TBH’s Dr. Green recently joined Abbie Ritchie of Senior Living Foresight’s Tech Tuesday to talk about how TBH is adapting our programs for tech delivery and many other brain buzzing topics.

Click to watch.

The post Tech Tuesday with Abbie Ritchie: What You Can Do Today To Strengthen Your Residents Memory!  appeared first on Total Brain Health Toolkits.

BY CYNTHIA R. GREEN, PH.D.

We all need to sleep. Yet sometimes it can seem impossible to get a good night’s rest. A lack of zzz’s takes a toll on our thinking and wellbeing, especially as we grow older. The good news? There are evidence-backed, practical ways we can improve our sleep at every age.

Why is sleep so important?

While researchers cannot pinpoint the exact way sleep works, they all agree that sleep is critical to healthy functioning. Adequate rest supports our wellbeing, allowing our bodies the opportunity to repair cellular damage, remove toxins, and maintain good physical condition. In addition, sleep supports our immune system, lowering our risk for infection and disease, and can reduces our risk for injury. Finally, scientists believe sleep may play a critical role in healthy brain function, providing a time for neural growth that support ongoing neuroplasticity.

Sleep helps us remember better.

Sleep also matters to our memory. Research shows that getting adequate rest is key to maintaining attention, thinking fast, and other cognitive skills that help us function smoothly and support learning. In addition, it is during sleep that we consolidate material learned during the day and create pathways to new memory for that information. This suggests that if we want to stay sharp and remember what we learn – from directions to names! – we need good sleep.

Sleep can make us better friends.

Lastly, sleep can make us better company. When we are sleeping well, we have better social skills. We can listen more actively and accurately, and we have better verbal functions, making conversations easier. And sleep can help us to be a better companion, shoring up our ability to judge when it’s our turn to talk versus someone else’s or what is appropriate – or not – to do.

It can be harder to get enough sleep as we age.

Many of us are unaware that our sleep patterns can naturally change with age, making it harder to get a good night’s rest. First, our circadian rhythm, the hormonal “cascade” that determines our sleep/wake cycle, can shift, so that we go to bed and awake earlier than when we were younger. We also tend to spend more time in light sleep, making us more vulnerable to disruptions from our environment. Age-related physiological changes, medications and poor personal sleep can make sleep challenging as well.

3 easy changes to help you sleep more.

While age-related changes can make it harder to get our zzz’s, the good news is there are things we can do to improve our sleep. Here are some surefire, practical tips everyone can try to boost their chances of sleeping more.

#1 Improve Your Sleep Efficiency. According to therapists specializing in insomnia, limiting our time in bed to match our actual sleep window is a powerful way we can train ourselves to sleep better. To improve your sleep efficiency, first find your sleep window by keeping track of when you fall asleep and wake up over several days. Next, use that sleep window as a guide for the time you are in bed. Stay out of bed until you are truly ready to fall asleep, then get right out of bed when you awake in the morning. Compressing your time in bed to match your sleep cycle can significantly improve your chances of falling and staying asleep through the night.

#2 See the Light. We can also improve their sleep is by exposing ourselves to natural light during the daytime. The neural pathways located in our hypothalamus that control circadian rhythm are triggered by light. Experts such as Stanford’s Dr. Andrew Huberman teach that at least 10 minutes of exposure to natural light at the beginning and then again at the end of the day can help us reset our circadian rhythm and improve our chances of getting a full night’s sleep.

#3 Act Like a Baby. Anyone who has ever put a child to bed knows that routine matters. Yet often as adults we stray from good bedtime habits. Research shows that practicing a regular bedtime routine can be a highly effective way to promote better rest. Take the time to reassess your nightly ritual and put a healthier program into practice. Include a regular bedtime, a soothing activity such as reading, soft music, breathing relaxation, or a warm bath, and keeping your bedroom cool and dark. Consider banning use of electronics, including your phone, for at least 30 minutes before bedtime, as studies have shown that these devices emit blue light that can be disruptive to sleep. Once you set your routine, be sure to stick with it!

Here’s to many beautiful dreams and happy memories!

President and founder of Total Brain Health, Cynthia R. Green, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, author and nationally recognized expert on memory fitness and brain health.

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The post Sleep More! 3 Great Tips to Boost Rest, Memory, and Well-Being appeared first on Total Brain Health Toolkits.

 MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE? 

 4 EASY TIPS YOU CAN USE TO BOOST FOCUS AND REV UP RECALL

I was recently asked if there is just one thing everyone could do to rev up their recall, especially after so many months (ok, even years) of feeling so distracted and scattered. Fortunately, I had an easy answer – it’s all about attention. If we focused more effectively on the things we want to retain, we would remember them better.

Of course, improving attention is not quite that easy. Let’s face it, life is full of distractions. We have many things competing for our awareness. Think about how many times you’ve been interrupted – or have interrupted yourself! – over the past hour alone. Perhaps you got a snack, checked your text messages, or took a phone call. In the time that I’ve been working on this piece alone I’ve had to answer a call, help my son edit a paper, and of course check email so I don’t miss anything life altering (hey, you never know).

On top of these tempting distractions, add other attention zappers that sometimes feel less within our control, such as how we sleep or feeling stressed or anxious about something. These are just a few of the lifestyle factors that can frazzle our focus, making it less likely we will remember what someone said, or where we left our keys. Aging can also contribute to the problem. As we gain years, it can be harder to sustain our focus.

Finally, we rarely consider how essential attention is to memory. Why? Well, consider for a moment what it takes to remember. First, we must learn the things that we want to recall later. And that process requires – you’ve got it! – attention. Most often the problem isn’t that we forget, but rather than we didn’t “get” the name or directions in the first place.

The good news is that we can all build better attention – and that it isn’t hard to do. And boosting your focus can do wonders for your recall. Here are 4 easy steps you can take to build better attention and memory starting now:

1. Pay attention to your attention. Be aware when you want to remember something for later, such as where you parked your car or the address where you are meeting someone for lunch. Then hit an intentional pause and bring your focus to that moment to make sure you effectively get the information.

2. Train your attention. Research shows we can improve our focus with training, no matter our age. Try game-based training that challenges attention. Playing against the clock is one of my favorite options, as we must stay focused and be fast and nimble in our thinking to do well (and we have fun, which makes the training go faster!).

3. Pay attention to how you live. Daily factors such as fatigue, poor diet, social isolation, and emotional distress can really drain your attention. Think about the daily choices that may be affecting your attention. You can experience a significant boost to focus and even memory ability by leading a lifestyle that supports healthy attention.

4. Stop Overtasking! The human brain is still, well, human! There is only so much we can handle at one time. Protect your attention and your time with some easy strategies that keep you from over-dividing your attention. For example, I use the “do not disturb” setting on my computer when I need to concentrate on a project or have a deadline. This gives me longer chunks of time without the distraction of emails or messages (which invariably are not life altering). Put “do not disturb” signs up when you are working on things that require focus. And try rewarding yourself with a favorite distraction (a game, a walk around the block) when you’ve successfully completed a task and are ready for a break.

In fact, now that I’ve finished this article, I think it’s time to refill my water bottle. Here’s to paying better attention to our attention!

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