How Staying Mentally Fit Can Make a Difference

Your brain isn’t a muscle, but you can treat it like one
Many people focus on physical fitness, but few know that brain fitness is also something you can work on. In fact, you can exercise your brain as often as you would your arms or abs--and the results can be positive and empowering.

It’s helpful to think of your brain as you would a muscle. To improve your brain, you can’t simply repeat the same exercises over and over. Just as lifting a two pound weight will cease to challenge you, so will repetitive exercises such as crosswords or Sudoku. Once you master easy exercises, you must move on to harder ones in order to push your brain—like your muscles—to a new level.
This is based on your brain’s innate neuroplasticity, or its ability to grow and change in response to new challenges. In other words, the right types of stimulating exercises can physically change your brain.

The science behind brain training
Scientists once believed that your mental abilities were fixed in adulthood. Now that studies on neuroplasticity have shown just the opposite, millions of people around the world have adopted the new practice of brain training.
The most popular of these brain training products is made by the San Francisco-based Lumosity, which employs a team of in-house neuroscientists with degrees from Stanford and UC Berkeley.
Realizing that brains need more sophisticated programs and guidance to grow and change, Lumosity’s scientists work with an experienced team of game designers. Together they’ve developed a fun, effective online brain training program that measure, tracks, and adapts to your progress so you’ll always be challenged.
Lumosity's training algorithm and 40+ games are based on well-studied tests used in clinical neuropsychology research.

Promising studies on the effects of brain training
In a 2013 Stanford study, a treatment group of 21 breast cancer survivors used 12 weeks of Lumosity training to work on processing speed, mental flexibility, and working memory tasks. On average, those who trained improved on tests of these abilities, compared to a group that did not train with Lumosity.
There is even some preliminary evidence suggesting that Lumosity may be beneficial to normal, healthy adults. In a 2011 study by Lumosity and San Francisco State University researchers, 13 people who did Lumosity training over 5 weeks improved on tests of brain performance compared to a group that did not train. On average, those who trained improved working memory scores by 10% and attention scores by 20%.

Brain training is designed to address real-life needs
The goal of brain training is not to improve game scores: it’s to improve the underlying core abilities that those games rely on. Neuroscientists like those at Lumosity design brain games meant to translate into real-life benefits; with continued testing and research, the body of evidence behind brain training continues to grow.

Better attention, for example, can mean greater focus in the classroom or at an important business meeting. With improved processing speed, you might react and adapt faster to the demands of a busy life. And a better memory could mean stronger, longer relationships with the people closest to you.
Brain training is an investment

Training can take just a few minutes a day, but the rewards can make a difference in many aspects of life.
Lumosity is one of the first and most popular brain training programs in existence. There’s a small fee to use the full product, or new users can start a free trial.

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Rare Undersea Discovery Could Extend Your Life by 10, 20 or 30 Years

Humans have made incredible health strides and are living longer lives than ever.  Many of the maladies that struck down our ancestors have for the most part been completely eliminated – everything from tuberculosis, to polio to malaria.

Today, the biggest killers stem as much from our lifestyles as from microscopic bacteria and viruses.  One of the worst of these is heart disease, and specifically high blood pressure. It’s a slow, but efficient killer that robs many people of what should be the last 10, 20 or 30 years of their lives.

Part of the reason that heart disease is so prevalent and intractable is that it often requires massive changes to one’s lifestyle— changes that are not easy to make.  Everything from radically altering ones diet to implementing serious exercise routines.  And while it’s never too late to start, people often realize the true danger only when it’s too late to make the changes and the damage is done.
Now, however, there may be a scientific breakthrough that could have an impact on high blood pressure comparable to penicillin’s ability treat infections or quinine’s effect on malaria.
Scientists are claiming that they have now isolated unusual ingredients in a rare seaweed discovered by fishermen off the coast of Korea that offer incredible health benefits—including the ability to restore blood pressure to normal levels.

Dr. Haengwoo Lee, a renowned biochemist living near Seattle, Washington conducted a massive 15 year, multimillion dollar clinical study on these two ingredients. The first is Seanol, an extremely rare seaweed extract from Ecklonia Cava that's proven to be 100 times more powerful than any land-based antioxidant. That's because it stays working in your body for 12 hours, compared to land-based antioxidants that work for 30 minutes.

"Its secret is its make-up of special polyphenol antioxidants that are a whopping 40% lipid (fat) soluble," Dr. Lee explains. "Unlike nearly all land-based antioxidants that are water soluble, Seanol's protective compounds can get into things like the fatty tissues of your brain and penetrate all three layers of your cells, including the outside, the oil-based cell membranes, and your DNA."

Indeed, Seanol is so powerful, it's the only FDA-approved Ecklonia Cava marine-algae extract in existence.
The second ingredient is Calamarine, a deep-sea omega-3 discovery that delivers 85% more DHA omega-3s to your heart, brain, joints, and eyes. It's known to combat everything from fatigue and poor memory, to vision problems, joint pain, mood swings and depression.

With that research in mind, Dr. Lee combined Seanol and Calamarine with a high dose of vitamin D to form Marine-D3, the newest supplement in the fight against age-related illnesses and high blood pressure.
According to the CDC, about 1 in 3 U.S. adults has high blood pressure, which increases the risk for heart disease and stroke, the two leading causes of death in the United States. Increasing your omega-3 intake can reduce high blood pressure, and because it's difficult to get enough omega-3s in foods like fish and nuts, many people turn to supplements.

Dr. Lee found that Calamarine delivers some of the greatest concentration of omega-3s known to science, and has been able to formulate it without any fishy burps or aftertaste. Combined with Seanol's ability to reduce body inflammation, as well as help cells get the nutrients they need to thrive, stay healthy and protected, Marine-D3 is able to boost a body's entire well being.

The makers of Marine-D3 are so confident that you'll see fast dramatic results from this product, that if you aren't happy after two full months, simply return the unused portion and they'll buy it back. They'll even give you ten dollars extra just for giving it an honest try! That kind of faith, combined with Dr. Lee's exhaustive research, shows that Marine-D3 really is a one-of-a-kind product.

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