clair073

On several occasions, I have written about the anti-aging beneficial effects of exercise. New studies, confirm earlier findings of exercise benefit. Now, a new study shows that exercise reduces levels of the major inflammatory chemical, interleukin-6, and an associated enhancement of neural activity in the brain circuitry used to encode information and form memories. In response to earlier studies by others showing that exercise improves mental function, a team from mostly German universities studied the effects of exercise on 32 subjects aged 52 to 71 years old. They were particularly interested in memory because prior studies by others made it clear that age usually impairs memories of names and faces, situations and events, which are categorized as episodic memory. Tests of recall of episodic memory show marked age decrements in many subjects, even if they are given reminder cues. Other researchers had shown that exercise, particularly aerobic exercise, reduces decline of episodic m...

On multiple occasions, readers of my learning and memory blog posts asked me what they could do to improve their working memory. This is an important and very practical question. Working memory affects all aspects of life success: personal, educational, and professional. I usually tell them to practice attentiveness and concentration. But I probably should tell them to adapt a healthier lifestyle. For over a decade a variety of studies have implicated lifestyle in memory function. A rigorous new study confirms these results. An Israeli research team studied 823 participants, aged 22-37 years, using brain scans taken during a difficult memory task, post-scan memory tests, and numerous measures of health and lifestyle. The brain scans identified the brain areas that particularly engage in working memory tasks, most important of which were the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex. These then served as a frame of reference to check for correlations...

I just attended a “Laughter is Good Medicine” seminar put on by a local hospital. The speaker pointed to evidence showing that laughing has such good effects as: ·          Reduce blood pressure ·          Lower blood glucose ·          Dull pain ·          Alleviate stress and anxiety ·          Improve feeling of well being and it even burns substantial calories. I suspect humor also improves longevity, though I only have anecdotal and presumptive evidence for that. But the evidence seems hard to dismiss. Think about how long so many classic stand-up comedians of the preceding generation lived. Most of these comedians were actively performing right up to their last days. Here is a listing of comedians most people in my generation will recognize and their age when they finally died. Bob Ho...