Not following through with your intentions or commitments is one of the major obstacles for effective brain training. For as long as training programs have been around to improve health or performance, we have been delaying, avoiding, and procrastinating with our training schedules. This article looks at some of the science behind what the ancient Greek philosophers called Akrasia – the failure of will and self-control where we act against our better judgement.
Educational and Cognitive Capital Being smart is ‘cognitive capital’ in our complex, high tech, knowledge economy – in education, training and employment. Numerous studies show a clear link between IQ level and income or wealth. Here is some data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. For this sample the lowest decile (1/10) is people with I.Q below 84, and the highest decile above 116. In rapidly changing, unpredictable, and complex, learning intensive work environments IQ is increasingly viewed as valuable ‘cognitive
The definitive guide to fasting, exercise and brain training for improved health, immunity and brain fitness. Hormesis and brain training. This extensive article provides a foundation for understanding why long-term caloric restriction (fasting), exercise and working-memory based brain training all promote health, immunity and physical and mental performance, in a way that is complementary – sharing the same biological adaptive stress response. Energetic Stressors in Evolution In the environments of our distant ancestors, food was often scarce, and energy expenditure high. Three factors
Executive High Intensity Sub 10 Minute Training At the Human Performance Institute, Division of Wellness and Prevention, Inc., in Orlando, FL, our clients are high-performing professionals from a variety of industries. These men and women face incessant demands on their time, along with the pressure to perform at high levels and balance their careers and personal lives. As the hectic pace of today’s corporate and entrepreneurial world continues to eat into the amount of time we have for
Tina Sellig, executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, wrote a stimulating and useful book- What I wish I knew when I was 20. In this book, she describes how she put the following problem to her students at Stanford: “What would you do to earn money if all you had was five dollars and two hours?” If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, just skim and read the words in bold. The Rules of the Assignment 14 teams were given
In a study that has been published in the latest issue of Consciousness and Cognition, Fadel Zeiden and his colleagues have shown that only four days of mindfulness meditation training for only 20 minutes each day, improves not only mood and stress levels but also improves deep cognitive processing efficiency – core aspects of fluid intelligence such as working memory and sustained attention, as well as long term memory efficiency. How the
Smokers have lower IQs than non-smokers, and the more one smokes the lower one’s IQ, research has found. A study of 18-21 year old men in the Feb 2010 issue of Addiction showed that smokers’ IQs averaged 94, seven points lower than the 101 average of non-smokers. Those who smoked more than a pack of cigarettes a day averaged just 90 between them. The study took data from more than 20,000 men before, during and after their compulsory service in the Israeli