New Self-Paced Brain Fitness Course, Developed by Independent Market Researcher SharpBrains, Answers 40 Most Common Questions about Brain Health and Brain Training

Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle: How to Be Your Own Brain Fitness Coach

By the end of this online course you will have gained the under­stand­ing and infor­ma­tion required to apply emerg­ing sci­ence and tools to enhance your own brain health and func­tion­al­ity.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) October 09, 2012

Sharp­Brains, an inde­pen­dent mar­ket researcher and think tank track­ing applied neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, is offering the first self-paced course designed to equip lifelong learners with the under­stand­ing and infor­ma­tion required to apply emerg­ing sci­ence and tools to enhance their own brain health and func­tion­al­ity.

Detailed information and Registration is available at How to Be Your Own Brain Fitness Coach. Reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants can imme­di­ately log into the course and gain access to four recorded lectures–each last­ing two hours– and to online mate­ri­als and discussions. Registration fees are $95, and stu­dents have six months to com­plete course.

TOP 40 QUESTIONS ON BRAIN HEALTH, BRAIN FITNESS AND BRAIN TRAINING TO BE ADDRESSED BY THE COURSE:

*How can one define brain fitness?
*What is link between stress, focus and memory?
*Does “brain age” even exist?
*How to enhance over­all men­tal pro­duc­tiv­ity, vs just IQ?
*Is there some “ceil­ing” to my improve­ment or can I always try more things?
*How brain func­tions evolve with age. What improves, what declines, what should I be pay­ing atten­tion to?
*Can life­long learn­ing delay dementia?
*What are spe­cific guide­lines to lead a lifestyle that max­i­mizes brain fitness?
*How to increase my chances to avoid Alzheimer’s Disease?
*How do I know what is part of the nor­mal aging process and what isn’t?
*What are the main pil­lars to enhance cog­ni­tion, and how do they work?
*What are the “active ingre­di­ents” for expe­ri­ences to build new neural pathways?
*Are dietary sup­ple­ments ben­e­fi­cial? How does nutri­tion and exer­cise improve cog­ni­tive skills?
*What is the state of the sci­ence of cog­ni­tive health and fit­ness? What types of claims make sense?
*Can video games pro­tect from dementia?
*Does stress kill neurons?
*Can we increase the capacity/ plas­tic­ity of the brain?
*What are the best pre­ven­tive steps that can be taken today to main­tain brain health over many years?
*What are the types of activ­i­ties shown to build cog­ni­tive reserve?
*How can brain train­ing prin­ci­ples can be APPLIED to every­day work and life and learn­ing, not just while doing programs?
*Can I improve mem­ory and focus capabilities?
*What’s the best evi­dence for what helps in brain training?
*How can I train my brain to focus/concentrate more when I need to focus/concentrate and shut down when I need to or want to sleep?
*How to effec­tively use brain teasers and brain games to improve brain func­tion?
*How do I choose between prod­uct A or B?
*How brain train­ing works and the ben­e­fits we can expect to receive from it?
*How can I eval­u­ate whether the claims are evidence-based?
*Is med­i­ta­tion bet­ter than yoga for the brain?
*How does brain train­ing gen­er­al­ize to every day life? Is there research to sup­port claims?
*How I can pre­vent age-related cog­ni­tive dete­ri­o­ra­tion/ loss/ dementia?
*How to enhance men­tal flexibility?
*How do I mea­sure progress and results? How can I track that what I try really works?
*How I go about being my own Brain Fit­ness Coach?
*How do I get started?
*How to eval­u­ate whether real change has occurred?
*How to set up a con­sis­tent practice with say 20 min­utes everyday?
*Will any of this help me at work? How?
*How can the aver­age per­son develop and self-manage a struc­tured coach­ing plan in all phases of life that is valid and a good time investment?
*What are the three or four things one can do on a daily basis to improve health and pre­vent impair­ment with age?
*What can I do in my every­day expe­ri­ences to keep my brain in great con­di­tion, as I have/had sev­eral cases of demen­tia and Alzheimer’s in my family?
*How do I know what’s my base­line and how do I track/maintain pos­i­tive progress over time?

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Infor­ma­tion over­load and longer lives expose our brains to more demands than even before. This self-paced and inter­ac­tive online course will exam­ine the emerg­ing sci­ence of neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and cog­ni­tive reserve and sur­vey lat­est tools and best prac­tices to equip you to become your own ‘brain fit­ness coach’ and address your very own pri­or­i­ties in your per­sonal and/ or pro­fes­sional life. Avail­able online from any­where with an Inter­net con­nec­tion, this course will help you pin­point ways to opti­mize brain health and func­tion­al­ity and delay decline, nav­i­gat­ing the maze of frag­mented research, super­fi­cial media cov­er­age and exag­ger­ated mar­ket­ing claims. The course is based on The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness –recently named a Best Book by AARP– and Sharp­Brains’ new ABBC frame­work (Address Basics, Build Capac­i­ties), and includes weekly read­ings and activities.

INSTRUCTOR AND GUEST LECTURERS

Instruc­tor: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, recently named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, is the co-founder of Sharp­Brains, an inde­pen­dent mar­ket researcher and think tank help­ing orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als nav­i­gate the emerg­ing brain fit­ness field. He is a nationally-known speaker and expert, quoted by The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, New Sci­en­tist, CNN, and other media out­lets. Alvaro also pro­duces the largest annual global and vir­tual con­fer­ence where sci­en­tists, tech­nol­o­gists and pro­fes­sion­als dis­cuss lat­est devel­op­ments in the field. Alvaro holds an MBA and an MA in Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford University.

Guest Lec­turer: Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD, is the Direc­tor of the Berenson-Allen Cen­ter for Non-Invasive Brain Stim­u­la­tion and a Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­ogy at Har­vard Med­ical School. Dr. Pascual-Leone researches the phys­i­ol­ogy of higher cog­ni­tive func­tions with empha­sis on the study of brain plas­tic­ity in skill acqui­si­tion and recov­ery from injury across the lifes­pan. Dr. Pascual-Leone obtained an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Neu­ro­phys­i­ol­ogy from the Fac­ulty of Med­i­cine of Albert Lud­wigs Uni­ver­sity in Ger­many, and trained at the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota and the US National Insti­tutes of Health.

Guest Lec­turer: Robert M. Bilder, PhD, ABPP-CN is the Michael E. Ten­nen­baum Fam­ily Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try and Biobe­hav­ioral Sci­ences at the UCLA David Gef­fen School of Med­i­cine. Dr. Bilder is also the Chief of Med­ical Psychology-Neuropsychology at the Semel Insti­tute for Neu­ro­science and Human Behav­ior, directs the Ten­nen­baum Cen­ter for the Biol­ogy of Cre­ativ­ity; is Co-Director of an NIMH-sponsored Cen­ter for Inter­ven­tion Devel­op­ment and Applied Research focus­ing on trans­la­tional research to enhance cog­ni­tive control.

ABOUT SHARPBRAINS

SharpBrains is an independent market researcher and think tank devoted to helping organizations, professionals and consumers navigate applied neuroscience and brain health innovation. SharpBrains published The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness, the first consumer guide to educate and inform adults on the subject, was recognized as a Best Book by AARP in 2011. Alvaro Fernandez, SharpBrains’ Co-Founder, was recently named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

For more information go to: http://www.sharpbrains.com