Recent Neuro-Studies: Five Helping Us Come Alive

Human Brains: Journey to Resilience

This little animated film by the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative (oh, those Canadians!) offers compelling support for my constant claim that “healing is always trying to happen.” They pack a great amount of recent brain science research into 7 minutes in a way that is both memorable and entertaining. I rate it 5 HBs (Healthy Brains):

Know Thyself: Well-Being and Subjective Experience

Consciousness research in neuroscience posits the basic idea that the brain has a variety of specialized processing modules that operate non-consciously, and that consciousness occurs when information they provide is captured by attention and brought into neural circuits that support higher-cortical functions.

This article by one of my favorite threat-circuitry brain researchers, Joseph LeDoux, suggests that successful mental health treatment might require us to view mental afflictions as arising “from a federation of systems that generate different symptoms and require different approaches….Although the involved systems have fundamentally different functions, they are highly interactive, and each must be addressed.”

Bedtime To-Do Lists Enhance Sleep

Some 40% of Americans had difficulty falling asleep last month. I was one of them. This study is interesting because it suggests a simple hack: offload worry using pen and paper. Since most of the things we tend to worry about often pose a threat of some sort, writing them down assures our nervous system that we won’t forget them. Unless, of course, we forget to look at the To-Do List. Better then, would be to set a phone alert for the morning to remind us to look at the list. 😉

This Is Your Brain Outdoors

Since brains are designed and intended to operate in whatever environments they find themselves in, it has long been clear to me that the findings from “controlled laboratory studies” are mostly only relevant in … controlled laboratories. Which is not where most of us live our lives. This study takes a look at a human brain operating out in the real world. Guess what: it operates differently than in a controlled laboratory.

The Science of Perfect Timing

In this RSA video, Dan Pink cites study after study, often involving Big Data, that underscores the wisdom teaching that “to everything, there is a season.” In this talk he mostly focuses on the “seasons” of a single day. Lots of interesting takeaways: don’t spend time with doctors in the afternoon, plan your daily activities according to whether you’re an Owl or a Lark, there’s an optimal, personal timing sequence to peak performance.