Your brain is a powerful neutral party.  It will shape and support all habits – good or bad! According to neurological studies, habits come in three parts. First there’s a cue, the behavior trigger. Then there’s the routine, the action itself. Finally comes the reward — the brain’s payoff for staying with or abandoning the habit. A child sucking its thumb, (cue) isn’t a bad thing when first starting out. But if prolonged beyond infancy, smart parents have been known to devise a method of curtailing this habit (the routine). For every day the child goes without sucking its thumb, he/she is rewarded with a “star” attached to a calendar, (reward). If this happened to you early on, it may have been your first habit test. This basic formula can be self-taught, helping create good habits and shed negative ones — although wriggling away from the latter may pose a greater degree of difficulty. Quitting smoking, for example, will require more help from your brain than deciding to exercise more; but it doesn’t hurt to try and you will have more success if you can begin to recognize your cues of the bad habits. Of all good habits engineered, one of the most common is to eat and lose weight wisely — while maintaining a beneficial nutrition program. Researchers found those most successful ate breakfast every morning; their cue. Most important was the reward phase, like the bikini they wanted to fit into by summer, or the pride felt seeing that arrow on the scale drop a little more each day. Though it can take two months to get there, good habits cultivated properly become natural. And with brain help from Prevagen®, enthusiasm will trump temptation. Every time.  

René Descartes, paraphrased in our title, hung out his philosopher shingle over 400 years ago. Yet he understood the crucial importance of the brain, and spent his life trying to find out how it worked, creating opportunity for those who followed. Although we get it that the brain is critical to our very existence, it’s accountable for much more, and controls almost every action and reaction that we emit. Without a functioning brain, voluntary movement and critical involuntary events like breathing in and out and the beating of our hearts is impossible. The brain serves as the center of our conscious being — housing and making available our memories, emotions and personalities. Even though it doesn’t take up much space, it consumes almost a fourth of the oxygen we take in and the energy we consume. The chemical reactions that take place within the brain are the basis of the responses which allow us to survive; we can’t live without it. Significant advances in opening the doors of understanding about the brain have been made since Descartes left us, and one reason why the positive effects from the use of Prevagen® have been so encouraging — but there is still much to do. We know now that our brains continue to grow and change, regardless of age. And if we as individuals can remain physically healthy and mentally active, our collective ability to continue to think and reason will go a long way in sustaining our sense of self. SOURCE:   NIH

Talking to yourself affirmatively is not only stimulating, it can help you be a better person, husband, wife or partner, working colleague, and parent. It’s not only encouraged, it can be a life-saver, literally. The brain is a magnificent piece of physical material, and if cared for and used correctly can be of immeasurable help to you and those around you.  But it takes patience and self-training, as part of a menu of positives to practice as you go about living your life. Speaking aloud as you exercise, shower, drive, meditate — anywhere where you can have a one-on-one verbal interaction with yourself, is a perfectly natural thing to do, and can be a breath of fresh air.  If someone overhears you, who cares?  Admit it, and carry on. Encourage yourself. Research has shown that open self-examination increases the effectiveness of the brain and helps avoid depression. Crowding your mind with good thoughts will not only push out the garbage, it’ll lessen the chance of succumbing to the challenges ahead. Interact with others frequently — interesting folks that you like being around. Read more often, and get excited about it. Do what makes you feel good about yourself.  It will not only stimulate you physically, it’ll help you be more mentally productive. And never stop being curious. Zero in on something that has always intrigued you and find out more about it. These are just some of the reasons why something like Prevagen® can be so critical to keeping it together as we confront the future. So next time you’re in the shower, do the introductions — and start talking.  

We used to love snail mail — mail that was actually delivered in a physical envelope, with a stamp on it. We looked forward to that time of day when we’d check what was in the mailbox outside – or arrived pouring through the slot in your front door. What we received made us feel better, more informed, and aware of those things in important in our lives. Depending on who or what you believe, those days are fast coming to a close. Technology has taken over, as e-mails, tweets, texts and other forms of instant communication have muscled in.  The Postal Service is in financial difficulty, and snail mail is a waste of paper, further stressing our environment. However, quick and handy as it is, electronic messaging is easily misunderstood, seen as rude, or lacking in sensibility. Snail mail is still recommended for a message to someone who has done something nice you want to acknowledge. If nothing else, it’s a memory-booster that goes both ways — from your mind to your fingertips as you prepare the message, to the heart and brain of your recipient. A regularly-mailed appreciation note, or longer personal message, is more likely to be saved, “magneted” to the refrigerator door, or thumb-tacked to a bulletin board, “sticking” in a way that allows the recipient to view it several times, reliving the words over and over.  That’s something e-mail can’t touch. While the future can be fickle, many feel that snail mail will always be with us. It may be transformed, but is too important to wither away. SOURCE:   About.com

While many, regardless of age, use today’s communications tools to share information, or to be aware of where they’re supposed to be next Thursday at 9 — some have made social networking a way of life. And while much of this new order in our lives is good, research is showing many are spending too much of their time making use of the sophisticated tools at their disposal. And a significant percentage is also attempting to work more than one program at a time, an effort that can be both seen as both negative and positive. Multi-tasking involves that part of the brain that governs social and reasoning behavior — and could be detrimental to cognitive reasoning. Visual and motor skills might be improved, but the loss of the ability to focus and think things through in an orderly way is also possible. As the world’s population expands, becomes more fluid and more mobile, communication and understanding as we know it could be altered forever— or could just be a passing fad — that we’ll use more wisely, and temper with reason. It will be enormously difficult, if not impossible to duplicate that elegant machine that is the human brain. So to ensure all those wondrous reactions within it are used properly, frequent and continued efforts to listen, engage and interact with others on a person-to-person level is as good a prescription as any for keeping life’s activities on an even keel. And of course a daily dose of Prevagen can’t hurt!