Our attention gets hijacked by everything from the stress in our lives to the ding of our phones. Neuroscientist Amishi Jha shows how we can cultivate the ability to focus on what really matters. “I think, therefore I am distracted.” Read full article: TEDEd Lessons Worth Sharing, “4 simple exercises to strengthen your attention and reduce distractibility.”    

Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of…But deep in the comment threads, some have also been debating a more uncomfortable question: What do you do when a friend is depressed for such a long time that you’ve started to feel that that nothing you can do will make a difference, and your empathy reserves are tapped out? There are no easy answers. Read full …more

Researchers are learning that it doesn’t just mean that the work we produce at the end of a 14-hour day is of worse quality than when we’re fresh. This pattern of working also undermines our creativity and our cognition. Over time, it can make us feel physically sick – and even, ironically, as if we have no purpose. Read full article: BBC, “The compelling case …more

It may be time to tailor students’ class schedules to their natural biological rhythms, according to a new study from UC Berkeley and Northeastern Illinois University.  Researchers tracked the personal daily online activity profiles of nearly 15,000 college students as they logged into campus servers. After sorting the students into “night owls,” “daytime finches” and “morning larks” — based on their activities on days they …more

As the bar for research on mindfulness raises dramatically, a big change at the University of Massachusetts unites top-tier minds with increased resources to study meditation’s therapeutic potential. Read full article: mindful:healthy mind, healthy life, “UMass Medical School Creates First Division of Mindfulness.”

A growing number of doctors and psychologists are concerned about our relationship with the phone. There’s a debate about what to call the problem. Some say “disorder” or “problematic behavior.” Others think over-reliance on a smartphone can become a behavioral addiction, like gambling. Read full article: npr, “Smartphone Detox: How to Power Down In A Wired World.”

…college students learn less when they use computers or tablets during lectures. They also tend to earn worse grades. The research is unequivocal: Laptops distract from learning, both for users and for those around them. It’s not much of a leap to expect that electronics also undermine learning in high school classrooms or that they hurt productivity in meetings in all kinds of workplaces. Read …more

Maybe more than any other disease, severe cognitive impairments have the potential to unravel families. They’re not one and done. They drag on. They aren’t “lethal” in the normal sense. People with Alzheimer’s can lead long lives, the latter halves of which can get very difficult for everyone involved. Read full article: Marks Daily Apple, “Why Aren’t We Talking About the Cognitive Health Crisis?”