From the Chief Director

Our brain power is our greatest economic asset. The Center for BrainHealth is dedicated to increasing return on human investment by increasing mental productivity at each stage of life. Our goal is for individuals to stay mentally sharp longer and to rebound when mental slippage occurs.

Follow these tips throughout life to maintain the maximum potential of your brain’s health.

 

To help our children:

• Train selective attention in children (i.e. both the ability to focus on one object/voice/thought and to ignore or suppress non-attended, competing inputs)
• Spark curiosity and an inquisitive mind by having them create novel endings to books and movies they read and see.
• Learn how to engage in conversation that is not simply question and answer as it shuts down youths' talking and thinking. Teens feel tested and challenged with rapid fire questions.
• Give children/teens a small number of choices, and provide opportunities for them to think critically, weighing each option. We live in an age when our youth's brains are stymied due to too many choices. Young individuals have difficulty making logical and safe decisions and instead go along with the crowd to be accepted by their peer group when confronted with many choices.
• Limit the amount of time your child spends on technology – online social networking and playing video games

After graduating from college, the brain is neuroengineered in the workplace. Unfortunately, little attention is paid to the working environment’s impact on brain health.

For people in their 20s:

• Limit multitasking - multitasking diminishes mental productivity, elevates brain fatigue, increases stress, impairs sleep patterns and reduces overall health by altering immune system
• Synthesize meanings from work assignments, articles and books read, and movies watched
• Practice strategic attention by blocking information download and overload. Adults in their 20s pride themselves in finding vast amounts of information in record time, but speed and amount of information retrieval does not build a deeper thinking and innovative mind.
• Schedule periods of brain downtime to seek 'a-ha' moments to solve complex work or life problems
• Carve out small project, rather than taking on more tasks, and develop visionary plans of action

For people in their 30s:

• Practice sorting the essential from the trivial.  Make a list of your top 25 tasks/goals that you want to complete each week/day and identify the two items that the most pivotal to your success.
• Focus on getting important decisions right from your point-of-view
• Challenge yourself to lead new challenges and responsibilities
• Balance work life and personal life and take time to be with family and friends
• Enhance the social brain: interact with others by joining a club or a hobby group. Socializing with others about something your passionate about builds stronger neural connections and provides avenues to negotiate complex social encounters.

We start to see cognitive decline during the 40s because we accept mental slippage and boredom in our life and work.

For people in their 40s:

• Rediscover and reflect on your passion to make sure it is integral to your brain activities
• Ramp up learning in your area of expertise to strengthen expert brain connections
• Take on mentoring younger and older adults to improve your brain health and theirs
• Eat a heart healthy diet; what's good for your heart is good for your brain.
• Stay organized - stow your 3 key items in the same place every time you use them.

For people in their 50s and beyond:

• For people in their 50s, we tend to put our brain on automatic pilot and are slow to take on new challenges. Continue to push yourself to learn something new, especially related to technology. You will feel brain energized as you go from being a novice to an expert in an area of interest.
• Engage in strategic reasoning and strategic thinking
• Take advantage of your rich life experiences and brain knowledge to ask thought-provoking questions and to offer new directions in group meetings.
• Captivate your mental prowess by mentally 'zooming out' to a 20,000 foot perspective to review your goals and directions and re-direct your team/family.
• Maintain close relationships and engage in deep conversations with close friends and family.

For all generations:

• Limit multitasking - multitasking diminishes mental productivity, elevates brain fatigue and increases stress.
• Sleep - regularly get 7-8 hours of sleep; information is consolidated in the brain at a deeper level of understanding during sleep.
• Exercise - get 30 minutes of aerobic exercise 3-4 times a week to improve memory and increase attention and concentration and brain blood flow in the memory brain area.

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