RENÉE BACHER
Journalism and Content Marketing
Renée Bacher covers healthcare, travel, parenting, and pets for print publications and the web. She also writes corporate narratives, brand manifestos and blogs about saving dogs at www.dogbydog.com.
PROJECTS
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Boosting Working Memory With Simple Games May Help Your Problem Solving
Playing games is good for brain health, and it can be the inexpensive, old-fashioned kind of games, not just those requiring a computer and a subscription to activities created by neuroscientists.
Multiple studies have shown associations between different forms of cognitive mental stimulation and better brain health, whether it's playing cards, reading books, engaging in stimulating conversations or learning. And all of these seem to be associated with a lower risk for Alzheimer's disease.
Wo...
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There's the Rub: A Good Massage May Boost Feel-Good Brain Chemicals
You probably know massage is good for aching muscles, arthritis pain and to relieve tension in the body, but did you know it might also boost your brain health?
A good massage should bring on what's called the relaxation response, slowing the breath and causing a dip in blood pressure, heart rate and the hormones that can cause stress. It can also increase your brain's production of serotonin, a chemical that, when out of balance, is implicated in anxiety and depression.
A 2012 study using MR...
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Declutter Your Home to Calm Your Mind
Excessive clutter in your home got you down? You’re not imagining it, and you’re not alone.
According to a recent study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, “When clutter becomes excessive, it can threaten to physically and psychologically entrap a person in dysfunctional home environments which contribute to personal distress and feelings of displacement and alienation."
The study looked at 1,394 people, most of whom were American women in their mid-50s who had previously come to the ...
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To Think More Creatively, Try Clearing Your Mind
New research finds stray thoughts can undermine creative thinking.
Meditation may help clear the mind for new, innovative ideas.
Need to think outside the box more often? Your best bet is to learn how to think less, according to a study published recently in Psychological Science.
In a series of three experiments, researchers found that stray thoughts, ruminations and other kinds of “mental load” undermined creative thinking.
In the study, conducted at Bar-Ilan University’s Leslie and Susan G...
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Brainstorming Can Be a Way to Let Creative Ideas Flourish
Even as we age, we need fresh ideas to inform our important decisions, whether it's making a career change, where to retire or what to do with the family business if the kids aren't interested. Brainstorming, a popular technique that can suppress the inner critic and welcome new possibilities, can fire up creativity and address challenges of all kinds.
Curious what's going on inside our heads while brainstorming? According to Gary Small, M.D., UCLA professor of psychiatry and aging and author...
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Sleep Deprivation Can Make It Hard to Hold On to New Memories
You know you don't feel great when you haven't slept well - maybe you're groggy or crabby, and you might have a headache. But what's going on in your brain when you're sleep deprived and how might it affect your waking life?
For starters, your hippocampus, which is active while you sleep, replaying new information you learned during the day to solidify the knowledge, isn't happy with you, and these new memories can be lost.
On the flip side, sleep also filters out the useless little things yo...
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If the Ubiquitous 'To-Do' List Helps You Stay Organized, Keep Using It
Think you can function these days without some version of a "to-do" list? Good luck with that, especially given the demands of a job and running a household.
Besides, it can be satisfying to cross things off that list as you hit the post office, the dry cleaner and the grocery store on your way home from the gym. But is list-making a crutch that indicates a cognitive problem? Or is it a tool that not only keeps us functioning well, but also helps keep our minds sharp?
The answer is, it's not ...
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Phobias, Fears, and the Brain
Afraid of spiders, or are you a full-blown arachnophobe? The answer may lie in your amygdalae, structures deep within the brain that process emotions, including fear.
The two almond-shaped amygdalae are like the body’s alarm system, and you cannot experience fear, which may be essential to survival, without these parts of the brain. In fact, you can’t even perceive fear on the faces of others if your amygdalae aren’t working properly.
When researchers showed subjects pictures of spiders and l...
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Eating When You Should Be Sleeping Can Affect Your Brain
If you enjoy a midnight snack, even if you’re a healthy weight, you may want to think twice about it: A new study has found that mice that ate when they should have been sleeping did not perform as well on memory tests as their counterparts did.
Scientists at UCLA found that when mice, which are nocturnal, were fed during the day—known as misaligned feeding—they slept for the same total amount as a control group, but in shorter sleep sessions. The disrupted sleep patterns not only caused the ...
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Multivitamin Formula May Make Memory More Efficient, Research Shows
Headed to the fridge for an important ingredient, but by the time you open the door you've forgotten what it is? New research says taking a multivitamin a day may actually help.
In a randomized 2012 study published in the journal Physiology & Behavior, researchers gave participants with subjective memory complaints a task requiring the use of working memory while simultaneously measuring the electrical activity in their brains. (Working memory is the system that helps us retain information fo...
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Setting the Right Kind of Goals Can Be Good for Your Brain and Longevity
Making life goals and staying on top of them as we age can not only give us the anticipatory pleasure of having things to look forward to, it can engage us in social experiences and new educational activities that have been shown to boost both brain health and longevity.
Whether for athletes on the playing field, or dieters hoping to lose weight, studies have shown that setting goals can hold you accountable and increase your chances of success.
"Certainly if you have a goal, the chances of f...
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Higher Blood Sugar Levels Affect Regions Tied to Memory, Cognitive Skills
Torn between that big, beautiful piece of cake calling your name and holding back so you don't gain weight? It's not just your waistline to keep in mind when deciding, but also the effects that eating too much added sugar may have on your brain.
Sugar itself isn't bad for your brain, which needs glucose as a fuel source to keep functioning. Compared with the other organs in your body, the brain uses a lot of it. However, it's important to keep an eye on your blood sugar, as several studies li...
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Will Cardio or Strength Training Give You the Better Brain Workout?
Studies have shown that cardiovascular exercise has benefits for your heart, lungs, metabolism and even your mind, causing significant increases of the protein BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which can increase brain volume and improve cognition. A sedentary lifestyle, on the other hand, can decrease BDNF in the bloodstream. But what about the cognitive benefits of other types of exercise, such as weight lifting or yoga?
The jury is still out on the cognitive benefits of strength tr...
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Mindful Meditation May Help You Disengage From Stressful Thinking
Imagine you get an exorbitant hospital bill showing that your insurance company rejected a preauthorized claim. You call the insurance company. It redirects your call, puts you on hold for 40 minutes, and the customer service representative says he will review the claim but that the preauthorization was a mistake. He gives a reason that makes no sense. You hang up furious and stressed, and relive this throughout the day.
What is going on in your brain, and how can you make it stop?
For years ...