /><br />Bleary-eyed, I walk into her darkened room at the assisted living home at around 5:30 a.m. The hospice caretaker is writing on a pad, sitting quietly in the often-reupholstered wing chair, my mother’s favorite place to sit, her grandfather’s chair. Many of her things have been moved to make room for a large, steel-framed hospital bed, with protective bars along the sides of the bed, that takes up most of the space. I slip the cold, metal bars down so I can move closer. I take my mother’s hand, smaller but still soft and smooth, in mine. Her brown eyes open and widen, with great intensity.<br /><br />“It’s you,” her lips move into an almost smile, with great effort. She looks at me directly, extremely focused.<br /><br />“Yes, I’m here, Mother. I love you.” I reach down to gather her frail, thin shoulders in my arms to hug her, to touch her, to let her know how much I love her. My ear is close to her lips.<br /><br />“I’m dying.” She whispers, slowly and deliberately. She pauses. “Good-bye. I love you.” <br /><br />I hug her. Tighter. Tears flood my eyes and spill in waves down my cheeks. Emotion clogs my throat. My mother has always, even when I was a small child, talked to me with unembellished honesty, sometimes entrusting me with secrets and knowledge well beyond what a child normally receives. She always tried to help me understand why things happen the way they do or the rationale behind her beliefs and values and those of others. She taught me to look at people as individuals. Once again she is sharing her honest assessment of the situation, at once bringing me into the inner circle of her secret thoughts, collaboratively, helping me to understand, and preparing me for what is ahead in her usual thoughtful, loving, and thoroughly open way. And this time, I know that she has summoned from somewhere deep inside her the energy to focus just on me, let me know how much she loves me, and help me with this transition I’m about to experience. She has somehow put her dementia and physical frailty aside to deliver this intense affection directly to me. The nicest gift I could ever receive.<br /><br />This transition is a much larger one than I expected. I am no longer part of the sandwich generation. My mother has been my only living parent. I will no longer receive direct support and sustenance from my mother, although the dementia that my mother experienced much reduced her ability to express these emotions in the last years. But I still felt them every time her brown eyes got big and excited when I entered her room. She has never failed to recognize me and rejoice in seeing me, in her intense but increasingly smaller ways. <br /><br />Suddenly, I am no longer arranging my schedule and that of my family to fly to see her as often as possible. I won’t be taking her on shopping excursions, to see movies or museums, or out to lunch and dinner. I won’t be making time in my life for calls and visits or analysis of her prescriptions, medical care, or bills. I won’t be ordering yellow roses or lavender orchids, her favorites, to brighten her room—and her face. I won’t be seeing her big brown eyes widen with joy when I come through the door. The void is huge. The transition is difficult. But I know that death is part of life. My mother taught me that.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-34700074897851758722007-03-20T13:43:00.000-07:002007-03-20T15:30:12.118-07:00A Strong, Active Body Helps Build a Strong, Active Mind<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/RgBH5WF5bgI/AAAAAAAAAA8/RE_G80zeAMc/s1600-h/Picture+1.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 148px; height: 177px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/RgBH5WF5bgI/AAAAAAAAAA8/RE_G80zeAMc/s200/Picture+1.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5044110633163386370" border="0" /></a>This week's <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Newsweek</span></a> has a done a nice job of emphasizing and summarizing the critical part that physical exercise plays in brain fitness. It's true: whatever is good for our hearts is twice as good for our brains. Exercise helps our bodies efficiently route oxygen to our hearts and brains. I, for one, believe that the complexities of everyday exercises and sports, like walking or dancing or swimming, call on multiple cognitive and physical skills, which we keep trying to separate but are forever and crucially entwined. They should just go together, along with nutrition, as important pieces of the fitness puzzle. <br /><br />I like the suggestion in the article of an "exercise snack plan": run up and down steps in your house during a TV commercial, walk around your office floor, pace when you talk on the telephone, etc. Hopefully, these will be taken as starters or supplements with ramp-ups in activity the goal.<br /><br />I personally find that regular exercise enables me to sleep less, sleep better, de-stress, makes my mood more positive and balanced, and energizes me. How can all of that not be good for my brain? Nevermind the other skills needed for my dance class, for example: long-term memory of the basic routine and choreography, concentration (or I'll look like a fool), balance, rhythm, short-term memory to adapt to my partner or the teacher's instructions, hand-eye coordination, visual-spatial skills so I don't bump into the other people, deductive reasoning (what comes next in the sequence?), etc., etc. Wonderful cross-training for the mind and the body and the mind-body connection.<br /><br />Of course, the danger is that folks will think physical exercise is the magic bullet for brain fitness. As the Newsweek article points out, "Having a big, gorgeous, healthy brain isn't enough, of course; it also has to be full." Yep, exercising those neurons (also called learning) once we've gone them is also a must.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-56199678166559150962007-03-14T14:51:00.000-07:002007-03-14T16:39:57.034-07:00Our Brains Keep Working, Even in IllnessI made a special trip to see my Mother for a few days around her birthday. Her brown eyes always get big and round with excitement when I walk into the Renaissance wing of Remington House, the assisted living facility where she lives in northeast Georgia about fifty miles from Atlanta. She usually walks herself, using her blue aluminum walker for support, around and around and around the nurses' station in the center of the wing and is often seated at one of the colonial-style sofas in the entrance way, watching all the comings and goings of visitors, residents, and staff. She concentrates, intently, purposefully. Her back is bent with severe arthritis but she lifts her upper body and chin and manages to seemingly observe everything and everyone. She never speaks except when spoken to although she is always polite, her good Southern upbringing never failing her.<br /><br />I asked her, very specifically, "what would you like for your birthday? Something special to eat?" I imagined myself running all over Atlanta trying to find gourmet goodies. Mother always enjoyed trying new things and loved good food.<br /><br />She wrinkled her brow and whispered, simply "oysters, fried oysters." Whenever I'm there, I always ask, "want to go to a movie, want to go for a ride, want to go to a restaurant, want to go to an art museum?" And my mother always nods yes, her eyes brightening.<br /><br />So I did race all over Atlanta to find fresh, shucked oysters, along with tartar and tangy tomato sauce. And we had really fresh, lovely oysters breaded in corn meal and fried in the Remington House kitchen. A very special birthday dinner.<br /><br />When I left the next day, Mother escorted me, slowly moving her walker along, to the double doors of the entrance way and stood there, balancing one hand on the walker and raising the other. She waved as I drove down the long drive to the highway, until we could no longer see each other. Just as she always used to, my entire life, as I have returned and left again, over and over. I've missed her sweet waving, I realized, in these last years. And this time, more poignantly, I felt the familiar tear well up in the corner of my eye. I was seeing a remnant of my deeply feeling, emotional, articulate, intelligent, creative Mother, who loved me with great affection and suppport. I was remembering that person, who I haven't seen in a long time. <br /><br />My mother has frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, little known by the general public but well known among physicians as the second most prevalent kind of dementia, trailing only Alzheimer's in the US with as many as 4.5 million people afflicted. A recent article in the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com">San Francisco Chronicle Magazine</a> stated: "Though many similarities with Alzheimer's disease exist, the key difference is that FTD patients display only limited memory loss. Results of intelligence tests can remain normal, and individuals with unimpaired motor control can stay athletic for a long time, conveying the illusion of good health." My mother has almost perfect long-term memory, even today. She can look at a photo and tell you the time of day it was taken (along with the date and the middle names of the people in it).<br /><br />In typical FTD pattern, my mother was struck in her early 60s (many show signs in their 40s and 50s). Always an excellent money manager, my mother began compulsively subscribing to magazines, with piles of at least 30 different ones around the house; she became positive she would win Publishers' Clearinghouse. She then began writing checks for every imaginable contest on TV and in the mail, followed by checks to anyone who asked. She supported Democrats and Republicans, pro-life and pro-abortion, and orphans in Central America.<br /><br />My mother had a wry sense of humor and loved all things intellectual and artistic. She rarely missed giving a strong opinion, which she voiced, in most conversation. We noticed that for a person who always laughed and cried easily, she began to have little facial affect, no sense of humor, and in fact, very little emotional reaction to anything, no matter how deeply it must have affected her. She simply stared at the casket when my father was buried, never shedding a tear, never reacting at all in any way. We thought she was depressed, as many family members and even doctors do when FTD appears.<br /><br /><a href="http://pub.ucsf.edu/newsservices/releases/20060902/">Dr. Bruce Miller</a> at the University of California at San Francisco has been studying FTD for a number of years and has found another interesting pattern in many patients with FTD, one which my mother also experienced. <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1998/10/20/MN94281.DL&hw=bruce+miller+dementia&sn=003&sc=793">His team's research</a> has found that FTD ". . . has been traced to a mutation in a gene called tau, which leads to the destruction of a part of the cortex used for speech and social skills but which may spare regions for visual perception." As a result, "patients stopped talking, withdrew socially, became irritable, developed odd obsessions and failed at memory tests. But . . . the most severe problems were preceded by a period of exceptional creativity. " Dr. Miller notes that many people with FTD became prolific artists in many different media.<br /><br />My mother's decline in judgment, language, and social skills was definitely preceded by a burst of creativity. She had always been creative, playing the piano, writing, decorating, designing, drawing. But she suddenly began obsessively composing music and painting oils, which now decorate the high wall of her Renaissance House room. Experts believe that "creativity may not be so much a direct product . . . but rather part of a person's way of coping with the disease."<br /><br />How amazing that our brains continue to compensate for weakness, always seeking to learn and grow, even in the midst of grave illness.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-9673965132918422672007-02-17T11:16:00.000-08:002007-02-17T11:59:15.298-08:00Boomers Put Our Own Twist on Exercise<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/RddWjrqaoqI/AAAAAAAAAAw/k0cRvnLsheE/s1600-h/Picture+4.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/RddWjrqaoqI/AAAAAAAAAAw/k0cRvnLsheE/s200/Picture+4.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5032586279625859746" border="0" /></a>I've just returned from my health club. My <a href="http://www.nianow.com">NIA </a>teacher didn't show up (a rare occurrence) so I headed for the weight room where I flipped through magazines and chatted with one of my fellow NIA classmates, while zipping along on the recumbent bike for 20 minutes, scooted through the weight machines, and then headed to the pool for a swim. For some reason, I started noticing that 99% of the people in the room were leading-edge Boomers. Then I began to think about how weight rooms had changed. No more Nordic Track machines. Only one stair-climbing machine and one stationary bike. Now, there are stretching machines, rows of recumbent bikes (great for weak or injured knees), elliptical motion training machines (also good on knees), and big orange and green plastic balls for Pilates and yoga stretches. And of course, many more weight machines. Only one young woman was running on one of the old treadmills.<br /><br />It turns out my observations are on the money. The research folks at <a href="http://www.americansportsdata.com">American Sports Data</a> inform me that "older Americans are transforming the landscape of physical fitness." It turns out that the number of people who are 55 belonging to health clubs surged by 33% from 1999-2004 whereas the 18-34 crowd had zero growth in memberships.<br /><br />". . .the compound measurement of Yoga/Tai Chi has grown by 118% . . . . At 11.2 million participants, Recumbent Cycling, a particularly back-friendly exercise. . . has grown 66%. . . . surpassed only by Fitness Walking and Aquatics." And the conclusion? "Mature exercise enthusiasts are not merely playing havoc with abstract fitness statistics; they are rocking the foundations of fitness facilities across the U.S. "<br /><br />Interesting facts: Pilates participation has increased 506% during the period of the research report, elliptical training machines, 306%, Yoga, 118%, Nordic ski machines, -40%, aerobic rider exercise, -58%, stair-climbing machines, -29%.<br /><br />These are great trends to contemplate. Boomers as a group are continuing to value physical exercise and fitness as one important key to a vibrant, active life. And, if we need to find new exercises that put less strain on our joints and backs, then we find them and we continue to stay fit. Boomers may yet succeed at making the concept of wellness and prevention a perfectly natural part of our culture and thinking.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-55600623072843182922007-02-07T14:17:00.000-08:002007-02-07T15:08:50.322-08:00Brain: Work on WorkingI think it's entirely appropriate, and maybe a bit poetic, that I waited for a couple of weeks to write about findings on procrastination. Maybe they were just new findings for <a href="http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/procrastinate-now/">John Tierney, </a>now blogging for the NY Times. He alerted me to them. But I don't care. It got me off the task at hand and into the mood to contemplate various aspects of my life before completing that or any other work. It seems that Piers Steel, a psychologist from the University of Calgary, has published several papers on the subject of procrastination and now has an online survey to measure how much of a procrastinator you are and help you figure out ways to stop it. Your filling it out also helps with his research. Tierney's right. There's no more alluring way to dawdle than to fill out a questionnaire. So <a href="http://www.procrastinus.com/">have at it.</a> I did.<br /><br />I thought these excerpts from the site's Treatment page, presumably for those of us who have a really bad case, were helpful: "Too tired to work" was one of the main reason students use to explain their procrastination. . . . Work, especially work, that requires intensive concentration or physical exertion, becomes increasingly unpleasant when our "get-up-and-go" has "got-up-and-gone." So Steele goes on to mention the importance of sleep and exercise as well as structured goal setting, that is specific, challenging, realistic enough to really do, and with few choice points. Many of us go off the rails whenever we have choices. For example, do I search endlessly on the Internet for my old high school buddy or do I write the proposal I need to finish? Do I get a snack or organize my tax documents? etc. etc. I'm reminded of the story that Mrs. Melville chained Herman to his desk while he wrote Moby Dick. Who knows how he might have spent his time otherwise?<br /><br />And the treatise on "learned industriousness:" "You may have heard that success breeds success, and this appears to be true. . . .If you start a new task, and you fail the first few times, instead of learned industriousness occurring, you might get learned helplessness. . . .When you start a new task, it is very important that you structure it so that your earlier efforts lead to success."<br /><br />Uh-oh, I meant to do that. I know all these ideas are good for me. And I'm good at them too, but usually only if there's a deadline and real money involved. Need to assign this one to my brain: work on working.<br /><br />Oh and, when you go to fill out your <a href="http://www.procrastinus.com">online survey </a>(why not be distracted and amused for a few?), don't miss the Quotations page. Hilarious!<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-46305278950859286892007-01-28T16:51:00.000-08:002007-01-28T17:24:44.273-08:00Unhappy Meals from Michael PollanEveryone should read "Unhappy Meals" by Michael Pollan in today's <span style="font-style: italic;">NY Times Magazine</span>. As Pollan summarizes in the very first line, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Debunking the various "nutritionist" food fads that have appeared over the last 20+ years and including the high-carb, low-fat diets, the no-fat diet, the additive craze to highly processed foods, and the fiber and low-cholesterol approaches, Pollan makes an excellent argument for just food. He reiterates his earlier advice: if there are more than five ingredients, don't buy it. Also don't buy it if there are things in it you've never heard of or can't pronounce.<br /><br />Pollan makes the case persuasively that we've been held hostage by the "you can eat more if..." crowd. The low-fat, high-carb craze made this country significantly more obese through the 80s and 90s, which then gave rise to the opposite extreme of high-protein and high-fat Atkins diets, no panacea either.<br /><br />We should just be eating less. Look at all the studies that show that calorie restriction makes us live longer and reduces the probabilities of many diseases, including cancer. We should be eating more leaves and less seeds (grains), Pollan states. We should avoid additives like corn syrup and stick with the real thing: corn kernels. And we should use meat as a condiment to enhance all the vegetables we're consuming.<br /><br />Pollan states that we know very little about nutrition. And the way we analyze it doesn't really work since we have to isolate vitamins, for example, instead of figuring out how they work together in our bodies for better health. It's an ensemble cast and solo analysis doesn't get us much. In fact, it's led us down the wrong paths time after time (oat bran in the 80s, for example, and margarine as a healthy alternative to butter).<br /><br />To add insult to injury, medicine reactively deals with the problems of our new approach to eating with more and more palliatives for diabetes, heart disease, and cancer instead of educating folks about diet as a way to prevent these chronic and horrible diseases.<br /><br />The first time I really thought about meat as a condiment and the dangers of processed food was in the early 80s when I started reading <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/jane_e_brody/index.htm?inline=nyt-per">Jane Brody's columns</a> in the NY Times. And then in 1985, I bought her cookbook, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jane-Brodys-Good-Food-High-Carbohydrate/dp/0553346180"><span style="font-style: italic;" 0553346180="">Good Food</span></a>, and I read the entire, huge intro, which discusses all of these topics and more. But the best part are the recipes. I still use my now-tattered copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">Good Food</span>. I love the recipes because they taste good. She never sacrificed taste for any fad but still paid attention to whole grains, low and unsaturated fat, and produced a vast variety of recipes, using an enormous spectrum of foods, mostly vegetables and whole grains. I probably have Ms. Brody to thank for my interest in food and nutrition as a path to wellness (and therefore prevention), my interest in organic foods (because of the additives in the growing process), and just plain good cooking and eating (although I'll admit to being enthusiastic about this part my whole life).<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-73106448306388234292007-01-25T16:50:00.000-08:002007-01-28T14:19:32.481-08:00Creativity and the BrainLast night I saw <a href="http://www.bobbymcferrin.com/">Bobby McFerrin</a> in concert, accompanied by 12-singer <a href="http://www.bobbymcferrin.com/choral_bobby.php">Voicestra</a>. Those 12 voices included well-known and great voices, like that of Janis Siegel, one of the original singers in the Manhattan Transfer. As the program stated, "Voicestra serves as rich compositional palate for Bobby McFerrin's expeditions into the musical universe." Every single rendition we saw on the stage was totally improvised, thoroughly entertaining, original, and energizing. For those of you who may not know Bobby McFerrin, he started his career with that very famous tune, "Don't Worry Be Happy" and has gone on to become one of the most original musicians in the world, easily moving from classical to opera to jazz to any other kind of music and using his voice as a musical instrument. Improvisation is clearly his sweet spot. He even included the audience in some of the improvisations. My advice: travel for miles and miles to get a ticket to a Bobby McFerrin concert!<br /><br />As I watched the energy and expertise and great entertainment on the stage, I couldn't help but think about the part that creativity plays in brain health.<br /><br />And along those lines--thanks to <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/01/brains_can_tell_the_difference.php#more">Dave Munger </a>of Cognitive Daily for pointing me to recent research by <a href="http://www.ccbi.cmu.edu/reprints/Eviatar_Neuropsychologia2006-irony.pdf">Eviatar and Just </a>that looked at how the brain processes irony and metaphor. I think we need creative skills to figure out language puzzles like metaphors and irony. Using fMRI studies, the researchers discovered that our brains process common metaphors and ironic statement differently from ordinary language, going beyond the usual language centers (usually on the left side of the brain if you're right-handed) to include different areas on both sides of the brain. For reference, regular literal language all gets translated in the usual language centers. I'm not surprised, given the research that has already shown that creative endeavors and creative people use many parts of the brain for creative expression.<br /><br />I suspect that is why creative expression gets good marks for keeping our brain healthy and fit and reducing the probabilities of Alzheimer's and dementia. I'm just trying to visualize the fMRIs of McFerrin and Voicestra's brains during that concert: lots of big splashes of color all over both sides, I suspect. I also wonder what happened to our brains in the audience as we watched this creativity in process. We were not passive. We jumped at the chance to interact when McFerrin pointed to us. I bet our brains were pretty busy, too (on both sides).<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-11157658716736586572007-01-23T20:26:00.000-08:002007-01-23T20:54:33.409-08:00Mental Workouts Delay Alzheimer's in Mice<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/Rbbje734xjI/AAAAAAAAAAk/z081EEhxBGk/s1600-h/Picture+14.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/Rbbje734xjI/AAAAAAAAAAk/z081EEhxBGk/s200/Picture+14.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5023452554986047026" border="0" /></a><br />More evidence builds that mental activity can "dramaticlly delay the progress of Alzheimers' disease."<br /><br />According to Reuters' Will Dunham, "Researchers at the <a href="http://www.alz.uci.edu">University of California-Irvine</a> studied hundreds of mice altered to make them develop the plaques and tangles in brain tissue that are considered hallmarks of Alzheimer's Disease in people." The mice received "brain training," which in this case was figuring out a maze in water and which was made available four times a day for a week at intervels between two and 18 months of age. The mice that were exposed to this learning had significantly slower build-up of the beta amyloid protein, which has been shown to be the culprit in the "gooey clumping" outside nerve cells. These mice also experienced less build-up of the protein that causes "twisted fibers" in brain cells.<br /><br />The research results have just been published in the <a href="http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/short/27/3/i">Journal of Neuroscience.</a> Kim Green, one of the researchers, noted that research is planned which looks at the effects of more frequent and intensive learning experiences and whether they might lead to longer effects.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-2090587872577993172007-01-22T14:00:00.000-08:002007-01-22T14:32:16.930-08:00Study Finds Happy Neuron Helped Brain Activity<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/RbU3zb34xiI/AAAAAAAAAAU/6SsvsJ1SR1I/s1600-h/Picture+5.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XLOrDOBNTgI/RbU3zb34xiI/AAAAAAAAAAU/6SsvsJ1SR1I/s200/Picture+5.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5022982316196677154" border="0" /></a>The Des Moines Register published a nice summary article today by Dawn Sagario about brain health and how to maintain it. In addition to suggestions about learning new languages and physical exercise, the article also described the recently released results of the <a href="http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewld=news_view&newsld=20070103005184&newsLang=en">pilot study </a>led by Dr. Bob Bender, a geriatrician in Des Moines. The study was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The "Brain Wellness" study included regular, consistent physical exercise, nutritution advice, meditation, and regular mental workouts with <a href="http://www.happyneuron.com">Happy Neuron</a> games. The participants who complied with this program had positive results, including significantly more brain activity, as measured by pre-and post-PET scans and clinical examinations. Dr. Bender and his team are very enthusiastic about the potential for prevention, using these lifestyle choices and brain exercises like Happy Neuron.<br /><br />The illustration above is by Mark Marturello/Register Illustration.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-57004838870293399562007-01-10T20:41:00.000-08:002007-01-10T21:29:46.958-08:00Brain Fitness BuzzThe last couple of weeks have been filled with media reports about brain fitness programs. The NY Times weighed in on the topic on the front page on December 27 with "<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res*res=9EODEED71E31F934A15751CIA9609C8B63">As Minds Age, What's Next? Brain Calisthenics?</a>" This article was quickly syndicated across the US and around the world (the International Herald-Tribune) and became the number one-emailed article of the week. I think we can say with some certainty that brain fitness is a topic of interest to millions and millions of people. Several <a href="http://www.killerapp.com">blogs</a> picked up the drum beat, too. The <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16530964">Today </a>show on NBC put their own spin on the topic on Tuesday morning. <a href="http://www.happy-neuron.com">Happy Neuron</a> was one of the programs showcased in the NY Times and on the Today show. <br /><br />I think it's great that the media is picking up on the very real interests of so many people, who are really thinking hard and searching high and low for good science on keeping their mental edge as the years go by (another way to say prevention of Alzheimer's and dementia). I admit that I was irritated by two comments: (l) "just do crosswords" because we know from numerous research studies that crosswords may be fun but don't do much for the brain--they're just too one-dimensional; and (2) why turn to software for brain exercise? why not do something free like learn a language or learn to play a new musical instrument? Hey, last time I checked, those two learning adventures were far from free.<br /><br />Let's look at the real value of sites like Happy Neuron. Most of us would prefer to take a walk in the park every day but some days it's rainy or we don't have time so we hit the treadmill. Some days we don't have time for learning the cello or practicing Chinese either so one convenient thing to do is go online and exercise specific cognitive skills, like memory, concentration, reasoning, visual-spatial and language skills--all keys to learning and everyday living. <br /><br />I'm extremely glad that awareness is building: brain exercise should be a part of a healthy lifestyle just like good nutrition and physical exercise. All are critical to our overall health and quality of life.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30014364.post-56094115464790820742006-12-20T14:12:00.000-08:002006-12-20T14:30:59.705-08:00Reading Shakespeare Sparks Peak in Brain ActivityThanks to the <a href="http://www.scienceblog.com">Science Blog</a> for bringing this one to my attention. Researchers from the School of English and the MRI Analysis Center at the <a href="http://www.liv.ac.uk/newsroom/press_releases/2006?12/shakespeare_brain.htm">University of Liverpool</a> collaborated to discover that when participants in their study read Shakespeare, their brains felt a little twinkle dust and magically peaked, indicating heavy-duty thinking. What caused this sparkle? Shakespeare used common words differently. He employed, linguistically speaking, functional shift, meaning he sometimes used a verb as a noun or a noun as an adjective or a verb as noun, all of which make our minds backtrack and rethink what's going on, to figure out the meaning of the word before we fit it into the meaning of the sentence or phrase. According to the researchers, the brain goes boom and we also begin to understand multiple meanings of a line or phrase, giving dramatic umph to the words. We also feel satisfaction and delight that we figured out the puzzle, making the whole event very entertaining. The researchers compared the mind's work in this situation to putting a jigsaw puzzle together. If you see how it all fits immediately, it becomes boring. If you have to work on it, it's much more interesting, offering surprises and creating the need for bursts of activity. And our brains really like that. And we do, too, if we enjoy the surprise and/or successfully solve the puzzle.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://brainreserves.blogspot.com</div>Sherylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03855943410499974098noreply@blogger.com1