Brain Training Articles & News, Page 259

A recent study proves something you’ve been wishing were true: Chocolate is good for you! You heard right! Chocolate has been scientifically proven to boost blood flow to certain areas of the brain. It’s the flavanols in chocolate that make it so healthy, and the darker the chocolate the better. Flavanols can also be found ...

When my doctor told me I was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, I was devastated. Not wanting to become a burden to my children, I sold my house, moved to an assisted living center, and waited for Alzheimer’s to finish robbing me of whatever quality of life I had left. I’d been talking slower ...

Sometimes David got to the locker room and couldn’t remember the football game he’d just played. In junior high, David had been a straight A student. But after a concussion, he began struggling in school, and additional concussions while playing football in high school only made things worse. Years later, married and with a baby ...

We call breakups “painful” for good reason: When you experience an unwanted breakup, thinking of  your ex-love-interest activates the same parts of your brain that process physical pain. Researchers measured brain activity while showing love-sick men and women photos of their former-sweethearts, and then photos of platonic friends. They also measured brain activity as they ...

Like a lot of kids, David played sports in school. But concussions sustained on the wrestling mat and gridiron hurt his ability to perform well in school and even in his career. After graduating from a police academy, David was rejected by 56 police departments because his test scores were too low. The 32-year-old husband ...

We don’t think much about blinking. For the most part, it’s an involuntary process that keeps our eyes hydrated. But when we blink, we lose information, even if it’s just for a fraction of a second. In fact, during a typical day, blinking means you spend about 44 minutes with your eyes closed. This is ...

Whether you're riding in a one-horse sleigh, sledding, caroling, bakingcookies or chillin' with family and friends, the holidays brim withopportunities for lots of laughter. What's all that joviality doing to your brain? Laughing stimulates a part of your brain called the nucleus accumbens,which then releases the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. This createsa brain-chemical chain reaction that ...

How can you grow your brain? You can always follow the example of London taxi cab drivers and memorize a labyrinth of 25,000 city streets as well as thousands of tourist attractions and hot spots. While many major cities try to simplify driving by arranging streets in user-friendly grids (or identifying streets by sequenced numbers ...

This holiday season, there's a good chance you're going to eatyour fill of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pecan pie. And you'llprobably polish it all off with a good cup of coffee. And if you're tempted to feel guilty about chowing down on all yourholiday favorites, maybe this'll make you feel better: Many traditional holiday ...

Halloween may be over, but there’s a good chance you’ve got plenty of Halloween candy lying around your house. Maybe you’ve got a bowl of unclaimed miniature Snickers from trick-or-treat no-shows. Or maybe you simply know where your kids hid their stash of goodies. Either way, you-and your kids-probably have access to lots of sugary ...