The Steering Stars

Here are five great reasons to take care of your brain health:

1. Improved mental clarity and focus. When your brain is healthy, you may find that it’s easier to concentrate and stay focused on tasks.

2. Reduced risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s. Brain health is linked to a reduced risk of age-related cognitive decline.

3. Improved problem-solving skills. Keeping your brain active can help you develop and improve problem-solving skills.

4. Improved memory. Regularly exercising your brain can help you maintain and improve your memory.

5. Improved mood. Taking care of your brain can help you stay in a positive mood and reduce your risk of anxiety and depression.




title: 2023 New Year New Habits Five reasons to priorize your brian health in the new year

Deja vu all over again! The French phrase for "already seen" is not only a feeling of familiarity, but also the metacognitive recognition that those feelings are misplaced.

Almost 60% of people report feeling this memory illusion and, interestingly, it isn't a sign of an unhealthy brain, but just the opposite - deja vu occurs when the frontal regions of the brain attempt to correct an inaccurate memory.

"For the vast majority of people, experiencing deja vu is probably a good thing - it's a sign that the fact-checking brain regions are working well, preventing you from misremembering events.

"Misremembering events is expected to happen every day because the memory involves billions of neurons," expert Dr. Akira O'Connor, senior psychology lecturer at the University of St Andrews reassures us.

While there is no single agreed upon model that explains exactly what happens in the brain during deja vu, most of the competing theories share the same idea: it occurs when areas of the brain (such as the temporal lobe) feed the mind's frontal regions signals that a past experience is repeating itself.

What makes somebody more likely to experience deja vu? On average, Dr. O'Connor estimates that a healthy person will experience it once a month, but several factors can influence your chance of feeling the sensation.

Firstly, how tired you are. When the brain is fatigued, internal neuronal systems haven't had the chance to recuperate and regulate themselves so neuronal firing is more likely to be "off" and result in deja vu. Dopaminergic drugs (recreational or otherwise) can also impact signaling in your brain. Lastly, age. Like many memory issues, it's a natural part of aging - you become unable to notice errors, so younger people experience it more.

New research from the British Journal of Sports Medicine (February 2022) suggests that thirty to sixty minutes of weekly muscle-strengthening exercise could reduce the risk of early death from any cause. It can also reduce the risk of developing cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes by 10 to 20%.

Strength training may help by controlling levels of blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol, and by reducing body fat.

Not having sufficient time to exercise is the leading reason people don't prioritize it; this new research suggesting that only 30 to 60 minutes in an entire week still has positive health benefits should encourage us all to include it in our lives.



video of neurons, title get stronger live longer

The positive impact of meditation on human well-being is well documented, yet its molecular mechanisms are incompletely understood.

For Vijayendran Chandran, a neuroscientist at the University of Florida, an event at the Tennessee mountain retreat center provided an excellent chance to examine the impact of meditation at the molecular level within the body. Because participants’ diet and sleep schedules were closely monitored, he could compare before-and-after blood samples and know that those factors weren’t influencing any changes seen.

The study is the first to suggest meditation causes a gene expression response that could bolster the immune system, whereas most previous studies of meditation and health looked at mostly subjective reductions in stress and anxiety. And that is indeed something to be mindful of.

What does that mean for those of us that cannot dedicate ourselves to an entire retreat? “If I had to guess, if you [meditated] for 20 minutes at a lower point of intensity, these genes would be activated,” says Chandran, a meditator himself, “but we haven’t tested that yet.” He is in the process of designing a study that would test the gene expression response within more casual meditators. (Gene Jeanie, Scientists unravel an intriguing link between meditation and immunity, 2022)



Activating immune system genes, meditation and immunity, mindfulness

During the day, our brain activity produces by-products that can become toxic if they build up.

Recent studies using mice have shown that sleep gives the brain a chance to clean these by-products away.

It seems likely that something similar happens in humans, which may explain some of the negative effects sleep deprivation can have on our ability to learn, remember, and manage our emotions.



photo of person lying under covers, title "Good sleep, clean brain"

Every day is full of moments for mindfulness. While beautiful rooms, soothing music, and delicious candles are all lovely and Instagram-able, the truth is that you can turn anything into a mindfulness exercise.

For starters, when you wake up in the morning set an intention. Intention refers to the underlying motivation for everything we think, say and do. from the brain's perspective, when we act in unintended ways, there is a disconnect between the faster, unconscious impulses of the lower brain centers and the slower, conscious, wiser abilities of the higher centers like the pre-frontal cortex. Setting an intention helps strengthen this connection between lower and higher centers. The practice is best done first thing in the morning.

Eating can be one of the most pleasurable experiences we engage in as human beings, and doing it mindfully can turn eating into a far richer experience, satisfying not just the need for nutrition, but more subtle senses and needs. Pause, slow down, and listen to your body.

Heavy traffic and impatient drivers can trigger our "fight or flight" response leading to road rage and accidents. Try to see traffic as an opportunity to build your mindfulness muscles. First, take a deep breath, recognize you have space available to you and in that space you can determine your mental state. Aside from "being out of traffic" or "get there faster" consider what you need. Do you need to feel safe? Do you need ease and relief from stress? You can give yourself these things. Repeat a mantra, "may I be safe, may I be at ease, may I be free from suffering." Recognize that you and the other drivers are all in need of the same thing - extend this to them, "may you be safe, may you be at ease, may you be free from suffering."

Keep breathing and if you get distracted, begin again.



title Three mindfulness exercises, mindfulness can decrease stress, decreased stress is good for brain health. Three listed exercises repeated in caption.

Artificial Intelligence and other new technologies now allow ophthalmologists to predict and treat diseases affecting the heart, brain, and other organs.

In a new field call oculomics, big data and eye scans are combined to diagnose and predict heart disease. "Smart contact lenses" can release medication, monitor vital signs, and promote wound healing.

One new AI system identifies people who are likely to have a heart attack in the next year based on the pattern of tiny blood vessels in their retinas, the light-sensing layers of tissue at the back of the eyes.

"If these are reductions in the density of these blood vessels or they appear wavier, it's usually a sign of trouble," says Alex Frangi, scientific director of the University of Leeds Centre of HealthTech Innovation.

Eventually, the technology may also predict neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and stroke.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently gave approval to the first contact lens that emits antihistamines to ease itchy eyes caused by allergies. Smart contacts are also being developed to monitor glucose levels in diabetics, help eyes heal faster after eye surgery or corneal abrasions, and even provide information to help improve athletic performance.

(A Peak at New Eye Science, Denise Mann, Reader's Digest, July/August 2022)



grid of four videos: contact lenses and adult eyes; title: contact lenses that predict Alz and Parkinson's?