MINDRAMP PODCAST - LIVE LONG, LIVE WELL: Recent Episodes
Michael C Patterson
There's a good chance you could live to be 100 years old! Are you ready for the marathon journey? Do you have a plan to maintain your quality-of-life across your full longevity - what we call "Qualongevity?" You can do nothing and take your chances. Or, you can be proactive and take control of your future by using science-based interventions to lower your risks and optimize your protections. Start now! No matter your age, the sooner you start training for the longevity marathon, the better off you will be. Give yourself the best shot of maintaining health, happiness, meaning and purpose NOW and throughout the long and prosperous life you design.
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In communist Poland in the 1980s, Solidarity had been driven underground. Martial law. Leaders imprisoned. On the surface, the regime had won. Then an art history student named Waldemar Fydrych — known as Major — painted a grinning dwarf on a freshly whitewashed wall. Not a slogan. Not a demand. A dwarf.
Episode 15 of Flourish in Times of Struggle explores Poland's Orange Alternative — the surrealist, carnivalesque resistance movement that embedded itself within Solidarity's organized underground and helped delegitimize communist rule through sustained public laughter. It asks the question at the heart of this series: when does humor actually change anything?
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Continuing the series on humor as resistance, dissent, and liberation, this episode explores what happens when the Dionysian impulse takes to the streets. Freed from the confines of a performance space, the separation between performer and observer dissolves. Performance, provocation, and protest become inseparable. The comedy becomes the political act of liberation.
In this episode I follow the tradition of rude humor as it spills out of the theater into the protest march, the city park, the union hall, and the walls of the city. I begin with two vivid examples of agitprop: the Bread and Puppet Theater appearing with their twenty-foot papier-mâché giants at protest marches across sixty years of American political life, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe performing without permission in public parks — winning an Obie Award in 1967 for "unifying theater and revolution and grooving in the parks."
This opens into a broader tradition: the carnival. From Rio de Janeiro's Carnival to the Mardi Gras of New Orleans, carnival is the ancient popular form in which the normal social order is temporarily suspended, mocked, and turned upside down. The Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin spent years in Soviet exile studying this tradition and identified its key characteristics: the dissolution of the boundary between performer and audience, the inversion of the social hierarchy from the bottom up, the misalliance of the sacred and the profane, and the profanation that strips the costume from power and reveals the ordinary human being underneath.
But the episode also raises a difficult question that runs through this entire series: when does carnival produce genuine resistance — and when does it simply release the pressure that might have forced real change, leaving the hierarchy exactly as it found it? The Feast of Fools and the Roman Saturnalia suggest the danger. Poland's Orange Alternative — the absurdist resistance movement that painted grinning dwarves on communist city walls — suggests the possibility. The difference, I argue, lies not in the quality of the humor but in the structure and strategy of the movement that surrounds it.
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What do a sixteenth century Italian clown, a Nobel Prize-winning playwright, and a man who threw a Subway sandwich at a federal agent have in common? They are all practitioners of one of the oldest and most enduring forms of political humor: rude humor aimed at upsetting the powerful.
In this episode, I trace that tradition back to the market squares of Renaissance Italy and commedia dell'arte — where the clever servant Arlecchino regularly upended the normal social hierarchy by systematically humiliating his pompous master Pantalone in front of crowds of ordinary workers.
The commedia tradition found its strongest modern expression in the Italian jester Dario Fo, who performed in occupied factories, public parks, and town squares. Like Arlecchino before him, Fo confronted the validity of oppressive hierarchies — and as a result was prosecuted forty times on charges of blasphemy and subversion. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997.
The episode explores a question that runs through the entire Humor as Resistance series: what makes rude humor politically effective? When does it crack open the assumptions of the powerful and lead to real change? And when does it simply make people laugh and send them home, leaving the hierarchy exactly as it found it?
The answer has less to do with the quality of the humor and more with the social context in which it is performed.
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The court jester is one of history's most misunderstood figures. Not merely an entertainer, the jester was the only person in the medieval court licensed to tell the king the truth — to mock power, puncture pretension, and name what everyone else was forbidden to say. In this episode, we explore what the jester's role reveals about the relationship between humor and power: how laughter can expose the absurdity of authority, and how authority has always worked to contain, co-opt, and control that laughter before it becomes dangerous.
We examine the jester as a structural feature of political systems — a built-in mechanism for correcting the feedback loops that cause leaders to lose touch with reality. And we ask what it means that modern authoritarian systems have no equivalent: no licensed fool, no sanctioned truth-teller, no court figure whose job is to say the unsayable. That absence, we argue, is not a trivial detail. It is a structural vulnerability — one that history suggests tends to end badly.
Part of an ongoing series on Humor as Resistance — using the history and theory of comedy, performance, and theatrical tradition to illuminate the political dynamics of our current moment.
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There is a word that has been sitting in the English language since the fifteenth century, quietly waiting for its moment. TRUMPERY. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a trumpery as deceit, fraud, imposture, trickery — something of less value than it seems. Worthless stuff, trash, rubbish. Shakespeare used it. The French coined it. And the man who embodies the word was born on June 14th, 1946.
In this episode, I suggest the launch of A Trumpery Campaign — a crowdsourced lexicon of pointed, humorous observations that name the absurdities, corruptions, and patterns of the Trump administration with precision and wit. Not invented absurdity. Observed abnormalities. Named inanity. Identified idiocies.
The episode provides examples from an early Trumpery Lexicon — from Speed Trumps to Trumpback Whales to Electile Dysfunction. It traces the comic history of a man who has spent his career putting his name on things that subsequently become doomed to failure.
I invite listeners to create their own Trumperies and share them broadly. Send me an email with your own inventions . The best submissions will be featured on June 14th — Trump's 80th birthday. The winner will receive a Golden Trumpinal Award to commemorate their wit and wisdom.
Laughter is resistance and the word has been waiting five centuries to take its place in a movement to save democracy. Let's put it to work.
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In this episode, I trace the origins of humor as a tool of political resistance to fifth-century Athens, where the playwright Aristophanes used comedy to mock warmongering leaders, puncture male vanity, and make the case for peace — in front of thousands of citizens, at the height of a ruinous war.
Drawing on the history of Aristophanes' two great anti-war plays — The Knights and Lysistrata — the episode explores what humor can do that marches, lawsuits, and arguments alone cannot: name the absurdity, puncture the posture of power, and give people permission to say out loud what they already know.
But the Athens story is not a simple triumph. It raises harder questions too. Did the humor actually change anything? Whose interests did it serve? And what does it mean that tyrant was mocked brilliantly yet remained in power?
Mark Twain, writing in the voice of Satan, put the challenge directly: "Your race has one really effective weapon — laughter. You leave it lying rusting. You lack sense and the courage."
This episode begins the quest to understand how humor can be used as an effective tool for change.
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Dehumanization is one of the oldest tools of political control. And it follows a recognizable pattern.
In this episode, I identify and name what I call the Political Dehumanization Template — a five-component framework for understanding how those in power manufacture enemies, redirect legitimate grievances onto scapegoats, and license violence against targeted groups. The template is ancient. It is deliberate. And it is operating in American public life right now.
The five components are:
- the manufactured threat,
- the erasure of individuality,
- two emotional weapons — disgust and existential terror — calibrated to produce either exclusion or extermination,
- a self-sealing feedback loop immune to rational correction,
- and the political function that serves those in power.
Drawing on Timothy Snyder's Leib and Körper (living body vs. dead body) distinction and Isabel Wilkerson's work on caste, the episode traces the template from the European witch trials to the present moment — and offers three specific antidotes for those who want to resist it.
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What gives ordinary people power against those who hold it? One answer is as old as democracy itself: the deliberate, collective withdrawal of cooperation.
The Power of Withdrawal draws on three examples spanning twenty-four hundred years to ask what actually makes collective refusal work — and what each teaches us about the art of resistance.
In ancient Athens, Aristophanes' Lysistrata understood that power flows from cooperation — and that withdrawing what the powerful need most, whether that is labor, money, or something more intimate, is the first principle of effective resistance.
In County Mayo, Ireland, the tenant farmers who invented the word "boycott" took that principle further. They withdrew not just their labor but every form of social and economic cooperation from a cruel land agent — and discovered that total social ostracism, costing the British government ten thousand pounds to harvest crops worth five hundred, was more devastating than violence could ever have been.
In Montgomery, Alabama, the lesson became organizational. The Black community's 381-day refusal to ride segregated buses succeeded not because of a single courageous act, but because of years of invisible preparation — networks built, leadership developed, infrastructure laid — long before anyone knew when it would be needed.
Together these three examples reveal a consistent logic: identify what the powerful cannot do without, withdraw it collectively, and sustain that withdrawal through planning, organization, and strategic discipline.
Authoritarian power depends on our cooperation — our labor, our money, our silence, our compliance. History suggests we have more power to withdraw that cooperation than we have yet chosen to use
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How do human beings come to accept dead children as collateral damage? How does an insurance company deny medical care to a sick child without moral crisis?
In this episode, Michael C. Patterson draws on historian Timothy Snyder's powerful distinction between two German words for body: Leib and Körper. Leib is the living, breathing, irreplaceable human being. Körper is that same person reduced to an object, a statistic, a cost, a corpse. This episode explores how Körper logic became embedded in the systems that shape everyday life.
From the invention of the arrow to the drone operator's console to the shareholder return calculation, the mechanism is the same: distance, abstraction, and the gradual erosion of our felt sense of other people's inherent worth. Our first act of resistance may be not political but perceptual. We must learn to recognize when we are objectifying people and choose, deliberately, to shift from a Körper to a Leib mindset.
As mentioned in the podcast, you might be interested in two earlier podcasts that discussed how our mind struggles to balance two different ways of processing reality.
THE EMPRESS AND HER DEPUTY
OUR MIND ARGUES WITH ITSELF.
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Drawing on historian Timothy Snyder's book On Freedom, this episode explores why resistance alone is never enough. Using the story of Mariia, an 85-year-old Ukrainian woman living in the aftermath of Russian occupation, Snyder introduces a distinction that cuts to the heart of our current political moment: the difference between Negative Freedom — freedom from oppression — and Positive Freedom — freedom to build systems that support human flourishing.
In today's America, millions are united in opposition to authoritarian rule. But what happens after the resistance succeeds? This episode argues that defeating Trump is necessary but insufficient — that true freedom requires not just restoring what we had, but constructing something better. And that building the broader Yes coalitions capable of that work requires us to confront the deepest assumptions we hold about democracy, human worth, and what a just society is actually for.
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What does it really take to resist authoritarianism and sustain democracy over time? This episode introduces Movement Ecology—a practical framework for understanding the different kinds of work that go into building a successful social movement. Rather than demanding that everyone do everything, Movement Ecology helps people find where they fit, how their contributions connect to others, and how sustained engagement—not episodic outrage—creates real power. If you’ve ever wondered how to stay involved without burning out, this episode offers a grounded, hopeful map forward.
MOVEMENT ECOLOGY
- Personal transformation
- Alternatives
- The inside Game
- Structure Based Organizations
- Mass Protests
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In this episode of Flourish in Times of Struggle, Michael C. Patterson explores the difference between NO coalitions and YES coalitions—and why democratic renewal requires both. Drawing on contemporary activism and movement strategy, the episode examines how resistance to harmful policies must be paired with a shared vision of what comes next.
Saying no can stop injustice. Saying yes helps us imagine and build a more just, humane, and durable future.
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Written from a jail cell in 1963, Letter from Birmingham Jail remains one of the most rigorous moral arguments in American history. This episode explores what King meant by just and unjust laws, why civil disobedience must be disciplined and strategic, and how these ideas speak to our moment.
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In this episode of Flourish As You Age, Michael C. Patterson explores the research of Jennifer Karas Montez, showing that life expectancy in the United States is increasingly determined by state-level public policies and systems of social support.
Across states and even ZIP codes, differences in wages, healthcare access, education, environmental protections, and safety nets can add—or subtract—years of life. This episode examines how political choices translate into biological outcomes, why some policy environments support healthier aging than others, and what it means to think of democracy itself as a public-health intervention.
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In a time of political, social, and ecological upheaval, personal well-being cannot be separated from the systems that surround us. The Flourishing in Times of Struggle series is an inquiry into how power, governance, and collective action influence our ability to live well—individually and together. This first episode introduces the core questions and direction of the series, setting the stage for thoughtful exploration rather than quick answers.
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Our accidental mind is a marvel of evolution—capable of breathtaking creativity, yet vulnerable to distraction, self-deception, and runaway ego. In this week’s Welcoming Wisdom podcast, we explore two unlikely partners in this drama: the premotor cortex and the default mode network (DMN).
- The premotor cortex rehearses actions before we move, allowing us to simulate outcomes and imagine future possibilities.
- The default mode network weaves our sense of self and story, giving us social intelligence while also tempting us into rumination and egocentrism.
Together, they illustrate the double-edged nature of our cognition: the same circuits that enable foresight and empathy can also fuel anxiety, self-absorption, and unintended consequences.
In the episode, I share how understanding these networks helps us manage our minds with greater wisdom. By learning to channel rehearsal toward constructive outcomes and to quiet the DMN’s more ego-driven impulses, we can shape behavior that is virtuous rather than villainous.
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The Obstetric Dilemma and the Birth of the Plastic Brain
What happens when evolution backs itself into a corner? In this episode of Flourish As You Age, Michael C. Patterson explores one of the most profound evolutionary compromises of all: the obstetric dilemma.
As our ancestors evolved upright posture and larger brains, childbirth became a dangerous bottleneck. The solution wasn’t elegant but it was effective—babies began to be born earlier, with brains still unfinished. This kluge changed everything. Human infants arrived helpless, but also highly adaptable. Their malleable brains would be shaped not just by biology, but by culture, care, and community.
This episode traces how the obstetric dilemma led to heightened brain plasticity—our capacity to learn, adapt, and reinvent ourselves across the lifespan. But plasticity is a double-edged sword: the same flexibility that fuels creativity, empathy, and cooperation can also reinforce fear, bias, and brutality.
Along the way, we’ll consider how early caregiving environments sculpt our baseline outlook on life, why habits—good and bad—get wired so deeply into the brain, and how culture itself became an evolutionary force.
The story of the obstetric dilemma isn’t just about childbirth—it’s about how humans became a species whose minds are built, rebuilt, and reshaped through experience. It’s a story of ingenuity, vulnerability, and possibility.
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This month’s podcast episode tells the story of how two remarkable organizations—Encore Creativity, the nation’s largest choral program for older adults, and Pasadena Villages, a thriving part of the Village Movement—came together to launch a new singing ensemble in Southern California.
At first glance, it’s a story about a choir. But look closer and it becomes a story about aging well, intergenerational collaboration, and the power of music to lift health, joy, and well-being.
You’ll hear from the leaders who made this partnership possible:
- Joshua Vickery, Encore’s CEO, on his vision for creative aging and the scaffolding that supports more than 50 ensembles nationwide.
- Dick Myers, a Pasadena Villages leader, on how community and purpose can transform late life into a “call to adventure.”
- Dan Golden, who helped forge the partnership and then challenged himself to join as a singer.
- Holly Barber, the dynamic conductor who brings the ensemble to life with passion and skill.
The Encore/Village partnership shows what can happen when people respond to that call with moral ambition: directing their energy and creativity toward making communities kinder, wiser, and more harmonious.
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In this episode of Flourish As You Age, Michael C. Patterson explores working memory, the fragile mental workspace where consciousness itself takes shape. Think of it as the virtual whiteboard of the mind—a place where perceptions and memories flicker into awareness, linger just long enough to be combined or reshaped, and then fade to make room for new thoughts.
Working memory may be limited, but it is also the platform of conscious life: the stage on which reflection, planning, and creativity unfold. And while its capacity is small—just a few chunks of information at a time—we can overcome these limits. Through strategies like chunking, cultural scaffolds, and tools of the extended mind (from books to digital aids), we amplify its power and depth.
Working memory is a cognitive skill that can be honed and improved. To flourish, Mature minds should recognize working memory as an important mental skill and cultivate it—using it wisely, enriching it with culture, and extending it with technology—so that consciousness itself becomes richer, deeper, and more resilient.
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In this episode of Flourish As You Age, Michael C. Patterson explores the “accidental mind”—not a perfectly engineered machine, but a brilliant kluge (pronounced klooj): an evolutionary patchwork that works despite its awkward design. Drawing from David Linden and Iain McGilchrist, we look at why the brain’s jury-rigged architecture needs scaffolding—culture, contemplation, and mature perspective—to function wisely.
You’ll hear about:
- Why evolution builds “good-enough” solutions—and what that means for flourishing
- Opponent processing: the productive tension of neural opposites
- The hemispheres in dialogue: big-picture right, analytic left, and the role of the corpus callosum
- How skillful integration (not uniformity) turns inner tension into growth
This episode is part of a series based on Michael’s forthcoming book, Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Help Shape a Kinder, Wiser Future.
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In this episode, Michael C. Patterson traces the creative landscape of later life — from Dr. Gene Cohen’s groundbreaking research on creative aging, to Twyla Tharp’s fierce manifesto for movement, to the wide horizons of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Sky Above Clouds. He concludes with a reflection on how artificial intelligence has become a collaborative partner in extending his mature mind. The episode is a compelling exploration of how creativity, adaptability, and new tools can help us flourish as we age.
This episode is part of a series based on Michael’s forthcoming book, Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Help Shape a Kinder, Wiser Future.
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In this episode, host Michael C. Patterson explores Dr. Gene Cohen’s groundbreaking concept of developmental intelligence—the idea that our minds can continue growing in complexity, depth, and wisdom throughout life. Drawing on Cohen’s framework for postformal thinking—relativistic, dualistic, and systematic—Michael shares insights from his book Welcoming Wisdom and discusses how mature minds can cultivate new ways of seeing, thinking, and contributing to a flourishing future.
Developmental Intelligence
- Relativistic Thinking
- Dualistic Thinking
- Systemic Thinking
This episode is part of a series based on Michael’s forthcoming book, Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Help Shape a Kinder, Wiser Future.
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In this episode of Flourish As You Age, host Michael C. Patterson explores the often-overlooked strengths of the mature mind. Drawing from his upcoming book Welcoming Wisdom, he challenges the myth of inevitable cognitive decline, offering instead a vision of aging as a period of continued mental development, creative growth, and integrative insight.
Through reflections on Plato’s Republic, Anne Rice’s wise vampire Marius, and Dr. Gene Cohen’s beloved metaphor of “Sky Above Clouds,” this episode reveals how age can bring about a powerful form of intelligence—what Cohen called developmental intelligence. It’s the synergy of cognition, emotional maturity, life experience, and social wisdom that allows us to think not just faster, but deeper.
You’ll come away with a fresh sense of what’s possible in life’s later chapters—and a renewed commitment to grow, contribute, and flourish.
Coming next: A deep dive into the three postformal thinking styles that power the mature mind: relativistic, dualistic, and systemic thinking.
This episode is part of a series based on Michael’s forthcoming book, Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Help Shape a Kinder, Wiser Future.
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What happens when we finally get the free time we longed for—only to find it strangely unsettling? In this episode of Flourish As You Age, host Michael C. Patterson explores leisure as a vital (and often overlooked) condition of human flourishing.
Drawing from his book Welcoming Wisdom, he traces how cultural expectations around work have shaped our identity, how the pandemic opened space for reimagining daily life, and how emerging technologies may lead to a future with much more free time.
The question is: will we be ready to use that time well? Learn how leisure, when approached with intention and creativity, can become one of the most meaningful contributions of our later years.
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In this final episode of our opening series on Flourishing, we explore the deeper dimensions of what it means to live a meaningful and well-lived life. Drawing from awe research, contemplative neuroscience, and classical philosophy, we reflect that flourishing is not a fixed state but an emergent, relational process—one shaped by attention, moral insight, and reverence for life itself.
You’ll hear excerpts from Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Shape a Kinder, Wiser Future, including:
- A fresh take on awe as a catalyst for connection and transformation
- Iain McGilchrist’s insights into the “sense of the sacred” as a mode of perception
- Socratic wisdom on the examined life and the moral core of flourishing
- A synthesis of ancient virtue ethics, modern psychology, and ecological well-being
This episode concludes our foundational exploration of flourishing and sets the stage for the next series: The Mature Mind. Join us as we continue uncovering the unique capacities of aging minds to lead, imagine, and help shape a more compassionate world.
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What does it mean to live a virtuous life—and how does virtue relate to human flourishing? In this episode, we explore the moral dimensions of flourishing through both Western and developmental lenses. Drawing on classical ideas from ancient philosophy, we ask whether virtue is grounded in reason, emotion, or something deeper.
We focsu on the work of psychologist Darcia Narvaez, whose research suggests that our capacity for virtue is rooted in the benevolent care and emotional attunement we receive in early childhood. From Aristotle to affective neuroscience, this conversation invites you to reconsider how virtue emerges, why it matters, and how it shapes our ability to flourish in a complex world.
This episode is part of a series based on Michael’s forthcoming book, Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Help Shape a Kinder, Wiser Future.
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What does it really mean to flourish as we age? In this second episode of Flourish As You Age, host Michael C. Patterson draws from his forthcoming book, Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Shape a Kinder, Wiser Future, to explore timeless and evolving ideas about the good life—from Aristotle and the Stoics to Buddhist teachings and modern psychology.
This episode invites listeners to clarify what flourishing means to them—beyond comfort or achievement—and to consider how purpose, connection, and resilience shape a life worth living.
Follow the Flourish As You Age podcasts.
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In this inaugural episode of Flourish As You Age, host Michael Patterson introduces a new podcast series drawn from his forthcoming book, Welcoming Wisdom: How Mature Minds Can Shape a Kinder, Wiser Future.
The episode offers an overview of the book’s foundational ideas—redefining what it means to flourish as we age, exploring the cognitive strengths of mature minds, and presenting the provocative hypothesis that we may be living on the edge of a Second Axial Age.
Through science, story, and philosophical reflection, Patterson invites listeners into a new vision of aging as evolution—and a call to use our wisdom to guide humanity towards a better future.
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When do we start aging?
What is aging?
What causes aging?
These were some of the questions posed to aging experts (professionals, professors, graduate students) who were attending a conference on aging called “Systems Aging.”
The big takeaway from the survey was that there is no consensus about what aging is. The experts disagree about the definition of aging, its causes, when it starts and what it would mean to be rejuvenated.
The experts DO agree that aging is process of decline. They also agree that this process of decline can be modulated; it can be accelerated or slowed down. I believe the aging process can be slowed using the same levers used to promote brain health.
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GLP-1 Drugs, like Ozempic and Wegovy, originally developed to treat diabetes, have been found to lower risk-factors for a broad-range of conditions that accelerate the aging process. But there are also risk factors that need to be taken into account.
The benefits of GLP-1 drugs include reduced risk of seizures, heart attack, stroke, other cardiovascular concerns, suicide ideation, self-harm, bulimia and psychotic disorders. They decrease inflammation in the brain and reduce the risk of neurocognitive disorders such as dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
The risks include gastrointesinal problems such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. More concerning, there are rare cases of "paralysis of the stomach," and new information that GLP-1 drugs can have serious adverse effects on the pancreas and kidneys.
If you plan to use GLP-1 drugs, do so with medical supervision and continue to monitor for signs of pancreatitis and abnormal kidney function.
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In this episode I focus on how our socioeconomic ecosystems affect our ability to flourish - or, more to the point, how they makes it harder for us to flourish.
Early this year, 2025, as the Trump administration took power, a group of politically diverse scholars published a Report Card on American Well-Being. On the one hand, the economy is doing great - for the wealthy. But by most other measures the nation is floundering. We are a wealthy nation, but an unhappy nation. By many of the measures of well-being (health and happiness) the United States is doing worse than many other rich nations, and there has been a downward trend in our well-being since the 1990s, when the tracking began.
In 2021, medical anthropologist Daniel R. George and neuroscientist Peter Whitehouse wrote a provocative and insightful book called American Dementia: Brain Health in an Unhealthy Society. They explored the political, economic, social and environmental factors that contribute to cognitive decline, dementia and well-being. In this episode I revisit an interview I did with Danny George and focus on his insightful explanations of our "American Dementia."
Danny George is a professor of Humanities and Public Health Policy at Penn State University and he is acutely aware of America’s malaise.
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What is aging?
What do we mean when we say we are aging?
In this episode, I'll discuss our paradoxical attitude towards aging. On the one hand age implies physical and mental decline and debility. On the other hand age implies wisdom and sagacity.
I'll discuss the differences between Chronological and Biological Aging and Primary and Secondary Aging, And I'll discuss the difference between "life expectancy" and "lifespan."
We will also review how scientists determine biological age and why we now suffer from "age-related diseases."
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In the epilogue to his book, Achieving a Good Death, author Chris Palmer summarizes his thoughts on how we might reconceptualize our basic attitudes about the process of dying and death itself.
Death tends to be a taboo subject, but death is a natural and inevitable part of life. It is death that gives meaning to life and makes it precious.
Chris says that his goal is to have a long "healthspan," and then a "Niagra Falls end-of-life." He wants to stay healthy for as long as possible, then experience a short period of deterioration leading to death.
Chris and I discuss how old age can be a time to places less emphasis on doing and becoming and more emphasis on being. We hope this series of podcasts encourages you to become a student of your own end-of-life and helps you to prepare for the kind of death you want to have.
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Taking steps to simplify our lives as we age has benefits not only for ourselves but also for our loved ones. In my ninth conversation with Chris palmer, author of Achieving a Good Death, we talk about simplifying, decluttering and minimalizing our physical environments.
The wealth of possessions we have accumulated over the years often do nothing but distract us and clutter up our lives. By shedding unwanted and unused possessions we can reduce our stress and give more of our attention to the things that really matter.
The same goes for mental clutter. The more we can free ourselves from outdated and counter-productive concepts and beliefs, the easier it is to focus our mental attention on the aspects of life that help us to flourish.
Decluttering our homes is also a wonderful gift to our love ones who will survive us. After we die we don't want to burden our loved ones with the onerous task of sorting through our lifetime of accumulated junk. Chris discusses how taking steps to declutter, simplify and minimalize before we die can help us and our loved ones to flourish.
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In this episode I talk with Chris Palmer, author of the new book Achieving a Good Death, about important documents you can prepare to make sure you have the kind of end-of-life experiences you want.
Chris and I discuss two broad classes of documents,
The first set of documents are concerned with recording and sharing important aspects of the legacy you want to leave. Chris describes how to prepare legacy letters, ethical wills, and memoirs.
The second class of documents are designed to make sure that health care professionals and care partners understand the type of medical care want - or don't want - as you approach the end of your life.
Chris also discusses the importance of having a trusted health care advocate who can assertively represent your interests when you are no longer able to do so.
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This episode, number 7 in MINDRAMP's End-of-Life series, is about having “The Hard Conversations,” those difficult, but important, conversations with your family and loved ones about the kind of death you want to have. As usual I am talking with my friend Chris Palmer the author of a new book called Achieving A Good Death.
Chris and I talk about why it is important to talk about the kind of death you want with both loved one's and care professionals. They won't be able to help you if they don't know what you want. Unfortunately, death is a taboo topic for most Americans. Chris and I talk about how to start a conversation about death, how to what to say to family and loved ones and how to have this conversation with young ones, with grandchildren. We also discuss various organizations that exist specifically to promote conversations about end-of-life issues.
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This is the sixth of my interviews with Chris Palmer, author of the new book called ACHIEVING A GOOD DEATH.
In this episode we discuss the purpose of remembrance rituals - memorial services, eulogies and obituaries. Chris helps us to think about kind of memorial services we would like to have and reminds us to let our loved one’s know - ahead of time - the kind of remembrance rituals we would be comfortable with - and how we can make it easier for our loved one’s to fulfill these requests.
Chris and I also talk about the process of grieving and how each person tends to grieve in their own way.
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This is the fifth episode of my end-of-life interviews with Chris Palmer, author of the new book called ACHIEVING A GOOD DEATH. To flourish as we age we need to live the best life we can and also have the best death we can. MINDRAMP's end-of-life series is about the second part of that equation - figuring out what a good death means to us, and then figuring out what we need to do to make it happen.
In this episode, Chris and I talk about body disposition - what to do with the body after death. Burials and cremations are the traditional methods, but Chris points out that there are numerous new options - so-called "green burial" options that are more natural and better for the environment. We also talk about how we can make help survivors cope with body disposition concerns. Chris also warns about unscrupulous practices of the funeral industry.
Check out the Chapter headings to find specific topics of interest.
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Chris Palmer, author of the new book Achieving a Good Death, and I discuss the different choices we have about how to exit our lives.
Chris offers five "exit strategies," including:
- Withholding Life Saving Treatment
- Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED)
- Palliative Sedation
- Medical Aid in Dying (MAID)
- Switzerland
We discuss hospice care, palliative care and death doulas.
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This short essay., written for the Winter 2025 edition of 3rd Act Magazine, focuses on how modern media platforms provide propagandists with powerful vehicles for the disseminating of disinformation.
I discuss Marshal McLuhan's idea that the medium is the message, worry about the proliferation of niche media platforms and discuss how advocates of authoritarian rule, from Hitler to Steve Bannon use media to mess with our minds, stimulating the extremes of credulity or cynicism. I suggest that we can counter disinformation by continuing to call out the lies and conspiracy theories and that we cultivate - in ourselves, our children and our grandchildren - the mindset of open-minded skepticism.
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The third episode in our end-of-life series Chris Palmer and I (Michael C. Patterson) focus our conversation on what happens when we are in the process of dying.
Chris points out that we can die in two ways: suddenly or slowly. Some of us might, unexpectedly, get hit by a truck and die suddenly. But, the vast majority of us these days will live a long life and will die a slow death. Chris and I explore how we decide that we have begun the process of dying and explore the options we have about how we might like to die. Chris offers advice on what we should, and should not say, to someone who is actively dying.
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To flourish we need not only to live well, but also to die well. And, conversely, the best way to insure a good death is to live as well as we can. This is the second episode in a series of conversations with Chris Palmer who has recently published a book called Achieving a Good Death.
Chris explains that he became interested in end of life issues because he was quite afraid of dying and felt that the best way to allay those fears was to better understand the topic. I wondered whether Chris was afraid of the dying process - becoming sick, experiencing pain and debility, etc. Or, was he afraid of death itself?
We discussed the importance of the legacy and how our loved ones will think of us and remember us after we have died. Chris stresses the value of living our life in a way that minimizes our regrets when we die. He also explains his provocative idea that we die two deaths.
We introduce the idea that end-of-life issues can be viewed from three basic perspectives: before, during and after. In the next episode we stat in the middle and tackle issues concerning the “during” perspective. What are our options when we are in the process of dying?
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In this series of MINDRAMP Podcasts we will continue to discuss how to flourish as we near the end of our life - but with a special focus. To flourish we need to live a good life and die a good death.
This series of podcasts will focus on achieving a good death. The series is built around a number of interviews with my friend Chris Palmer, who is an expert on end-of-life issues. Chris has published a new book called Achieving A Good Death: A Practical Guide to the End of Life.
In his book, Chris comments that “Death is a transformative teacher, but few want to become willing students.” Death is a difficult subject.
A core message of Chris’s book is that the best way to prepare for a good death is to live the best life possible. Planning for your end-of-life is, in fact, an act of optimism and compassion.
Death is inevitable. We can stumble blindly into the darkness, or we can opt to follow a gentler path that is illuminated by our own insight and vision. If you choose to prepare for the kind of death you want to have, these podcasts will help you understand your options.
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This is a reading of an article I wrote for the Fall 2024 edition of 3rd Act Magazine. I recall the 60's and 70's when many of us had a youthful passion to create a better world.
Now, decades later, we may not have the energy and exuberance of our youth, but we can still be passionate about our values and our convictions. We can still work to realize our dreams for a better world.
I also suggest that we have the additional responsibility to use our status as elders to articulate a vision of a better form of humanity. We human beings are wondrous creatures, but are deeply flawed in ways that are dangerous to the health, well-being and survival of our world. Just as we have worked to bend the arc of history towards greater equality and justice, we should, in our mature years, aim to bend the arc of evolution towards a more advanced form of humanity.
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This episode summarizes my current thinking (as of September 2024), about how we can manage our minds to flourish as we age. I suggest that the quirky nature of our mind is more understandable when we realize that we have multiple, semi-independent minds that compete for our attention.
I offer four examples of multiple minds . Each one causes its own form of confusion and suggests just how we need to manage our minds to overcome conflict, confusion and mental distortions. The four multiple mind frameworks are:
- Hemispheric Lateralization
- The entropic Mind
- The Extended Mind
- Functional Brain Networks
I conclude by explaining how various practices of meditation effectively address the mind-management objectives for each framework.
I succumb to my weakness for acronyms and suggest an A.I.M. approach to mind-management. Awareness - Impact - Modification. We can: 1) use the disciplines of meditation to become more aware of how our mind works, then 2) we can evaluate the positive or negative impact of the various mental states that compete for our attention, and finally, 3) we can learn to modify those mental states in ways that enhance our ability to flourish as we age.
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In addition to taking personal responsibility for your brain health and mental well-being, you must recognize that the environment you live in and the social support systems that are available to you also have a profound effect on your brain and mind.
In this episode I am revisiting an 2022 interview I conducted with Daniel R. George, author with Peter Whitehouse of AMERICAN DEMENTIA: BRAIN HEALTH IN AN UNHEALTHY SOCIETY.
I feature Danny's comments on:
- How brain health is affected by the global environment and by the political and economic systems that are in place.
- Why social support systems put in place mid-20th century resulted in declining rates of dementia.
- Why conservative, market-driven policies begun in the 1970s and 80s reversed that decline, causing higher rates of dementia.
- The tragedy of deaths of despair
- Examples of the kind of social support systems that promote brain health, well-being and flourishing.
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On July 6, congressman Jamie Raskin send President Biden a letter encouraging him to caucus with Democratic leaders to hear their concerns about his continuing in the campaign. On July 21, Biden decided to withdraw from the campaign and to endorse Vice-President Kamala Harris to take his place on the ticker.
Much of Raskin's letter consisted of deep raise for President Biden and his legacy. He praised Biden as "a truly great and magnificent leader." I want to share a partial reading of Raskin's letter to highlight what a brave, selfless and patriotic act Joe Biden performed in stepping down from his position of ultimate power. Further, I want to use Raskin's eloquent words to hold Biden's presidency up as a model of kind of character we want in a president of the United States.
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This episode explores how and why psychedelics, like psilocybin, are capable of making our minds more plastic and malleable. Research on Psilocybin has found that the drug de-synchronizes the Default Mode Network (DMN).
The DMN is a brain network that becomes active when we are day-dreaming, when our mind wanders. I think of the DMN as the producer of our conceptual mind. It creates our concept of a Self, our ego. It concerns itself with how we relate to and are perceived by others. It is the part of the brain, therefore, that is egocentric, selfish and greedy; the region that causes us to worry about social status and to feel competitive with others' it is the area of the brain that causes self-doubt and self-criticism. The DMN is the part of the brain that makes us neurotic or even psychotic.
So, getting the DMN to shut up is a good thing in and of itself. Researchers who are studying the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics are finding that a psychedelic trip quiets the DMN and makes it more receptive to replacing negative and maladaptive thoughts with healthier ones.
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On July 11, The New York Times' editorial board called on voters to reject Donald Trump's reelection bid, stating that the former president is "unfit to lead" a second term. It is an important statement that should be read, or listened to, by anyone interested in the well-being of our country.
The NYT Editorial Board builds its argument around five key qualities that they say are essential in a President who is fit to lead our country; the find Trump failing in each area:
- MORAL FITNESS
- LEDERSHIP
- CHARACTER
- RESPECTFUL LANGUAGE
- RESPECT FOR THE RULE OF LAW
To facilitate greater exposure of the statement by the NYT Editorial Board, I’m offering a full reading of the editorial. Please take the 30 minutes to hear what the Editorial Board has to say, and share it with others.
Please vote in the Presidential election, and please vote to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters.
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Neuroscientist Robin Carhart-Harris has developed the "Entropic Mind Hypothesis" that suggests our minds operate along a continuum of conscious states ranging from organized and even rigid on one end to the opposite extreme of disorganized, even chaotic at the other.
Carhart-Harris suggests that our minds work best when they are in the middle of the continuum at a so-called point of "criticality." Our minds flourish, in other words, when we find the middle ground; where our minds are balance yet flexible.
A strategy for flourishing, therefore, is to become more aware of where are minds are along the entropy continuum and to learn how to move easily from organization to disorganization and back as best suits the situation.
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As I continue to investigate how to flourish as I age, I find that the "Hemisphere Hypothesis," does a good job of defining mental changes I need and want to make. In broad terms, it will be easier to flourish when I learn to quiet my thinking mind and instead operate more consistently out of my experiential mind. And, I find the practice of meditation to be particularly helpful in training my mind to achieve this beneficial rebalancing act
Daily meditation practice gives me the opportunity to train my mind to create better hemispheric balance and flow, to, as Alan Watts puts it, "Lose my mind, to come back to my senses." Since my brain continues to be "plastic" and malleable, the daily practice of evoking certain states of mind while inhibiting others will - I hope - rewire my brain to flourish more naturally.
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We are emotional illiterates. We have limited vocabularies to describe the subtleties and nuances of our moods, feelings and emotions. As a consequence, we find it hard to explain our feelings or to understand the feelings of others.
We can start building our emotional literacy by defining the differences between affect, feelings and emotions. We can then work to develop "emotional granularity," the exercise of defining our emotions with increasingly specific words and labels.
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In this episode I focus on two aspects of creativity, making the points that creativity is a dynamic dance between novelty and routing and that creativity is a multi-phased process that requires the use of multiple mindsets and divergent cognitive functions.
I discuss the hemisphere hypothesis and suggest that we can keep our aging minds nimble and adaptive if we find a collaborative balance between our experiential mind and our conceptual mind. We fall prey to limiting ageist stereotypes, however, when we allow the conceptual mind to dominate and get caught up in restrictive ideas and stultifying routinesl
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To improve our happiness we need to quiet the incessant internal chatter of self-criticism, self-sabotage, self-blame, self-pity, self-aggrandizement, and the other forms of neurotic self-absorption that plague us. To flourish we need to quiet our "monkey mind."
There is good evidence that these neurotic manifestations of "Self" arise from a specific region of the brain called The Default Mode Network (DMN). In this episode I discuss how we might quiet our monkey minds by inhibiting or deactivating the DMN. I also suggest that there are times when the DMN can be quite helpful so we also need to know when to activate it or to simply get our of its way.
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This episode is the first of a two-part focus on a specific brain network known as the Default Mode Network (DMN).
In part one I discuss how the DMN undermines our happiness and our sense of well-being. I make the case that to improve our happiness, we need to recognize when the DMN has taken over our mind and then learn to replace it with a more mindful state-of-mind.
In part two I discuss specific techniques for managing your DMN, activating it when it can be helpful and deactivating it when it makes you crazy.
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Buddhist philosophers say that our "Self" is an illusion and that we can be much happier once we recognize this hallucination and learn to live without a Self. What does this mean?
I think the Buddhists mean we need to escape from the dictates of our EGO. But, what would life without an ego be like? Can we exist in the real world without an ego?
The story of Jill Bolte Taylor, as told in her book My Stroke of Insight offers insight into what life might be like without an ego. Her experience also suggests that we need our ego, but - as the Buddhists suggest - we need to keep limit it's influence on our thinking and behavior.
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Buddhist scholars suggest that the "Self" is an illusion and that awakening to the revelation of "No Self," leads to greater happiness and peace-of-mind. Just what are they talking about?
The idea of No-Self makes more sense to me if I put the idea in the context of the hemisphere hypothesis, the recognition that the two hemispheres of the human brain provide us with two, radically different ways of relating to life. The right hemisphere gives us direct experience in the moment. The left hemisphere creates virtual simulations of life including, importantly, our sense of self, our "ego."
I believe our ego - the story we tell about ourself - is the "Self" that Buddhists feel is illusory. We can be happier, therefore, if we spend less time caught up in the illusory stories about life and more time simply experiencing life.
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I’m interested in mystical and psychedelic experiences because they seem to evoke radically altered states of mind that are akin to spiritual awakening. They enable people to feel more at peace with the flow of existence and are often a portal to feelings of bliss. What's not to like about all that? So, mysticism and psychedelics could be seen as forms of mental management that can help us to flourish as we age.
In this episode I summarize previous episodes, discuss a couple of my own experiments with psychedelics and evoke Aldous Huxley’s characterization of psychedelics trips as journey’s to the “antipodes of the mind.”
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Mystical experiences have a core set of characteristics that seem to promote mental wellbeing and flourishing. People who have mystical experiences, including psychedelic trips, report feeling a profound unity with something vast and deeply meaningful. This unity with “the divine,” (or whatever you want to call it) is accompanied by a diminished focus on ego-centric concerns.
The minds of people who have had a mystical experience seems to be altered for the better. What can mysticism teach us about flourishing and mind management? Can we train our minds to be more open to mystical revelations?
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A while back I wrote an article for 3rd Act Magazine that explored how equanimity is a key to flourishing as we age. In this podcast I revisit the article and add some perspective.
I suspect that aging will be much easier for me if I adopt an even-minded attitude towards the challenges and opportunities of my aging process. Even better, I am more likely to flourish if I can cultivate what I call "transcendent equanimity," which is a blissful embrace of the wonders of existence.
Transcendent equanimity seems to occur during mystical and psychedelic experiences, which evoke a sense of unity with existential forces that diminishes individual self-absorption. I suggest that you pay particular attention conditions associated with transcendent equanimity that also promote flourishing. These include mysticism, letting go, intellectual humility, "presencing," and awe,
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Learn two suggestions for getting into the flow state.
In the previous episode we suggested that the state of flow could be a good measure of qualty-of-life. The more time we spend in the flow, the greater our quality of life. So, how can we find more flow in our lives?
Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, the father of flow, found that the flow state arises when there is a dynamic interplay between challenge and resources (skill). We need to challenge ourselves and we need to develop the skills and resources needed to meet those challenges.
Steven Kotler, who studies peak performance in the flow state, has found that finding flow is a process that has four stages. Two stages, struggle and release, come before the actual flow state. And one stage, the involves recovery and renewal, comes after the flow state.
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My "Qualongevity" goal is to flourish and enhance my quality of life as I age. But, what do I mean by quality of life? How will I know when I am flourishing? How will I measure the quality of my life.?
In this episode, I suggest that the state of flow - that state when we are so absorbed in an activity that time stands still - might be a good measure of quality-of-life. My life will be worth living if I can still engage in activities that activate a flow state. The more time I spend in the flow state, the higher my quality-of-life.
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One of the huge issues facing the nation is whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for alleged crimes committed during and after his term as President of the United States? Is Donald Trump - or anyone else - above the law?
On the face of it the answer seems obvious. In the United States no one is above the law, not even Presidents. But, Trump is disputing this idea. In our system of government, the courts have the final say in this kind of dispute. It is important, therefore, that we understand the laws of the land and how the courts are making their decisions. Are they based on law and the Constitution or on politics?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the nation’s second highest court, has ruled unanimously that Trump is NOT immune from prosecution, nor is he above the law. They explained every aspect of their decision in a 67-page document.
To make it easier for everyone to have access to this important decision, and to understand how the U.S. Court of Appeals came to their decision, I've recorded three of the four main sections of the US Court of Appeals Ruling.
The IS TRUMP ABOVE THE LAW? series of podcasts offers a reading of the following sections of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling:
Section I - Background
Section III - Executive Immunity
Section IV - Double Jeopardy Principle & Conclusion.
For the sake of time I did not record Section II which discusses why the U.S. Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to make a decision on this matter.
The Supreme Court apparently feels compelled to have the final say on Trump’s immunity claims and will hear oral arguments during the week of April 22 on a single question: "Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office."
It will be important to understand whether the Supreme Court uses the law or politics to make their decision.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the nation’s second highest court, has ruled unanimously that Trump is NOT immune from prosecution, nor is he above the law. They explained every aspect of their decision in a 67-page document.
To make it easier for everyone to have access to this important ruling, and to understand how the U.S. Court of Appeals came to their decision, I've recorded three of the four main sections of the US Court of Appeals Ruling.
The IS TRUMP ABOVE THE LAW? series of podcasts offers a reading of the following sections of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling:
Section I - Background
Section III - Executive Immunity
Section IV - Double Jeopardy Principle & Conclusion.
For the sake of time I did not record Section II which discusses why the U.S. Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to make a decision on this matter.
The Supreme Court apparently feels compelled to have the final say on Trump’s immunity claims and will hear oral arguments during the week of April 22 on a single question: "Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office."
It will be interesting to what basis the Supreme Court uses for their decision - the law or politics.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the nation’s second highest court, has ruled unanimously that Trump is NOT immune from prosecution, nor is he above the law. They explained every aspect of their decision in a 67-page document.
To make it easier for everyone to have access to this important decision, and to understand how the U.S. Court of Appeals came to their decision, I've recorded three of the four main sections of the US Court of Appeals Ruling.
The IS TRUMP ABOVE THE LAW? series of podcasts offers a reading of the following sections of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling:
Section I - Background
Section III - Executive Immunity
Section IV - Double Jeopardy Principle & Conclusion.
For the sake of time I did not record Section II which discusses why the U.S. Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to make a decision on this matter.
The Supreme Court apparently feels compelled to have the final say on Trump’s immunity claims and will hear oral arguments during the week of April 22 on a single question: "Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office."
It will be interesting to what basis the Supreme Court uses for their decision - the law or politics.
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Neuroscientist Richie Davidson 's research on well-being indicates that positive plastic changes to our brain occur around four dimensions of experience, each of which contributes to our ability to flourish.
AWARENESS, CONNECTION, INSIGHT AND PURPOSE
in this episode I review Davidson's definition for each dimension and explore how they can aid us to flourish as we age.
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Dr. Richie Davidson 's work offers a framework for the cultivation of well-being.
Davidson's extensive research suggests there are four key domains that are central to the subjective experience of well-being. Further, and importantly, each area can be strengthened through training.
We can learn flourish by learning to enhance our:
- Awareness
- Connection
- Insight
- Purposed
Dr. Richie Davidson is best known for his groundbreaking work studying emotion and the brain. His research is broadly focused on the neural bases of emotion and emotional style as well as methods to promote human flourishing, including meditation and related contemplative practices. He is a friend and confidante of the Dalai Lama, has studied the brains of highly Buddhist monks, and is the worlds leading expert on how meditation makes both short-term and long-term changes to our brains.
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In the previous episode I introduced the hemisphere hypothesis put forward by British scholar Iain McGilchrist. The hemisphere hypothesis posits that the two hemisphere of our brains have unique, largely incompatible, ways of relating to the world.
The right hemisphere can be characterized as our sensual mind and the left hemisphere as our conceptualmind. We get confused, conflicted and alienated when our conceptual mind dominates and makes us lose our connection with our sensory mind.
In this episode I want to share my version of a story that McGilchrist uses to illustrate the relationship between our two hemispheres. It dramatizes his observation that things go wrong when collaboration between the hemispheres breaks down and the conceptual mind (LH) dominates. McGilchrist's story is called The Master and His Emissary, which is also the name of his 2009 book that introduces the hemisphere hypothesis.
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Why do we struggle with life, and with old age in particular?
I believe that the hemisphere hypothesis, as explained by British scholar Iain McGilchrist, offers a fertile framework for thinking about why we suffer mental conflict and confusion. Just as important, it offers guidelines about what we can do to limit our suffering.
The basic idea of the hemisphere hypothesis is that the two hemispheres of our brain provide us with two very different ways of relating to the world. One perspective can be characterized as direct experience (sensory) and the other perspective as conceptual. One experiences the world as it is, the other creates ideas and concepts about the the reality we experience.
When the two perspectives collaborate with each other, our minds work magnificently. Too often, however, our conceptual mind dominates and suppresses the perspective of the sensory mind. When this happens we live in a world of concepts and lose direct touch with reality. To flkourish, we need to restore collaborative balance between these two perspectives
Learn more about the hemisphere hypothesis and how it influences our ability to flourish in this episode.
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To increase our healthspan as we age we need our brains to be as healthy as possible. MINDRAMP has developed the Behavioral Roots of Brain Health to help identify risky behaviors that should be avoided and protective behaviors that should be adopted.
To flourish, we need more than a healthy brain. We also need a nimble and well-trained mind that can adopt beneficial mindsets and inhibit mindsets that cause us to suffer. The FLOURISH AS YOU AGE series focuses on the mental management side of the equation.
So, how do we begin to identify beneficial mindsets? As I explain in this episode, the hemisphere hypothesis, as articulated by scholar Iain McGilchrist ,offers a very useful framework for differentiating between helpful and harmful states of mind.
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How can we flourish in old age?
This new series of podcasts from MINDRAMP strives to answer that question. My starting premise is that our mind determines how we cope with the challenges and opportunities we face as we age.
Certain ways of thinking cause us to struggle and suffer. Others mindsets make it easier to flourish. The obvious conclusion is that we should get rid of unhelpful mental states and make greater use of healthy states of mind. But, just how do we make these positive mental adjustments?
I'll look for answers in the teachings of ancient wisdom systems, such as Buddhism, shamanism and mysticism. And, I'll explore new insights made possible by radical advancements in fields of study like positive psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, pharmacology, and technology. I'm particularly interested in exploring what these systems of knowledge have to say about unusual states of mind such as flow, mindfulness, equanimity, awe, ecstasis and transcendence.
I'll share the questions that bug me, and the different lines of research I pursue in search of satisfying answers. And, from time to time, I'll report on my efforts to manage my own mind. What am I doing to escape negative mindsets? How am I working to cultivate healthy states of mind? How is it going.
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The Flourish As You Age series of podcasts focuses on mind management, but I wanted to take one episode to give you a quick review the Behavioral Roots of Brain Health. A healthy brain is the foundation for a well-functioning mind. Our minds work better when they are supported by body and brains that are healthy, robust and resilient.
In this podcast, I'll review the "risk management" approach to brain health - minimize risk factors and optimize protective factors.
And, I'll explain what we call, The 4-C's guidelines for effective brain health interventions.
The 4-Cs are:
- Causes
- Combinatorial
- Customized
- Continual
The eight Behavioral Roots are:
- Physical Exercise & Movement
- Mental Stimulation
- Social Emgagement
- Stress Management
- Good Diet & Nutrition
- Good Sleep
- Good Medical Care
- Enriched Environments
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To flourish as you age, you need to keep your brain as healthy as possible, and you need to manage your mental states. This episode deals with the brain health side of the equation.
There are eight Behavioral Roots of Brain Health that, if addressed together, can help you to keep your brain healthy and flourish as you age.
This episode focuses on how your environment affects your brain health and your ability to flourish. Enriched environments are protective, while impoverished environments are risky.
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To flourish as you age, you need to keep your brain as healthy as possible, and you need to manage your mental states. This episode deals with the brain health side of the equation.
There are eight Behavioral Roots of Brain Health that, if addressed together, can help you to keep your brain healthy and flourish as you age.
This episode focuses on how good medical care supports the health of your body and brain , and therefore your ability to flourish, as you age.
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To flourish as you age, you need to keep your brain as healthy as possible, and you need to manage your mental states. This episode deals with the brain health side of the equation.
There are eight Behavioral Roots of Brain Health that, if addressed together, can help you to keep your brain healthy and flourish as you age.
This episode focuses on how good sleep habits contribute to brain health.
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To flourish as you age, you need to keep your brain as healthy as possible, and you need to manage your mental states. This episode deals with the brain health side of the equation.
There are eight Behavioral Roots of Brain Health that, if addressed together, can help you to keep your brain healthy and flourish as you age.
This episode focuses on ingestion, taking substances into our bodies that can either protect and strengthen our brains, or weaken them
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To flourish as you age, you need to keep your brain as healthy as possible, and you need to manage your mental states. This episode deals with the brain health side of the equation.
There are eight Behavioral Roots of Brain Health that, if addressed together, can help you to keep your brain healthy and flourish as you age.
This episode focuses on Stress Management
We evolved to have a stress response to alert us to danger. An acute, short-term stress response is beneficial - as long as we can let go of the stress and return to a normal state of being. Stress becomes toxic when it is chronic and unrelieved. Much of our modern stress is psychological in nature. To flourish, we need to learn how to manage our psychological stress.
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To flourish as you age, you need to keep your brain as healthy as possible, and you need to manage your mental states. This episode deals with the brain health side of the equation.
There are eight Behavioral Roots of Brain Health that, if addressed together, can help you to keep your brain healthy and flourish as you age.
This episode focuses on Social Engagement.
We are social beings and flourish when we have a sense of belonging and can engage in nurturing social relationships. Conversely, we suffer and undermine our well-being when we are exposed to toxic relationships.
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To flourish as you age, you need to keep your brain as healthy as possible, and you need to manage your mental states. This episode deals with the brain health side of the equation.
There are eight Behavioral Roots of Brain Health that, if addressed together, can help you to keep your brain healthy and flourish as you age.
This episode focuses on Mental Stimulation.
You can stimulate your brain by engaging in mental activities that are:
- Novel
- Challenging
- Complex
- Creative
- Meaningful
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To flourish as you age, you need to keep your brain as healthy as possible, and you need to manage your mental states. This episode deals with the brain health side of the equation.
There are eight Behavioral Roots of Brain Health that, if addressed together, can help you to keep your brain healthy and flourish as you age.
This episode focuses on Physical Exercise and Movement.
There are five aspects of movement that must be addressed:
- Aerobic exercise
- Strength training
- Flexibility
- Posture
- Balance.
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To flourish as you age, you need to keep your brain as healthy as possible, and you need to manage your mental states. This episode introduces the brain health side of the equation.
There are eight behavioral and lifestyle areas that, together, have a profound impact on the health of your brain and your ability to flourish as you age. We now call these eight areas the "Behavioral Roots of Brain Health."
- Physical Exercise
- Mental Stimulation
- Social Engagement
- Stress Management
- Good Diet
- Good Sleep
- Good Medical Care
- Enriched Environments
You can prevent or slow cognitive decline and dementia by adopting a risk management approach:
a) reduce your exposure to risk factors associated with each behavioral root and ,
b) engage reguarly with the protective factors associated with each area.
For the risk management approach to be successful you need to follow the rule of the Four Cs
- Causes - address the root causes of cognitive decline, not the symptoms
- Combinatorial - the 8 areas have a synergistic affect; each one must be addressed
- Customized - each brain and life is different so interventions must be customized to the individual.
- Continual - the behaviors must be integrated into your lifesyle and practiced on a continual basis.
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No matter how old we are, we should live "an intentional life." Doesn't that sound right? We should make the most of our longevity, live deeply with meaning and purpose as we age. Old age shouldn't just happen to us, we should intentionally turn it into a great adventure of discovery and fulfillment.
But does this mean we must continue to struggle? Must a life of intension be a life spent in tension? What if my goal is to increase my peace-of-mind and equanimity?
I wrote an article on this topic for the summer edition of 3rd Act Magazine. called The Tension of Peace of Mind. This episode is a reading of that article. I think the article offers an interesting prelude to my upcoming podcasts.
My plan for 2024 is to focus on Mental Flourishing. I believe we can maintain, or even enhance our quality-of-life in old age by doing a better job of managing our states of mind. The podcasts will explore mindsets that, I believe, can diminish my/our tension about growing old and dying, and give us the peace of mind to savor our mature years.
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Why do all beginning artists draw stick figures? Why is it so difficult to draw an accurate picture of what we see?
The reason, I believe, is that unskilled artists draw concepts of what they see rather than drawing what they actually see. Their conceptual brain dominates and prevents the sensory brain from guiding the drawing.
Skilled artists have learned to suppress this impulse to draw concepts and instead focus on sensory details. This is what I believe art teacher Betty Edwards discovered and explained in her influential book Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain.
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In this reading of an article I wrote for 3rd Act Magazine I suggest that equanimity is a key to aging well. I draw a distinction between what might be called standard equanimity - remaining even-tempered in the face of both pleasure and pain - and what I'm calling "transcendent equanimity."
Transcendent equanimity is a state of mind that not only accepts the mysteries of life, it celebrates them.
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In this podcast I offer a full reading of the Mar-A-Lago indictment of Trump and Nauta.
I believe it is important that we all understand the full scope and gravity of the charges and recognize that the Justice Department is not likely to make allegations in an indictment unless it has ample evidence to back up the allegations.
Of course, Trump, Nuata and their lawyers will have every chance to refute the allegations when the case goes to trial and a jury will determine their guilt or innocence before the law.
Please check to Chapter listing to access specific segments of the indictment.
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In the introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of her important book, MINDFULNESS (1989), Harvard psychologists Ellen J. Langer makes the following observation.
“In the 1970s, as social psychology was experiencing what was called ‘the cognitive revolution,’ studying the kinds of thoughts people were having, I began to wonder whether people were thinking at all. Decades of research later, I have found that the answer is a resounding ’NO.’ Mindlessness is pervasive. In fact I believe virtually all of our problems - personal, interpersonal, professional, and societal - either directly or indirectly stem from mindlessness.”
Mindlessness is just as prevalent today, in 2023, as it was 50 years ago. What can we do about it? In this podcast I review Langer's prescription for overcoming mindfulness and learning to think more mindfully.
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The indictment of former president Donald J. Trump related to his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election is, arguably, the most significant trial in American history. We are all witnesses to history and should understand the full extent of the charges against Trump and the nature of the evidence being offered to back up those charges.
To that end, I hope this reading of the full indictment makes the text more accessible to more people.
NOTE: For those of you who listened to the previous podcast that went through page 27 of the indictment, you can pick up the thread at around the 1 hour mark of this podcast with the heading, "Defendant's Attempt to Leverage the Justice Department to use Deciept . . . "
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The indictment of Donald J. Trump for alleged crimes related to a conspiracy to disrupt the normal transfer of power and to keep himself in office in spite of losing the election to Joe Biden is perhaps the most important legal case in the history of our country.
As such, it is important that all citizens understand the full extent of the changes and the evidence being levied against Mr. Trump. Since I wanted to read the full document for myself, I decided that I should also record it and make it available for anyone who wanted to listen.
This podcast, Part 1 covers the first 27 pages of the 45 page document. I will record and post the rest of the document tomorrow.
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Dan Cohen is the Johnny Appleseed of personalized music. While the fabled Appleseed traveled the country planting apple seeds, Cohen travels from coast to coast bringing iPods, headphones and customized music playlists to people with dementia. Cohen's work was featured in the award winning documentary ALIVE INSIDE.
I spoke with Dan about how he got started in this mission to promote the benefits of music for people who are institutionalized. We discussed the amazing successes he has witnessed and the surprising disappointments he has faced. Dan concludes this episode by describing his three goals for the future of personalized music.
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Our mind becomes muddled when our two hemispheres fail to cooperate and when left hemisphere perspectives dominate our thinking. I believe that music can help us restore balanced cooperation of our hemispheres by strengthening right hemisphere perspectives.
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How does music promote the health and development of our brains? Learn how music can engage the protective factors associated with MINDRAMP's eight Behavioral Roots of Brain Health .
MINDRAMP favors a "risk management" approach to brain health, which involves minimizing behaviors and conditions that put your brain at greater risk and adopting behaviors that make your brain stronger and more resilient. We organize the scientific research around eight behavioral areas we call the Behavioral Roots of Brain Health. In this episode we review the risk and protective factors associated with each of the Behavioral Roots of Brain Health and explore how music can play a positive role in amplifying the protective aspects of nearly all of the areas.
The Behavioral Roots of Brain Health:
- Physical exercise & movement
- Mental Stimulation
- Social Engagement
- Stress Management
- Diet & Nutrition
- Sleep
- Medical Care
- Environmental Factors
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This episode, the first of three episodes on music, explores the purpose and power of music. MINDRAMP's mission is to provide evidence-based information that can help you to live long and to live well. We focus on keeping our brains healthy and on managing our minds to promote happiness and equanimity.
Can music play a role in these goals? Yes, it can! Music can help us keep our bodies and brains healthy. Music helps us to develop the capacities we need to survive and thrive in our environments. We provide a number of framing ideas that make it easier to understand the evolutionary purpose of music and easier to understand how music has the power to change our physiology.
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In this episode of the MIND OVER MUDDLE series we begin our look at the role EMOTIONS play in muddling our minds and how emotional regulation can help in the un-muddling process.
We introduce the important concept of EMOTIONAL GRANULARITY. Neuroscientist and emotions expert Lisa Feldman Barrett expounds this idea, which suggests that emotions are constructed and that we only feel those emotions that we can name. A such, we are emotional illiterates, making use of a limited range of basic emotions like Happy, Sad and Mad. Barrett suggests that we can expand our emotional range - our emotional literacy and regulation - by expanding our vocabulary of emotion words. By, in other words, being more "granular" in our choice of words to describe what we think we are feeling.
We also focus on the important and healing emotion of AWE. I introduce a new emotion word - a neologism - to describe the ecstatic feeling we get when exposed to something awesome. In such instances, we have AWEGASMS! And we explore the psychological evidence that awegasms are good for your health and your happiness.
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In this episode I explore how we can use Buddhist psychology - specifically the Four Noble Truths - to help us un-muddle our minds.
Buddhism's Four Noble Truths suggest that our minds get muddled because we are too often afflicted by suffering and frustration that is caused by attachment and the desire to resist inevitable change. The Four Truths suggest, therefore, that we can un-muddle our minds by learning to cultivate a more equitable disposition that diminishes our attachments.
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In this episode I introduce a new term I am using - "Hemisphere Gelassenheit." It is a combination of the german word, "gelassenheit," coined by the medieval Christian mystic Meister Eckhart and the hemisphere hypothesis as expounded by the contemporary scholar iain McCilchrist.
Gelassenheit is a process of letting go. The full process involves a letting go from one thing and an opening up to something else. Combining this with the hemisphere hypothesis gives us the strategy for un-muddling our mind and escaping from the distorting effects of left hemisphere dominance. The hemipshere gelassenheit strategy is to let go of left hemisphere modes of perceptions and an opening up to a more realistic, holistic and integrated perspective of reality afforded by the right hemisphere.
Click the CHAPTERS tab above to access a list of chapter divisions within the podcast.
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A mystical experience, similar to the "enlightenment" described by Buddhists and other contemplative practices, involves a disillusion of self and a sense of unity with something grander than ourselves. We describes this something-grander-than-ourselves, in various ways - as God, as Tao, as the natural order and so on.
In this episode we explore the following topics
- Common characteristics of a mystical experience
- Iain McGilchrists hemisphere hypothesis
- An account of a mystical experience from Clare Booth Luce
- Introverted and Extroverted types of unity
- The power of metaphors: "The Kingdom of God," as an example
- No Self: the disillusion of self.
- Mathieu Ricard and Wolf Singer's book Beyond The Self
- Different approaches to enlightenment, Buddhist, mystical and hemispheric
- Unity with God (etc.) is a process of becoming.
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When you think of brain cells, you probably think of neurons. That's perfectly understandable. Discussions of the brain almost always focus on neurons. But there is another family of brain cells, (glial cells) that, by some estimates, outnumber neurons by 10 to 1!. Even if the the percentage is more like 50/50, that's a lot of cells - billions!
Based on what I have read, I have a sneaking suspicion that glial cells are in charge of the brain! Yup. Neurons are the work horses, but glial cells hold the reins. In this episode, I discuss the mysteries of glial cells with Dr. Jeff Darling. We discuss the four basic types of glial cells and what they do - and why I think they are running the show.
Click on Chapters (above) to see specific topic ares.
What do people undergo when they have a mystical experience, and why would a mystical experience help us to u-muddle our minds?
In this episode I explain how mysticism is an expression of what I call hemispheric gelassenheit. I use first person accounts of mystical experiences from neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, the philosopher jiddu Krishnamurti and the primatologist Jane Goodall to explore the common characteristics of a mystical experience and to speculate how it reflects an adjustment of the way the two hemispheres of our brain interact with each other.
Take a look at the chapter headings.
Neuroscientist Dr, Jeff Darling and I discuss various aspects of aging, including"
- Why is the topic of aging of interest to a young neuroscientist?
- How to define aging.
- the "wear-and-tear" hypothesis of aging.
- What is inflammageing?
- How to age successfully?
Are men's and women's brains different. Yes! The brains of men and women are more alike than they are different, but there are differences. Not better, or worse, but different. Neuroscientists, Dr. Jeff Darling and I discusses a range of topics related to sex differences in the brain , including;
- Why it is important to study sex differences in the brain
- How women's brains differ from men's.
- The effect of hormones on brain development
- Menopause
- Sex differences and drug development
- Why the study of sex differences is controversial.
We struggle to prevent and treat dementia because the need for researchers to publish positive results, coupled with the urge to put profits over people, leads to fraud, corruption and quackery. We end up with bad research and misguided public policy.
This podcast is a reading of a recent article of mine for 3rd Act Magazine in which I give recent examples of fraud, corruption, and quackery that have made it harder for us to prevent and treat dementia.
There are intriguing similarities between schizophrenia and the way that a dominant LH distort our perceptions of reality. In this episode we examine those similarities using the story of Elyn Saks, who tells about her lifetime struggle with Schizophrenia in her wonderful book THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD.
Why did the two hemispheres of our brain evolve to have such different perspectives - such divergent ways of attending to our world? In this episode we explore evidence that the evolution of the human brain has evolved along three axis: Bottom-to-Top; Side-to-Side; and Back-to-Front. Each evolutionary development enhanced the capacity and complexity of a different part of the human brain and exaggerated the divergent roles of the two hemispheres.
In this episode I preview some of the practical ways we can begin to un-muddle our minds. We can use our growing understanding about the different nature of our two hemispheres to re-balance the influence of our left hemisphere (LH) and our right hemisphere (RH).
Since LH dominance causes distortions of reality, we should search for strategies to control LH influence. At the same time, we should find strategies to pump up engagement with RH perspectives. Strategies we will begin to explore include:
- MEDITATION - How can meditation balance the influence of the two hemispheres?
- THE USE OF LANGUAGE - How does the language we use push our minds towards the perspective of one hemisphere or the other?
- METAPHORS - How do some metaphors encourage LH modes of thinking while others ground us in RH perspectives?
- WORLD VIEWS - How do our philosophies favor one hemisphere over the other?
- PSYCHEDELICS & MYSTICISM - Can psychedelic and mystical experiences jolt our minds out of LH dominance and restore hemispheric balance?
A rose loses its "roseness" when perceived only through the Left Hemisphere perspective.
The man who mistook his wife for his hat had trouble identifying a rose. When Oliver Sacks presented him with a rose, Dr.P described it as "About six inches in length. A convoluted red form with a linear green attachment." He went on to observe that the perplexing object "lacks the simple symmetry of the Platonic solids, although it may have a higher symmetry of its own."
Dr. P suffered from a Right Hemisphere (RH) dysfunction that forced his mind to rely almost exclusively on his Left Hemisphere (LH) . Robbed of the unifying and organic perspective of the RH, Dr. P saw the world as a collection of abstractions, the LH perspective.
Our minds get muddled when our LH dominates and relate to the world through abstract representations of life, rather than on on direct experience.
In this episode we examine what happens to the mind when it loses the perspective of the Right Hemisphere (RH) and is forced to rely on the Left Hemisphere's (LH) interpretation of the world. We will use the example of the well-known case reported by Oliver Sacks of the man who mistook his wife for his hat.
We are exploring the hemisphere hypothesis that states that the two hemispheres of our brain have two dramatically different ways of relating to the world and that our minds get muddled when the perspective of one hemisphere (usually the LH ) dominates and suppresses the other (usually the RH). We can learn to recognize the symptoms of LH dominance by studying the lives of people with dysfunctional RHs, such as Dr. P who, among other things, lost his ability to recognize faces.
This new episode continues the story of Jill Bolte Taylor’s left hemisphere stroke and her life, as experienced through her Right Hemisphere. We focus on her recovery process and restoration of the use of both hemispheres of her brain.
Although Jill Bolte Taylor found life in the silent world of her Right Hemisphere to be seductively blissful, as though she was “enfolded by a blanket of tranquil euphoria,” she recognized that she needed, and wanted, to return to her “normal” life. To do so she needed to will herself out of her state of near paralysis and restore use of her left hemisphere function. Her path of recovery began with a little rock forward. Then another. She rocked & rocked & rocked some more.
We are exploring the hemisphere hypothesis, which states that the two hemispheres of our brain present us with very different perspectives on what’s going on. In this episode we are going to explore what it is like to experience the world exclusively through Right Hemisphere modes of perception.
What happens when people, because of disease or injury, lose use of the left hemisphere and are forced to rely exclusively on the right hemisphere. This is what happened to Jill Bolte Taylor whose story is the focus of this episode. As she describes in her wonderful book MY STROKE OF INSIGHT, she had a massive stroke in her left hemisphere and lived for eight years in what she called the "silent mind" of her right hemisphere. What was that like? Her story gives us unique insight into the unique ecosystem of the right hemisphere.
We continue to explore how the two hemispheres of our brain influence us in different ways. In this episode I borrow a story from Iain McGilchrist who, in turn, borrowed it from Friedrich Nietzsche. McGilchrist uses his story - The Master and His Emissary - as the title for his book that first introduces his "hemisphere hypothesis." The two main characters in the story represent the Right Hemisphere (The Master) and the Left Hemisphere (The Emissary). It tells of their relationship and of the destruction of their realm that follow the Emissary's usurpation of leadership from the Master.
I have taken the liberty to change the gender of the leader to a woman and to add some embellishments that I believe help illustrate McGilchrist's full thesis. The essence of his idea is that the two hemispheres have different ways of relating to the world. When they cooperate, under the guidance of the Right Hemisphere, things go well. But when the Left Hemisphere dominates - as it does in modern culture - our minds get muddled and the culture starts to unravel.
The MINDRAMP mission is to learn how to live long and live well.
To live LONG, it helps to keep our brains as healthy as possible. But what do we do to live WELL? What do we do with our healthy brains?
To live WELL, we need to effectively manage our minds in ways that minimize the negative aspects of our life, (alienation, conflict, confusion), while amplifying positive feelings and behaviors. We need to cultivate contentment, curiosity, compassion, creativity and equanimity. We need to amplify our sense of belonging and our ability to collaborate with others in a spirit of love, play and fun. How do we go about doing it?
I believe that the body of knowledge and scholarship embodied in the "hemisphere hypothesis" provides us the tools we need to develop effective strategies for manage our minds. This is what we will explore in the MIND OVER MUDDLE series.
Iain McGilchrist's "hemisphere hypothesis" is simple to state: "“The bi-hemispheric structure of the brain makes possible attending to the world simultaneously in two otherwise incompatible ways.” The implications and ramifications of this revelation are vast and profound. Problems occur when one hemisphere, the more delusional one, takes over and starts running things by itself.
McGilcrhist explores the incredibly broad and deep ramifications of the hemisphere hypothesis in his two seminal books on the topic, THE MASTER AND HIS EMISSARY (2009) and THE MATTER WITH THINGS (2019). In this episode I will give you a brief introduction to his hemisphere hypothesis and offer some hints about how I hope to make use of his ideas. In subsequent podcasts we will investigate some of the important ramifications of McGilchrist's scholarship and will also explore their practical applications. How, in practical terms, do we get our two hemispheres to collaborate effectively?
Our minds become muddled with conflict and confusion when the two hemispheres of our brain fail to collaborate. The MIND OVER MUDDLE podcast series explores a range of historical and contemporary disciplines - from mysticism, to meditation, to psychedelics - that are effective when they are able to restore hemispheric balance and collaboration.
This episode introduces the series, articulating - in broad terms - how our minds get muddled and outline a strategy for effectively managing our minds. To paraphrase Alan Watts, we often need to get out of our heads to come back to our senses!
Why would a 74 year old man want to experiment with the psychedelic drug psilocybin? Initially, it was because of the apparent ability of psilocybin to mitigate the fear of dying and death. But, as i did more research, I discovered that psilocybin offers a number of therapeutic benefits for older adults. This episode is based on an article I wrote on psilocybin for 3rd Act Magazine. The phrase, "the antipodes" is from Aldous Huxley in his book THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION. I discuss the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics and also the intriguing possibility of visiting unexplored areas of my own mind.
The transcript also includes a short review of the current legal status of psilocybin.
Psychedelics are mind-altering drugs. What does it mean to have your mind-altered? What is actually going on in the brain when we set off on a psychedelic trip. Johns Hopkins University researcher Albert Garcia-Romeu talks about his research into psychedelics and reviews sciences current understanding about how psychedelics improve mood, limit depression, alter our states of mind and give us a feeling of transcendent insight.
Albert Garcia-Romeu does research on psychedelics at Johns Hopkins University. In this first part of our discussion I asked Al why older adults should be interested in psychedelic research. How could psychedelics help us to enjoy a more successful longevity? We also delve into the subjective experience of a psychedelic trip. What do people taking psychedelics in a clinical setting report feeling, and how what kind of benefits does the trip provide?
Medical Anthropologist Daniel R. Georg and I discuss the resurgence of research on the benefits of psychedelics.
Dr. Judy Rubin a pioneer in the field of art therapy. In Part I of my discussion with Dr. Rubin, she explains how she "stumbled into" the emerging field and gradually figured out how to harness the synergistic benefits of the arts and psychotherapy.
Early in her career Judy appeared with Fred Rogers as "the arts lady" on the PBS series Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Her training brought her into contact with the renowned developmental psychologist Erik Erikson and with Benjamin Spock who wrote the hugely influential parenting guide that was the bible for my mother and millions of other parents in the 1950s. Judy, now in her 80s, is still active, creating and curating documentary films about art therapy.
In Part 2 Judy and I asked Judy to speculate about the power of the arts and then shifted gears to for her advice on aging well.
Judy Rubin is a pioneer in the field of art therapy, In Part 2 of my conversation, we speculate about why art can have such a profound effect on us and what the NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative means for the future of art therapy. I also asked Judy to think about the aging process and to share whatever words of advice she had on how to age successfully. She summarized her hopes for a successful aging with the phrase, "a good run and a soft landing."
The Great Generation benefited from a whole raft of social safety bets and social support systems that improved living conditions and overall health. As a result, even though more people were living longer, the actual percentage of older people who suffered from dementia went down! Yes. Rates of Alzheimer's and other dementias were on the decline.
But the social conditions that stimulated these improvements in brain health began to be dismantled in the Reagan administration, and the ascendence of hyper-capitalism and market-driven policies has accelerated.
Medical anthropologist Daniel. R. George explains that dementia is yet again on the rise. By placing profits above the welfare of the people, these "neoliberal" policies have create huge inequalities in wealth, in access to healthcare, education and healthy food. They have undermined the infrastructure of the country and poisoned the environments in which we live. All of which undermines the health of our bodies and brains.
In AMERICAN DEMENTIA Part 1, medical anthropologist Daniel R. George discussed how market-driven policies and practices are amplifying our vulnerability to cognitive decline and dementia. In this episode, Part 2, we focus more on potential solutions. George makes it clear that our political and economic decisions have a profound impact on the collective health and wellbeing of our bodies and brains. Unless we address the pathologies of current practices, we condemn future generations of older adults to ever-increasing levels of dementia.
What can be done?
What are the myths of Alzheimer's discussed in Peter Whitehouse's book? That Alzheimer's is unrelated to aging. That it is a single disease that can be "cured" by biomedical science. That it results in irretrievable lost of self and imposes inevitable despair on caregivers.
Peter J. Whitehouse, MD-PhD, is a prevention oriented, intergenerational neurologist. His current main academic and practice focus is on ecopsychosocial models of brain health and aging and the role of the arts and humanities in health. He is currently focusing on new conceptions of wisdom and quality of life. Whitehouse has a primary appointment as Professor of Neurology at Case Western Reserve, with secondary positions as Professor of Psychiatry, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Organizational Behavior.
Whitehouse is also the author, with Danny George, of AMERICAN DEMENTIA: BRAIN HEALTH IN AN UNHEALTHY SOCIETY, which is discussed a subsequent podcast.
What causes dementia? Demented political and economic systems. This is the thesis of Peter Whitehouse's new book AMERICAN DEMENTIA: BRAIN HEALTH IN AN UNHEALTHY SOCIETY.
Peter J. Whitehouse, MD-PhD, is a prevention oriented, intergenerational neurologist. His current main academic and practice focus is on ecopsychosocial models of brain health and aging and the role of the arts and humanities in health. He is currently focusing on new conceptions of wisdom and quality of life. Whitehouse has a primary appointment as Professor of Neurology at Case Western Reserve, with secondary positions as Professor of Psychiatry, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Organizational Behavior.
This is part 2 of my discussion with Peter. In the other podcast we talk about his first book, THE MYTH OF ALZHEIMER'S.
I once read a sound piece of advice that said we need an "avocation" to provide us with a sense of meaning and purpose when we retire. As I was writing an article about this idea I realized that - for me - an avocation is required, but not sufficient. In addition to an avocation, I need an audience. I need someone who shares my passion and interest in the art and science of aging. My MINDRAMP colleague, Roger Anunsen fills this role for me.
This podcast is a reading of the article I wrote for Rebecca Crichton, Executive Director of the Northwest Center for Creative Aging.
I find myself in the surprising position of being the eldest male in my immediate family. In these troubled times, As such i should be a positive role model for my family and could think of no better role model for myself than Fred Rogers of children's television fame.
I met Mr. Rogers when I worked for PBS and got to see the man in action in a variety of settings. No matter where he went, he exerted a positive influence on the environment and magically made everyone become their best selves.
This podcast shares some stories about my times with Mr. Rogers and speaks to the power of compassion, love acceptance. A print version of this podcast appears in the most recent edition of 3rd Act Magazine.
Chris Palmer has, by all measures, lived a great life. He now wants to plan for an equally great death. In this short segment of a longer interview, Chris outlines his thoughts on both important topics.
Chris Palmer has been a wildlife filmmaker, an environmental activist, a teacher and an author. He has taught classes and written extensively on how to design a good life. In this podcast, Chris shares his early struggles and how he overcame them by learning to design the kind of life he wanted to have. Now, at age 74, Chris maintains a detailed Longevity Mission Statement that charts his course into the future. He calls his personal mission statement, FINISHING STRONG: Creating a Fulfilling and Meaningful Life as I Face Mortality.
We can increase our emotional intelligence by expanding our vocabulary for emotional words. This is the core idea of the theory of emotional granularity put forth by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett. During a road trip through southern Utah and western Colorado my wife and I expanded our ability to articulate our feelings of wonder and delight. We invented the word "awe-gasm" to describe the visceral ecstasy evoked by the natural splendors of the mountain west.
This podcast is based on an article of mine that appears in the Winter 2021 edition of 3rd Act Magazine.
This episode continues our conversation with gerontologist and psychologist Mario Garrett. In this part of the discussion Mario describes his priority to put care over cure. He argues that American society puts far too much emphasis on searching for a cure to Alzheimer's and much too like time, energy and money into actually addressing the needs of people who suffer from dementia and their caregivers.
This second podcast interview with Mario Garrett [See ] focuses on Garrett's ideas about the social and psychological causes of dementia. In essence, he believe that our mindsets about dementia, our"isomorphic representations, can cause attitudes and behaviors that contribute to cognitive decline.
Gerontology professor Mario Garret offers a straight-forward, no-nonsense critique of current approaches to Alzheimer's research, particularly the overwhelming focus on addressing the Amyloid Cascade Hypothesis.
Garrett proposes that we broaden our understanding of the true nature of the dementia syndrome and consider psychological as well as biological causes.
Chapters Include:
- We don't understand dementia
- Historical perspectives on our Alzheimer's muddle
- We call everything dementia, blunting our understanding
- The many causes of dementia
- We need a more nuanced definition of the dementia syndrome
- Summary: consider psychological causes of dementia
Jesse Wiley discusses his work on the TREAT-AD project and their attempt to identify new candidates for drug development to protect against Alzheimer's. Jesse explains that he and his team have identified 15 biological domains that are associated with the development of Alzheimer's (not 18 as I say in the podcast).
Intriguingly, Mitochondrial malfunction and chronic immune response rose to the top of the list of domains.
Jesse also explains "pseudotime" which is a new tool for tracking the trajectory of disease development.
Our discussion of mitochondrial malfunction led us to discussions of epigenetic factors, and the role of behavior and lifestyle interventions.
Jesse Wiley of Sage Bionetworks talks about his involvement with TREAT-AD, which is an exciting open-science, community approach to developing data-drive hypotheses that may lead towards new kinds of treatments for Alzheimer's disease. These new approaches will go beyond the amyloid hypothesis that has dominated research and drug development approaches over the last two decades, yet failed to produce any effective drug.
The FDA recently approved the first new drug for Alzheimer's in the last 18 years. . Why are we not celebrating? Because there are a slew of concerns about the approval decision. Ten out of eleven members of an independent review board voted against approval. The eleventh couldn't decide. At least three of these reviewer have resigned in protest. In this podcast I review four of the main concerns about the FDA approval of Aduhelm.
Bad habits are incredibly hard to break. But the process of replacing bad habits with good ones can be much easier if we follow tips from behavioral psychologists who study the process. One of the best researchers in the field is Katy Milkman, who offers her insights in a new book called HOW TO CHANGE. Inspired by this book and my investigations of behavior change, I wrote an article for 3rd Act Magazine called Make Today "Start a New Habit" Day. I offer 15 evidence-based tips that will make your efforts to break a bad habit much more successful.
I started doing yoga on a regular basis at age 65. Brandee Goatcher was my first teacher and she helped me to embrace the practice and become a regular practitioner. For Brandee, the essence of yoga is "falling in love with our bodies and all they can do."
What a lovely idea. And being able to fall in love with our bodies as we age is incredibly important. Too often we bemoan the little and persistent ways that our bodies begin to betray us as we age. We focus on the aches and pains and indulge in what my buddy Roger calls "the organ recital," the recitation of all of the organs that have begun to work improperly.
I still have the aches and pains, but yoga has helped me to explore what my body is capable of doing. And, I have been able to expand my movement repertoire. I am stronger and more flexible at age 73 than I was at age 65. Use it or lose it.
Brandee and I discuss yoga and her style of teaching.
My partner, Roger Anunsen, learned the power of play years ago when he was unexpectedly hired as an Activity Director at an assisted living community. He was assigned to run a Sit & Be Fit class and his elderly students seemed bored out of their minds. To liven things up, Roger got them reciting an elaborate tongue-twister (One hen, Two ducks, etc.) that his nana used to play with him. Sit & Be Fit was never the same.
This early foray into mental stimulation got Roger interested in the brain and how to design cognitively stimulating activities for older adults. This led to his invention of MemAerobics and eventually to teaching brain health class and joining me to found MINDRAMP Coaching & Consulting.
In addition to telling roger's story I talk about why play is an important developmental tool throughout life. Play is an effective way to keep mature minds health and sharp.
Be sure to listen at the end for a full rendition of One Hen, Two Ducks. You can test your own memory and articulation skills by echoing the increasingly elaborate and bizarre descriptions.
The text for this podcast first appeared as an article in 3rd Act Magazine.
If you are a dedicated rock climber you may already know of Madeleine Sorkin. She has made quite a name for herself as one of the premiere rock climbers in the world.
Madaleine has recently founded an organization called the Climbing Grief Fund, which is dedicated to helping climbers cope with grief, PTSD and tragedy. Too many of Madaleine's friends and associates have experienced the tragedy themselves, or know of someone who has died or been injured while practicing their dangerous sport. Too often climbers have suffered in isolation and struggled to recover on their own. Madaleine experienced her own scrape with death when equipment failed and she fell 50 on to a life-saving ledge.
Madaleine talks about her own struggle with what she now recognizes as post-traumatic stress syndrome and shares insights gleaned from her efforts to find communal ways to cultivate resilience in the face of overwhelming grief.
Greg Finch is a good friend and a successful executive coach, so he was the first person I thought of when I decided to do some podcasts about the value of personal coaching and the role it can play in our effort to promote brain health.
I am convinced that coaching can be a valuable boost to any brain health program. Even when we have a plan to keep our brains healthy, it is difficult to sustain the effort long enough to get the full benefits. This is when a coaching relationship can be most helpful. As legendary football coach Tom Landry said, (I’m paraphrasing) a coach's job is to help people to do what they have trouble doing so that they can become the people they want to be.
I think this podcast will be of interest to you if you are new to coaching or are already familiar with the multiple benefits of a dynamic coaching relationship.
Savant brains are severely compromised. Yet some savants have, as neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran says, "islands of astonishing talent." A few such savants have astonishing musical talents. Others show an awesome ability to replicate what they on paper. Others have amazing mathematical skills.
I recently wrote about Savants in the most current edition of 3rd Act Magazine. I explored a set of hyper-activated abilities that seem to explain how savants achieve their super-powers. The list of hyper-skills (suggested by Alan Snyder of the Brain & Mind Centre at the University of Sydney) are all skills possessed by the average human brain. In the article, I suggest that cultivating these set of skills might help those of us with "normal" brains to ramp up our cognitive performance.
Marilyn Olsen is the Executive Director of Villages Oklahoma City (VOKC). On this short podcast, Marilyn discusses an exciting partnership with MINDRAMP Consulting, the launch of The MINDRAMP Academy. The short excerpts explore:
- Why Marilyn and VOKC are working with MINDRAMP,
- How VOKC and MINDRAMP developed the concept for an ongoing brain health initiative for Oklahoma City, and
- Why the VOKC members wanted an ongoing, sequential brain health curriculum.
Marilyn's comments are pulled from a radio interview she did with Robin Gunn for Robin's RISE & THRIVE radio show in Oklahoma City.
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In this podcast you will hear about an exciting new project called THE MINDRAMP ACADEMY that MINDRAMP has launched in partnership with Villages Oklahoma City. The Academy is our next bold step forward in the development of a comprehensive brain health initiative for the people of Oklahoma City.
You will hear from Marilyn Olsen, the Executive Director of VOKC on why she is working with us, how we have helped VOKC develop a full brain health initiative for the Oklahoma City area, and why her members wanted an ongoing, sequential course that would teach them how to keep their brains healthy and their minds sharp.
By the way, as Marilyn mentions briefly toward the end of the podcast, that VOKC received recognition from the Mather Institute as an honoree of the 22020 Promising Practices Awards. It’s a prestigious award that recognized true innovation in the service of older adults and we are quite proud to have help VOKC make it happen. VillagesOKC was recognized for the work they have done with MINDRAMP to bring Brain Health education to the Community.
This podcast is pulled from a radio interview Roger and I did with Marilyn Olsen for Robin Gunn and her Oklahoma Senior Journal show on Oklahoma’s KZLS, The Eagle, 1640 on the am dial. .
In this podcast I read an article I wrote recently for 3rd Act magazine on the importance of balancing the influence of our right and left hemispheres.
One of the most provocative books I read in 2020 was THE MASTER AND HIS EMISSARY by Iain McGilchrist. It was first published in 2009 with the expanded edition - which I read -coming out in 2019. McGilchrist explores recent research on the different ways the two hemispheres of our brain relate to the world and influence our behavior.
Our mind works best when our two hemispheres contribute equally and share their unique perspectives. McGilchrist argues that our left hemispheres - the hemispheres of language, symbolism and exploitation - dominates and throw our minds out of kilter. Much of what ails us can, plausibly, be traced to this chronic imbalance. I find McGilchrist's ideas provocative and potentially very useful. It suggests that a powerful way to manage our minds is to find ways to rebalance he influence of our two hemispheres.
Exploring this exciting approach to mind management will be a focus of MINDRAMP's work in 2021. This podcast is an opportunity to start the conversation about this complex, but important, subject.
The year 2020 was dreadful. While there is hope and optimism associated with the inauguration of new leadership, the dangers of domestic terrorism and an unchecked pandemic continue, to say nothing of the existential threat of unchecked climate change. For my own sanity, I need to keep focusing on the positives and on reasons for hope.
This podcast is a reading of an article I wrote in the midst of 2020 for 3rd Act Magazine. My theme was finding hope in the midst of the dreadfulness of 2020. In essence, I think it is still pertinent in 2021.
I believe that the human mind is gradually evolving in positive ways. Minds that are hard-wired for hate, revenge and violence are, ever so slowly, giving way to minds that are wired in more pro-social ways. I see the rage and violence of the domestic terrorist groups as a last gasp expressions of a way of life - as a kind of primitive mind - that is being left behind. Groups that have felt sheltered by white privilege and male dominance realize that the social structures that support these oppressive systems are eroding. They are terrified and are fighting like hell to hang on to their sense of privilege and superiority.
The terrorists are waging a losing battle, but it appears we must suffer through their final acts of outrage and destructiveness. Saner - more evolved - minds will prevail. But we must never forget that the human mind is plastic and malleable. The plasticity works in both ways depending upon the influences we exert on our minds. To keep the plastic change in human minds moving in the right direction, we need to protect pro-social institutions and cherish compassionate behaviors. As the metaphor of good and bad wolves inhabiting our mind instructs, we must daily feed the good wolves and starve the bad.
The brains of men and women are more alike than they are different. That said, there are some unique characteristics of the female brain that are highly significant. When we fail to recognize these differences, we put women at greater risk for premature aging, cognitive decline and dementia.
This episode is drawn from a radio interview Roger and I did with Robin Gunn, who hosts the Oklahoma Senior Journal radio show in Oklahoma City. We anchored the discussion around what I have learned from the book THE XX BRAIN by Lisa Mosconi, PhD. Mosconi is the director of the Women’s Brain Initiative and associate director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College.
With this podcast we begin to explore how women’s brains differ, how those differences affect their lives and their risks for brain health problems, and what can be done to lower the risks.
Chapters:
- Introduction
- Why should we focus on women’s brains?
- Do women get equal brain health treatment?
- Genetic differences
- Hormonal differences
- Transformations in a woman’s life
- Women’s risk of getting dementia
- Artificial and natural menopause
- Menopause Hormone Therapy
- How woman can lower risks and discomfort
- Conclusion
Have you ever wondered what yoga was all about? Have you asked whether there is more to yoga than just putting your body into weird shapes? If you have been curious about yoga or want to deepen your understanding of what the practice is all about, you will want to listen to this conversation with master yoga teacher Keric Morinaga.
I study with Keric and, as I imagine happens with most yoga students, I listen to the instructions and do my best to intuit the philosophy and the guiding principles of what we are doing. Every now and then, tentatively, I might ask a question about the purpose of a particular pose or ask for clarification of a particular instruction. Well, recently Keric was gracious enough to take an hour to patiently answer all of my most pressing questions about the yoga practice.
This episode focuses on Keric’s description of Anusara yoga, which is the discipline he teaches. We also ventured a bit into the realm of the esoteric. I’m always a bit flummoxed when people talk about spirit and spirituality. I know vaguely what people are talking about, but I sense it has different meanings for each person. I wanted to know what Keric meant by “spirituality.” His answer surprised me.
Chapters:
- Teacher of Teachers
- 3 Core Elements of Anusara Yoga
- 5 Principles of Alignment
- Enriching the Practice
- Is Yoga a Form of Meditation?
- What is “Spirituality?”
- Managing Body & Mind with Yoga
I recently recorded a conversation with Keric Morinaga who is a master teacher of yoga. In this podcast, I’ve pulled together the parts of the conversation that focused specifically on yoga and the process of aging.I started taking Keric’s challenging online classes at the beginning of the pandemic shut-down and, at age 72. As a result of the practice, I’ve become stronger and more balanced. I supplement Keric’s perspectives and insights with some of my thoughts on how yoga helps me work on many of the “CogWheels of Brain Health.”
Chapters:
- Introduction
- Mom Says “Just Keep Moving”
- What Yoga Does for Me
- Maintaining and Even Improving with Age
- Non-Competitive Yoga
- Yoga & MINDRAMP’s CogWheels of Brain Health
- Stability Leads to Freedom
- Positive Role Models for Positive Aging
- Conclusion
Angel Duncan has a unique background that combines rigorous scientific research, psychology and the arts. She has worked on clinical trials searching for drug treatments for Alzheimer's disease and has an extensive background as an art therapist.
In this podcast interview, we discuss the failure of the drug industry to find an effective way to treat dementia and Alzheimer's. Angel explains why she believes that behavioral and "holistic" approaches can be effective approaches to lowering the risk factors of cognitive decline.
Chapters
- Introduction
- Alzheimer’s Drug Trials Have Failed
- The Amyloid Hypothesis
- Lifestyle Factors; Risk-Management
- A Cocktail Approach
- Summary
- Conclusion
Angel has a unique background that combines rigorous scientific research, psychology and the arts. She has worked on clinical trials searching for drug treatments for Alzheimer's disease and has an extensive background as an art therapist.
In this first of two podcasts with Angel, she discusses her experience practicing art therapy, particularly with people who are experiencing cognitive decline and dementia. We discuss why drug interventions have failed and why behavioral and lifestyle interventions can reduce risks for dementia and can be such an important aspect of any dementia treatment plan. Angel discusses her lifestyle approaches to achieving Qualongevity - living long and living well.
Episode #3 Chapters:
- 01:11 - Art does not lie.
- 02:17 - A Child with Asperger’s
- 0 6:16 – Dan Cohen, Alive Inside
- 11:59 – Becoming a Research Clinician
- 13:25 – Why have AD Drug Trials Failed?
- 16:18 – Art therapy for People with AD
- 18:40 – Angel’s Approach to Qualongevity
- 20:30 – Angel’s Podcast “N2Creativity”
- 21:45 - Conclusion
Dick and I are late-life buddies. He is the father of my son-in-law and lives in a house he bought a few years ago with his son and my daughter. I really got to know Dick after he packed up his life in Houston and relocated in Los Angeles. Dick is 10 years my senior at age 82. Watching how Dick copes with change, adversity and loss has been an inspiring lesson in creative aging.
Earlier this year I wrote an article for 3rd Act Magazine called A Call To Adventure. In it I drew parallels between The Hero’s Journey, as described by mythologist Joseph Campbell, and the structure of common late-life transitions, like retirement and relocation. I used Dick as an example of a person who has confronted numerous late-life transitions and has risen to the challenge. I ended the article by noting that Dick is a hero to me. He is a late-life warrior who confronts the dragons and ogres that lurk in the wilderness of old age and not only survives, but thrives.
In this interview podcast, Dick and I explore the late-life challenges he has faced and do our best to extract whatever pearls of wisdom and insight are available.
Chapters:
- Introduction
- Transitions: The Call to Adventure
- An Unexamined Life
- Carpe Diem
- Imagination
- Late-Life Realities
- Love Brought Us Together
Why is there resistance to wearing hearing aids? As a culture, we seem to have overcome the stigma attached to wearing glasses, but for some reason wearing a hearing aid is still discomforting for many people. Is it because hearing loss is a sign of old age? Is it because hearing aids are a pain in the . . . ear?
According to audiologist, Dr. Monika Sharma, modern hearing aids are vastly improved over the one’s your parents used a generation ago. And, she finds that younger generations are more comfortable with the idea of treating hearing aids as just another piece of technology that contributes to our quality of life.
Dr. Sharma is licensed audiologist and a licensed hearing instrument dispenser in the State of California, and she is a member of the American Academy of Audiology and the California Academy of Audiology.
Be sure to check out the MINDRAMP Podcast episode Hearing Loss, Aging & Dementia, in which Dr. Sharm discusses hearing loss in general.
Hearing Aid Chapters:
- Why the Resistance to Hearing Aids?
- Can Hearing Aids Revive Hearing Loss?
- Hearing and Your Brain
- They Don't Help If You Don’t Wear Them
- Hearing Aids are Getting Better & Better
- How Soon Should I Get a Hearing Aid?
- How To Protect Your Hearing
- What About Inexpensive Hearing Aids?
- How Often Do I Need to Upgrade?
- Tips for Enhancing the Quality of Your Hearing Aids
- Conclusion.
One in 3 people over the age of 65 suffer from hearing loss. After age 75 half of all people have trouble hearing. Hearing loss that goes untreated can get worse and can cause people to withdraw and become depressed. Hearing loss has been identified as a clear risk factor for dementia. Nevertheless, many people still resist going to an audiologist and wearing hearing aids.
In this interview with audiologist Dr. Monika Sharma, we focus on the hearing loss. We discuss why hearing loss happens, different types of hearing loss and how untreated hearing loss can diminish quality of life and even lead to dementia. Dr. Sharma is licensed audiologist and a licensed hearing instrument dispenser in the State of California, and she is a member of the American Academy of Audiology and the California Academy of Audiology.
Dr. Sharma is my audiologist.
2 – Sharma (Hearing Loss) Chapters:
- Introduction
- What is Audiology?
- Hearing and Quality-of-Life
- Negative Consequences of Hearing Loss
- Hearing Problems in a Crowd
- Dr. Sharma’s Hearing Problems
- Hearing Loss & Dementia
- Causes of Hearing Loss
- Kids & Congenital Hearing Loss
- Cochlear Implants
- Tinnitus
- “Product of Culture” – South Asian Arts
- Raising Awareness about Audiology
- Conclusion
Marilyn Olsen is the innovative Executive Director of Villages Oklahoma City (VOKC). She is redefining villages and developing new and innovative ways to serve older adults and to promote positive approaches to the aging process.
In this podcast interview, Marilyn explains how she got involved in the Village Movement and how her approach in OKC differs from the standard. She describes two signature programs that are foundational to VOKC.
One foundational program is the GIFT program – Gathering Information for Transitions. Members who take the GIFT workshop develop a notebook that gathers all pertinent information that might be needed in times of major , late-life transitions. It is the information you will need when you may be incapable of thinking straight.
The second major program is an ongoing brain health initiative that includes classes and workshops to help members understand how to minimize their risks for cognitive decline and dementia.
Learn more about Marilyn’s positive and optimistic approach to Qualongevity – living long and living well.
Chapters:
- Introduction
- The roots of VOKC
- The GIFT Program
- The Brain Health Initiative
- Qualongevity
- Conclusion
In this interview podcast I (Michael C. Patterson) discuss the article Blinded by the White with author, Victoria Star Marshall. It is a personal story in which Marshall reveals how the Black Lives Matter movement has helped her confront her own racism. It is an honest and vulnerable look at how entrenched systems of white supremacy blind white Americans to the extent of racism and oppression that exists in this country.
As Victoria puts it, “I have helped perpetuate racism not by what I have said and done, but by my indifference.” Victoria’s honesty and courage inspired me, helping me to realize that I too have spent most of my life sheltered within the safety and comfort of white privilege. It is time we all took off the blinders.
The article, Blinded by the White appears in the most recent edition of 3rd Act Magazine, which is published by Victoria Starr Marshall. The vision of 3rd Act Magazine is to inform, inspire, and entertain older adults. https://www.3rdactmagazine.com/category/wellness/brain-health/
I am a regular contributor to 3rd Act Magazine. You can find my archived articles at:
https://www.3rdactmagazine.com/?s=MICHAEL+C.+PATTERSON
This is a reading of an article written by Michael C. Patterson for the magazine 3rd Act: Aging With Confidence. It explores why humor and mirth exist and how they strengthen our brains and minds.
Creative Maturity is creativity that blossoms because of age and experience. There is a pervasive myth that creativity is the domain of the young and diminishes with age. This is yet another ageist stereotype that needs to be dispelled. We discuss how creativity can be enriched by experience and the development of a full portfolio of useful routines.
We discuss the role that Gene Cohen played in confronting the myth that “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks,” and his development of the creative aging movement.
This episode is excerpted from an interview Robin Gunn, or the Oklahoma Senior Journal, conducted with MINDRAMP’s Michael C. Patterson and Roger Anunsen.
CREATIVE MATURITY CHAPTERS
- What is Mature Creativity?
- The Value of Experience
- A Fixed vs. Growth Mindset
- The Miracle on the Hudson
- The Accumulation of Useful Routines
- Creativity = Novelty + Routine
- Gene Cohen – Creative Aging
- The National Center for Creative Aging
- Alive Inside – Henry & Music
- Conclusion
The Environment is the topic of the final CogWheel of Brain Health. Like all of the other eight CogWheels, there is robust research suggesting that the environment has a profound effect on our health and wellbeing. While other Cogwheels focus internally, the environmental CogWheel turns our attention outward to external factors and conditions.
Any environmental condition that we ingest into our body or mind, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, has the potential to impact our health, our mood and our thinking. Environmental impacts can be both positive and negative. In general, exposures to enriched environments promote longevity, learning and happiness. Exposures to impoverished environments, dangerous environments have the opposite effect. They reduce our health, our happiness, our productivity and our ability to develop our potential.
This episode encourages you to evaluate your environment and to avoid conditions impoverish your experience, while embracing environmental conditions that enrich your life.
Environment Chapters
- Introduction
- Nature/Nurture – genes or environment
- Epigenetics
- Impoverished Environments
- Pollution
- Toxins
- Danger & Violence
- Over-crowding
- Poor Sanitation
- Scarcity of Resources
- Poverty
- Enriched Environments
- Physical & Mental Stimulation
- Positive Social Engagement
- Learning & Development
- Safety & Security
- Assessing Your Environment
Your health and medical conditions have a profound effect on your ability to live long and live well. You can’t live a long life if you get sick and die. And, it is much harder to enjoy your long life if you struggle with chronic and debilitating diseases. In this episode we take a look at medical factors that influence your quest for Qualongevity.
There are, basically, four ways to deal with disease and injury: prevention, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Each is important, depending up your state of health. The most effective strategy, of course, is to prevent injury and disease from taking hold in the first place.
While there are myriad age-related medical conditions that undermine health and happiness, we focus on two of the big ones in this episode: dementia and chronic inflammation. We examine the true nature of neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s and discuss sensible approaches to lowering your risk of succumbing to these conditions. Chronic inflammation has recently been identified as a major risk factor for dementia and a whole host of other diseases. Your ability to control and minimize chronic inflammation, therefore, is a highly effective way to improve your health and well-being as you age.
Medical Factors Chapters:
- Introduction
- 4 Approaches: Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment & Management
- Dementia
- The Nature of Neurodegenerative Diseases – Michael Merzenich
- Types of Alzheimer’s – Dale Bredesen
- Brain on Fire – Chronic Inflammation
- The Jeckyl & Hyde Nature of Inflammation
- The Causes of Chronic Inflammation
- Strategies to Avoid Chronic Inflammation
- Change is Hard – So is Illness
- Conclusion
We spend roughly a third of our life in a state of altered consciousness. In this state, our sensory connections to the outside world are dimmed and our ability to take physical action is paralyzed. We glide through different stages of sleep, alternating between wakefulness, light sleep, rapid-eye-movement (REM sleep) and coma-like deep sleep.
Why do we sleep? What a waste of time. Think how productive we could be if we spent those nightly hours doing things, learning, exploring - playing video games and binge-watching reality tv shows. Interestingly, our minds are far from silent and still during sleep. There is as much mental activity when asleep as there is during the day. What is going on?
As best we can tell, there are four critically important activities going on in our brains when we sleep. While asleep, our brains:
1. Organize and consolidate what has been learned
2. Repair damage
3. Restore homeostatic balance
4. Remove garbage.
In this episode we examine the CogWheel of sleep. We explore the nature of sleep, why it is important and how to optimize the benefits of nightly slumber.
Sleep Chapters:
- Teaser
- Introduction
- Let me check my sleep app
- Why do we sleep
- REM Sleep & Dreaming
- Deep Sleep
- Your Sleep Take-Home Messages
- Conclusion
You are what you eat. You are what you ingest.
To stay alive, you need to ingest elements from the world outside your body. These elements – food, water, air – provide you with the energy you need to stay alive and to do all of the exciting things you do to make life worth living.
The problem is that you ingest a lot of gunk along with the good stuff. Your body has to work hard to sort out the good from the bad. It needs to integrate the good stuff and expel the bad. Unfortunately, the American diet and lifestyle does a bad job of this sorting process. There is a good chance that what you are eating – what you ingest – is making you sick.
In this episode, we take a quick look at how the quality and quantity of what you ingest alters your health, your mood and your mind.
Chapters:
- Introduction – We ingest the outside world
- Chimpanzees on a fast food diet
- Brain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating For Cognitive Power – Lisa Moscone
- Your Brain on Food: How Chemicals Control Your Thoughts and Feelings – Gary Wenk
- What We Should Ingest
- Your Take Home Idea – You are What You Ingest
- Conclusion
Learn how to manage your stress.
We’ve got plenty to be stressed about these days, from the coronavirus, to racial injustice, to climate change and the assault on democratic institutions. In this episode we examine the fourth of our eight CogWheels of Brain Health - Stress Management.
Chronic, uncontrolled stress can and does cause people to age more quickly and to die prematurely. But there is good evidence to suggest that our mental attitudes about stress are critical to whether stress harms us or helps us. Stress may be harmful in large part because we think it will be harmful. The danger arises, in other words, when we get stressed out about stress.
In this episode we draw distinctions between different types of stress – good and bad - and also examine important research on how changing our mindsets about stress can help us to minimize the harm and maximize the benefits of our natural stress responses.
Episode #5 Chapters
- Introduction
- Acute Stress
- Chronic Stress
- Eustress
- Stress Management Strategies
- Stress Got a Bad Rap (McGonnigal & Crum)
- Coping with Current Stressors
- Conclusion
It may surprise you that social engagement is one of the “essential” CogWheels of brain health until you remember that human beings are social animals. We survive and thrive as individuals, and as a species, because of our ability to cooperate with and learn from others. Positive social interactions are essential to our health and wellbeing.
And, because we are such complex and conflicted beings, social interactions are extremely challenging and are fraught with peril. Negative social interactions that involve abuse, oppression, social isolation and loneliness can trigger a systemic inflammatory response, which leads to a breakdown of the immune system, which ultimately can lead to dementia.
In these troubled times it is essential that we heal our social rifts - for the good of our bodies and brains and for the good of the country and planet.
Episode #4 Chapters
· Introduction
· The Fragility of Our Social Contract
· We are Social Animals
· The Dynamics of Social Risk & Protective Factors
· Risk Factors
· Abusive Relationships
· Isolation & Loneliness
· Protective Factor
· Conclusion
The "Mental" Cogwheel is a very broad topic with myriad topics to be considered. To simplify the discussion, in this episode we will focus specifically on “mental stimulation.” In other words, we will explore the type of mental activities that have been shown to stimulate growth and resilience of brain structures. We will examine the kinds of mental activities that contribute most to the health of your physical brain.
In a subsequent episode, we will examine “mental management,” which deals with how you use your mind; how to manage mental states and mindsets that influence how you feel and how you relate to the world.
The core aspects of Mental Stimulation we review are: Diverse, Novel, Challenging, Meaningful and Complex.
Episode #3 Chapters
- Introduction
- What Does Mental Stimulation Mean?
- Diversity
- Novelty
- Challenge
- Meaning
- Complexity
- Summary
- Mental Management
- MINDRAMP Resources
There are five important types of movement that affect our health and wellbeing. We need to exercise all of them to achieve optimum benefits. They are:
- Aerobics
- Strength
- Flexibility
- Balance
- Posture
In this episode we focus on how we move (or don’t move) and how the nature of our movement affects the health and wellbeing of our brain.
I use my own efforts to develop healthy movement habits and routines to explore why each of the areas mentioned above are needed to optimize our health and wellbeing. We explore how to find movement activities that are enjoyable and that combine as many of these components as possible.
Physical Exercise and Movement Chapters"
(When you access the podcast, scroll your cursor below the green lines to the chapter icon – a stack of three dots and horizontal lines. Click to reveal chapters. Then click on the chapter you want to hear.)
- Introduction
- My Wake-Up Call at Age 40
- Beyond Aerobics
- Slowing Age-Related Decline
- Why are Flexibility, Posture and Balance Important?
- Yoga: A Combinatorial Workout
- Summing Up The Main Points
- Conclusion.
This episode introduces a new series of podcasts that contribute to the overall understanding of the MINDRAMP Method for achieving Qualongevity – living long and living well. In this series of podcasts, we examine MINDRAMP’s CogWheels of Brain Health.
The CogWheels are eight areas of human behavior that have been shown to have a profound impact on the health and resilience of our brains.
- How we move – Physical Exercise & Movement
- How we think – Mental Stimulation & Management
- How we relate to others – Social Engagement
- How we cope with challenges – Stress Management
- How we ingest resources – Diet, Nutrition, Breathing
- How we rest and renew – Sleep
- How we cope with disease – Medical Conditions
- How we interact with the world – Environmental Factors
Research has revealed specific and actionable risk factors as well as protective factors that are associated with each of these behavioral areas. These research insights lead logically to a risk-management approach to protecting your brain from premature aging, cognitive decline and dementia.
- If you want to reduce the amount of damage done to your brain, eliminate behaviors that have been shown to put your brain at risk.
- If you want to increase the health and resilience of your brain, adopt or reinforce behaviors that have been proven to strengthen your brain and enhance its ability to repair damage.
This series of podcasts will examine all eight of the CogWheels and offer concrete advice on how to manage these behaviors to minimize risks and to optimize protections.
Episode #1 Chapters: (When you access the podcast, scroll your cursor below the green lines to the chapter icon – a stack of three dots and horizontal lines. Click to reveal chapters, then click on the chapter you want to hear.)
- Introduction
- How MINDRAMP Organizes Brain Health Research Around the CogWheels
- The “Combinatorial” Nature of the CogWheels
- A Behavioral and Lifestyle Modification Approach
- The Four C’s of Effective Brain Health Interventions: Causes, Combinatorial, Customized and Continual
- Conclusion
This is the second episode that examines the topic of mindsets, providing examples of some common types of mental states that influence our behavior and out sense of wellbeing. Mindsets tend to operate as a unity of opposites, or as dyads.
One mindset that is the easy to understand in this context is the Positivity/Negativity dyad. In broad strokes, we confront the challenges of life with either a positive attitude or a negative one. As discussed in the previous episode, once we recognize that we are operating from, for example, a negative perspective, it is easy to visualize how we could perform a Mindset Reset and flip to a more positive perspective. How would things change if we assume a positive, rather than a negative, outcome?
Our investigation of the positivity/negativity mindset leads to a discussion of Positive Psychology, which strives to help people prioritize positivity and to develop the skills that promote happiness, meaning and purpose. As part of this discussion, we explore the benefits of both negative and positive emotions.
We then go on to explore three more mindset dyads that we find particularly relevant to our quest for Qualongevity (i.e. longevity + quality-of-life). We discuss the:
· The Growth / Fixed Mindset dyad
· The Asset-Based / Deficit-Based mindset dyad, and
· The Pluralism / Monism dyad.
In this podcast we discuss mindsets and the skill of performing "mindset resets."
Mindsets are frames of mind, ways of organizing the world and our sense of self. We observe that most mindsets are structured as dyads. That is, they have two opposing sides. They are a unity of opposites. One manifestation of a mindset will generally be positive and the flip side will generally be negative.
A “Mindset Reset” is the skill of recognizing when you are being obstructed or thwarted by the negative side of a mindset and flipping to the positive. Think of the mindsets of optimism/pessimism or the closely related mindset of positivism/negativism. In the midst of a creative project, you may find yourself bogged down by pessimistic feelings. “This is never going to work.” “I can’t do this.” “I’ll never get the support I need.” Rather than wallow in self-pity, you can learn to perform a mindset reset and adopt a positive or optimistic stance.
To introduce the nature and power of mindsets, we explore a couple of seminal pieces of research by psychologist Ellen Langer of Harvard. And explore Langer’s thinking about the mindset dyad of mindfulness/mindlessness.
This episode continues to explore the dynamics and architecture of the creative process. We give more details about the phases and stages of The MINDRMP CREATIVE CYCLE. We give a practical example of the Creative Cycle in action by describing the creativity that goes into planning a nice dinner with a new neighbor. And, we give some advice on how to effectively work the creative cycle.
THE MINDRAMP CREATIVE CYCLE
- IMAGINATION
- Initiation
- Saturation
- IDEA GENERATION
- Manipulation
- Incubation
- Illumination
- IMPLEMENTATION
- Manifestation
- Implementation
- VERIFICATION
- Evaluation
- Alteration
Developing new and more efficient brain health habits and routines requires a fair amount of creative thinking. Fortunately, all human beings are hard-wired to think creatively. But, just because we have the capacity to think creatively doesn’t mean that we know how to use those skills or that we have developed our creative thinking skills to any level of proficiency.
In this episode we discuss the nature of creative. We define creativity and discuss how it operates. Creativity can be studied from three perspectives: People, Product and Process. What makes certain people more creative than others? What makes one product or idea more creative than another? And, finally, what do creative people actually do when they are producing creative product? It is this third perspective – the creative process – that we find most useful when it comes to practical advice about ramping up our own creative output.
The meat of this episode is the introduction of a MINDRAMP tool, The CreativeCycle,ã that details the normal pattern and sequence of cognitive activities that creative people use when they are producing ideas and products that are both novel and useful.
When you start to develop a healthy habit or to learn a new routine, you are likely to face two immediate obstacles concerning motivation and mastery.
After an initial spurt of energy, your motivation to continue the practice is likely to diminish. That’s your motivation hurdle. And, since you are a beginner, you are likely to struggle with the practice, find it difficult and experience some failures. This is quite natural, but it is discouraging and frustrating. This is your mastery obstacle. You need to work through both of these challenges to be successful.
In this podcast we introduce you to two MINDRAMP tools to help you work through the motivation and mastery hurdles. Both tools recognize that motivation and mastery have multiple stages. They are not static conditions. There are different degrees and types of motivation, just as there are different levels of mastery.
MINDRAMP has developed a Motivation Continuum that lays out stages of motivation that run from EXTRINSIC motivation (i.e. you are being told to do something) on one end to INTRINSIC motivation (you do it because it is fun) on the other end. As you work with your brain health practice, you move yourself along the continuum to progress towards the easier and more fulfilling end.
The Mastery Continuum is a similar deal. You start out as a beginner and tend to suck at doing the new routine. But, that’s okay. That’s expected. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Just keep doing the practice and gradually you will get better and become competent, then proficient, and the task will become more gratifying and even fun.
With episode we shift to the final section of the MAPS Method, the S section, which deals with Skills for Sustainability. The two skills we review in this episode are SMART-ER Goals and Willpower.
SMART is an acronym that is often used to describe the characteristics of effective goals. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. MINDRAMP has added two more characteristics – Evaluated and Revised - to make your goals even SMART-ER.
We also explore the nature of willpower and describe how it can be exercised and strengthened in basically the same way that you would exercise your muscles. Like a muscle, willpower gets stronger the more it is used. And, also like a muscle, the more a muscle is used in any one session, the more fatigued it gets. This suggests being strategic about how you schedule your tasks, tackling difficult willpower challenges when you are fresh and energize and avoiding heavy willpower tasks when your reserves are depleted
How do you put together a plan to change habits and behaviors? We clearly are not very good at changing our evil ways or we would all keep our New Year’s resolutions and progressively become more angelic with each passing year.
The science of behavior change has taken two basic approaches.
- The first approach focuses on suppressing the bad behavior and bad habits.
- The second approach focuses on establishing and reinforcing an alternative behavior that is healthy and beneficial and then gradually allowing the new improved habit to replace the old, maladaptive habit.
Now that neuroscientists are getting a better idea of how the brain encodes habits and how they are reinforced through repetition it is clear why the second approach is more effective. In the simplest of terms, saying “Don’t eat that donut!” only reinforces and strengthens the existing “eat the donut” neural network. What you need to do is to establish a strong alternative neural network – say, “eat raisins and almonds” – to compete with the donut network. If you consistently strengthen the raisin network and weaken the donut network you will eventually be able to make the healthier behavior your own.
The purpose of this episode is to encourage you to turn your good intentions into action. Don’t just think about how nice it would be to protect your brain and optimize your mind – do something to make it happen!
We assume that you are motivated to protect your brain and optimize your mind. What will it take to start making your brain healthier? What will it take to really start cultivating happiness and fulfillment? What has to happen? What has to take place?
What has to happen first? When are you going to take that first step?
We suggest two basic approaches to designing your brain health action plans. You can craft them yourself, or you can start out by implementing a set of “foundational action plans” that we recommend for everyone.
In the MINDRAMP Playbook and in our brain health coaching sessions, we list five foundational action plans for each of the eight CogWheels of Brain Health. In this episode we review some of the foundational action plans and encourage you to pick one and start working on it.
In the previous episode we looked at how to assess risk and protective factors that impact brain health. In this episode we propose a similar system for assessing mental control and flexibility. We propose a set of disciplines that affect our ability to manage our minds.
We begin by discussing the characteristics we would look for in an effective list of cognitive activities. We suggest that the disciplines should be recognizable, meaningful, evidence-based and prescriptive. Further, we should be able to manage these disciplines in the short-term and should be able to improve our skill and mastery of them in the long haul.
We offer the cognitive ability of metacognition as the first, over-arching discipline. The human ability to think about our own thinking is a prerequisite for managing our mental capacities. We can manage thoughts without knowing that we are having thoughts in the first place. We then move through a short list of disciplines that fit our criteria. They include attention, concentration, thinking fast and slow and thinking tight and loose. One discipline that we call “time travel” refers to our ability to take our mind to the past, the future and back to the present. The final discipline is mindsets, or frames of mind that structure how we see the world and how we make sense of who we are.
The “A” in MAPS represents Assessments. In this episode we do a quick review of Motivation, as covered in the first two episodes of the MAPS Series and discuss how motivation and assessments go hand-in-hand. To motivate ourselves to take action to protect our brains, we need to understand what strengthens and protects them as well as what puts them at risk.
In this episode we focus on assessing eight behavioral areas have been shown to have a profound influence on plastic modifications to our brains. We discuss a risk-management approach to brain health that involves identifying then modifying risk factors. Using the same approach, we identify behavioral factors that make our brains stronger, more resilient and more resistant to disease and develop plans to integrate them into our lifestyles.
As discussed in the previous episode, you need big picture motivation to stimulate broad goals, like the decision to take action to protect your brain and nurture your mind. The core objective of the MAPS method is to motivate and empower you to develop your own brain health action plan, complete with specific strategies and tactics.
Just as you need big picture motivation to set broad goals, you also need targeted motivation to encourage you to carry through on each specific strategy and tactic.
This episode reviews some of the science about motivation. We identify core components of targeted motivation, discussing the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and the relative merits of motivation through reward versus punishment. You can shore up weak or dwindling motivation by recognizing which component has been compromised and addressing it. Having each component in place gives you the strongest motivational push to initiate and sustain positive action.
The M in the acronym MAPS stands for Motivation. It takes motivation to initiate and then sustain the behavior changes needed to protect your brain and enhance your mental capacity. Therefore, the first step in your journey towards brain health is to ramp up your motivation to take action.
In this episode we help you investigate your “big picture” motivation. The idea is to tap into your core values and life ambitions and consider how they are supported by a healthy brain and an active mind. Said another way, how well will you be able to achieve your life ambitions and live according to your core values if your let your brain deteriorate and allow you mind to get duller with each passing year. You brain is important. You only get one per lifetime, so it make sense to take care of it. Find the motivation you need to give your brain and mind the attention and care they deserve.
This episode starts a new series of podcasts that focus on the MINDRAMP's MAPS Method. The earlier Introduction to MINDRAMP series of podcasts introduced the concept of Qualongevity (longevity + quality-of-life) and reviewed the scientific theories that provide the foundation for the MINDRAMP Approach to brain health and mental flourishing. The MAPS series moves us from theory to action. The MAPS Method is a roadmap for turning goals and objectives into action. MAPS is an acronym for the four key steps you can use to turn your brain health and Qualongevity goals into concrete action Plans.
- Motivation
- Assessment
- Planning
- Skills for Sustainability
This episode also reviews The RAMP Analogy.
MINDRAMP makes the seemingly audacious statement that you have the power to design your own brain. You have the power to shape the structure and function of your brain to be healthier, more resilient and better able to resist disease. You have the power to keep your mind sharp and to increase your mind's ability to think creatively and adaptively. What gives you this power? The enduring plasticity of your brain and mind. Your brain constantly changes its structure in response to what you experience, feel, do and think. Your mind can continue to learn and become wiser the longer your live. Your brain changes throughout life in both positive and negative ways. To prevent premature aging and to keep brain and mind healthy you need to minimize the negative plastic changes and optimize the positive changes. This is the core of MINDRAMP's Positive Plasticity Premise.
In this Science Update episode, MINDRAMP reviews two new research reports. One adds to our understanding of why what is good for the heart is good for the brain. The second piece of research reinforces the evidence that higher levels of education provide protection against cognitive decline, even across racial lines.
Let's say you have decided to do some work to protect your brain from cognitive decline and dementia. What kind of programs or interventions should you use? This episode reviews MINDRAMP's analysis of the type of brain health programs that work and why.
In short, the evidence shows that effective brain health interventions focus on:
- PREVENTION - effective programs take a preventive rather than a curative approach
- BEHAVIOR - they focus on behavior change and lifestyle management
- RISK-MANAGEMENT - they work to lower risk factors and optimize protective factors
- MINDRAMP'S RULE OF THE Cs states that effective brain health programs:
- CAUSES - Target the causes of decline and disease, not just symptoms
- COMBINATORIAL - Combine multiple interventions to address multifactorial causes.
- CUSTOMIZED - Custom-tailored interventions to each individual
- CONTINUAL - Require continual behavior and lifestyle changes that can be sustained across the lifespan.
This episode, excerpted from a radio interview Roger and I did with Robin Gunn in Oklahoma city, focuses on The Nun Study and the subsequent development of the cognitive reserve theory. Certain people seem to be protected from dementia in spite of having the plaques and tangles that are associated with dementia pathologies. The reserve theory posits that things like lifelong learning build up a reserve of healthy brain cells that can step in a take over the functions of brain cells that are dying or are compromised.
Roger and I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Robin Gunn on her radio show in Oklahoma City. Robin is the editor of The Oklahoma Senior Journal in OKC, and since 2017 has hosted a Saturday morning talk show on KZLS The Eagle 🦅 1640 Am, the top country music radio station in OKC.
Robin chatted with us about MINDRAMP's approach to brain health and about our work to develop a comprehensive brain health initiative for Oklahoma City, led by Villages of Oklahoma City and Concordia Life Plan Community.
This episode reviews The Hero's Journey as described by mythologist Joseph Campbell in his classic book, THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES. Campbell argues that every culture in the world has a core myth that speaks to the developmental transformations all human beings undergo in the course of their life. We connect the stages of the hero's journey with the stages you go through as you pursue your quest of Qualongevity - your quest to live long and live well. We find it a useful metaphor with multiple applications. This episode is based on a section from our book STRONG BRAINS, SHARP MINDS.
In this episode, we ask you whether you want to live to be 100 years old? Your answer tells you something about how you think about old age. Qualongevity is the term that describes not only living long, but also learning to live well as we age. We explore both aspects of this concept - longevity and quality of life.
How can you optimize your chances of living long and living well? By 1) protecting and strengthening your brain; and, 2) by mindfully managing the workings of your mind.
In this introductory episode, we introduce you to two new words that play a big role in the MINDRAMP Method for promoting healthy brains and creative minds.
The first word we invented is 'Qualongevity." It merges two important concepts: 1) the effort to increase longevity and, 2) the desire to maintain or elevate our quality-of-life across that expanded longevity. Through these podcasts, you will learn how to use the MINDRAMP Method to put together your own brain health plan.
When you put your plan into action, we say you are "Mindramping," ramping up your power to prevent or slow the aging process and ramping up the creativity and flexibility of your mind.
The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the isolation of older adults. Physical distancing and stay-at-home policies are necessary, but subject older adults to loneliness and loss of meaningful engagement that can jeopardize their cognitive and psychological wellbeing.
How can you care for an older adult effectively when you are physically distanced from them? MINDRAMP'S Virtual Cognitive Activity Design (VCAD) project provides you with a system for creating and implementing virtual activities that are engaging, stimulating and fun. This podcast introduces the VCAD Project.
A wise maxim instructs that when you give someone a fish they eat tonight, but when you teach them to fish, they eat for a lifetime. In that spirit, the VCAD training offers numerous ideas for virtual activities. These samples are to be used as models and exemplars to stimulate your creative thinking. The best activities – the ones that are most engaging and stimulating – cater to the needs of your clients and reflect the unique characteristics of your community. The VCAD training expects you to be creative and innovative and provides you with a number of effective creative thinking tools to help you generate lots of ideas for effective activities.
The VCAD approach is grounded and inspired by MINDRAMP’s Cognitive Activity Design program and by our work to promote healthy brains and sharp minds. This podcast gives a short review of the core principles that guide MINDRAMP’s work. We have spent close to two decades studying brain and mind sciences to determine the most effective approaches to promote brain health and mental flourishing. A grounding in our basic principles will help you to design activities that reflect the science.
The MINDRAMP Mission and the Goal of Qualongevity
MINDRAMP’s Cognitive Enhancement Strategies
- The Positive Plasticity Premise
- Behavior and Lifestyle Modification
- Risk-Management
- Treating Causes not symptoms.
- Taking a Combinatorial approach
- The CogWheels of Brain Health
- Customizing programs; using precision applied brain science
- The Need for Continual vigilance to sustain benefits.
This episode takes a closer look at the eight essential CogWheels of Brain Health. MINDRAMP has been monitoring and tracking brain and mind research for two decades. We have focused our attention on the factors that impact the health and wellbeing of our brains and minds as we grow older. The evidence points to eight behavioral areas that have a profound impact on our brains, some negative, some positive. We call these eight areas "CogWheels" because they interact and influence one another like cogs of a complex mechanism. All eight areas must be stable to give yourself the best chance of remaining healthy and preventing cognitive decline and dementia.
This podcast reviews how MINDRAMP'S CogWheels of Brain Health can be used to lower the risks and and amplify the protective factors for premature aging, cognitive decline and dementia.
Scientific evidence has indicated for some time that a “risk-management” approach is the most effective way to protect your brain from damage and decline. The approach simple, but effective; identify the factors that put your brain at risk and reduce your exposure to them. This wellness strategy should really be risk/protection management. The flip side of the strategy is to identify the factors that protect and strengthen your brain and increase your exposure to them.
Each of the eight Cogwheels of Brain Health are behavioral areas that are known to have profound effects on the health of our brains, both negative and positive. The way you deal with each CogWheel can either put you at risk or can protect you. Take diet & nutrition, for example. Some food products are dangerous to your health and destructive to your brain. Other foods provide your brain with the vital nutrients it needs to stay healthy, grow and to function at optimal capacity.
This podcast explores some of the important principles that make activities for older adults effective and engaging
- What factors contribute to making activities with older adults engaging and fun?
- What kind of activities promote health and protect against dementia?
Roger Anunsen, co-founder of MINDRAMP, developed an activity approach called MemAerobics that was shown, in a randomized-controlled trial, to ramp up the cognitive function and mood of participants when compared to a control group. Even better, these activities were engaging and fun! MemAerobics was the early foundation for the Cognitive Activity Design (CAD) college course and textbook developed by MINDRAMP.
The Virtual Cognitive Activity Design (VCAD) program is the next logical iteration of this appraoch. MINDRAMP’s VCAD Project explores how to deliver effective activities to older adults in remote locations. It uses the core CAD principles to deliver effective and engaging, cognitively stimulating, activities using virtual communication mechanisms.
This podcast reviews MINDRAMP's analysis of the creative process.
The goal of the VCAD Project is to equip you with the tools you need to create your own, virtual activities. As discussed in the podcast on “Your Creative Responsibilities,” we offer a few plug-and-play ideas but encourage you to invent your own activities. Use our guiding principles to stimulate your own creative thinking. Invent activities that make sense for your unique and singular circumstances.
To help you with this process, the VCAD materials offer some guidance on how to cultivate your creative powers and deploy them towards the task of designing virtual activities.
Creative people produce creative products by working their way through a creative process. The quickest way to ramp your creativity, therefore, is to learn to use an effective creative process. By using a clear step-by-step process, you can design and implement products that are more creative and innovative. In the process, you become a more creative person (even if you didn’t think of yourself as being creative.)
MINDRAMP’s has analyzed the creative process and developed an outline of four major activities, with a total of nine stages, that are generally needed to produce novel ideas that are useful. We call it the Creative Cycle because the process frequently loops back on itself. The completion of one creative cycle leads naturally to the generation of a new creative cycle. Creativity becomes a self-propelling process. Creativity begets creativity.
My favorite book on the process of idea generation is Serious Creativity by Edward DeBono. One of the creative thinking devices invented by DeBono is the use of creative provocations. Debono invented the word “po” in 1968 to symbolize the process of engaging in a creative provocation.
A provocation is a “forward use” statement. It is designed to propel your creative thinking forward towards further creative exploration. DeBono points out the words like hy(po)thesis, sup(po)se and (po)ssible all indicate this aspect of a present activity that prepares us for insights in the future.
The word “suppose” and the phrase “what if” are mild provocations that nudge our creative thinking in the right direction. DoBono’s “Po” is intended to be more radical and disruptive to our normal ways of thinking. His provocations can involve things “we know to be impossible, contradictory, or logical nonsense.” A provocation knocks off our normal path of thinking, pushes us out of the rut, and leads us down new and unexplored paths.
Creative productivity is largely a question of volume. The more ideas you can generate and test, the more likely you are to come up with one that is truly novel and useful.
Brainstorming, or “ideation” if you want to sound hip, is a familiar technique for generating creative ideas. My experience with brainstorming, however, has been disappointing. I don’t think most practitioners use the concept effectively. The point of brainstorming is to generate ideas, not to solve problems. It is merely one step in the full creative process. The brainstorming technique described in this podcast, however, is quite effective. It does a good job of collecting ideas from a group and winnowing them down to a manageable few that can be pursued.
The Idea/Concept Ladder is a technique that enables you to amplify the number of ideas generated through brainstorming. Every good idea in a specific expression of a larger concept. Every concept holds potential for generating multiple ideas. Find the concept behind a good idea and you can generate a rash of alternative ideas and expand your realm of possibilities.
MINDRAMP’s Creative Cycle (described in an earlier podcast) suggests that the full creative process has four major phases, Imagination, Idea Generation, Implementation and Evaluation. You start by imagining some kind of new condition that will make things better. Then you produce ideas about how to make that condition come into being.
The purpose of idea generation is to produce a wealth of good ideas that can be implemented, tested and then evaluated. So first you generate as many ideas as possible. Then you select one of them to implement, test and evaluate.
The idea-selection technique offered in this podcast is relatively simple and straight-forward. Use this approach if you get bogged down with too many good options and need something to break the log jam.
You need to assess virtual capabilities before you can effectively move into the world of virtual communications.
First, you need to assess your own capabilities. Identify what virtual equipment you have and know how to use. Then, you have to assess the virtual capability of the people in remote locations that you want to communicate with. Identify their virtual capabilities. What equipment do they have? Do they know how to use the equipment? Are they comfortable doing so.
Familiarize yourself with the types of virtual communication tools that are available.
Use your assessment of the virtual communication capabilities of your staff and of your audience to identify gaps. Identify and prioritize the knowledge and skills that are critical for your staff. Identify the skills needed by your audience to get everyone up to speed on, at least, basic levels of virtual communication. Then, develop specific plans to undertake the required learning.
We recommend you follow the phases and stages of the MINDRAMP Creative to design your virtual activities. You will recall from the podcast on The Creative Cycle that there are four main phases:
1. Imagination
2. Idea Generation
3. Implementation
4. Evaluation
You will optimize the creativity and effectiveness of your virtual activities is you work through each of these phases and give them their due.
There are basically two approaches you can take to create virtual activities for the older adults you serve. You can begin with existing activities and figure out how to deliver the same activity but using virtual communication mechanisms. Or, you can start fresh. You can reconceptualize the activities to suit the unique characteristics of the virtual communications mechanisms you have available to you. This episode discusses both approaches.
Over the years MINDRAMP has experimented with a number of virtual delivery approaches. In addition to live classes and presentations, we have reached out to audiences using print, eBooks, radio, webinars and podcasts. In this podcast, we discuss how the VCAD Project makes use of a variety of virtual communication mediums. The next few podcasts will share what we have learned from other virtual projects.
MINDRAMP has a long association with an organization called Well Connected (previously Senior Center Without Walls) which delivers a full curriculum of classes via the telephone. To a large extent, the audience is comprised of older adults who, for whatever reason, are confined to their own homes. Ironically, we are all experiencing the same restrictions due to the C-19 pandemic.
MINDRAMP’s brain health programs, delivered virtually via phone calls, we consistently among Well Connected’s most popular courses. In this podcast we share some of the best practices we learned about delivering audio only programs.
In recent years, Well Connected has expanded from its base in California’s Bay Area to include the entire country. They now use the Zoom platform so that people can access classes using Zooms audio connections, or when possible, can include video as well.
Zoom has become increasingly popular and well known since the start of the C-19 stay-at-home orders went into place. It provides audio and video links between people and will display the images of the host and the guests on the screen. So, multiple people can simulate a live meeting or get-together using their virtual technology.
MINDRAMP has made extensive use of Zoom’s virtual meeting capability to deliver classes and presentations to venues around the country. The presentations feature Roger and Michael zooming in from different locations on the west coast. Zoom allows the host to share whatever is on his or her computer screen, so it is possible to show images, charts, graphics and – most important for us – full PowerPoint presentations.
Zoom has become increasingly popular and well known since the start of the C-19 stay-at-home orders went into place. It provides audio and video links between people and will display the images of the host and the guests on the screen. So, multiple people can simulate a live meeting or get-together using their virtual technology.
MINDRAMP has made extensive use of Zoom’s virtual meeting capability to deliver classes and presentations to venues around the country. The presentations feature Roger and Michael zooming in from different locations on the west coast. Zoom allows the host to share whatever is on his or her computer screen, so it is possible to show images, charts, graphics and – most important for us – full PowerPoint presentations.
Roger Anunsen (co-founder of MINDRAMP) recently invented a virtual activity for Senior Living Communities called The Mystery Dish. It uses in-room food service to conduct an engaging guessing game about food that can involve everyone in the community. The idea is now being tested, in association with Executive Chef Darin Leonardson, in a number of communities.
The Mystery Dish reminded Roger of two other food-based activities he invented as part of his research validated activity program called MemAerobics. All of these food-based ideas promote sensory acuity, mindfulness and fun.
The Virtual Activity Design Program is based on MINDRAMP’s first-in-the-nation college course and textbook called Cognitive Activity Design. A major part of the text and course materials consists of descriptions and analyses of wonderful cognitively stimulating activities Roger designed for an Assisted Living Facility.
The rest of the podcasts in this section feature Roger describing a number of the most memorable and instructive activities. These case studies are then followed by analyses of the elements that made them effective in promoting brain health and mental engagement.
These case studies do not use virtual communications mechanisms but offer a number of core principles that help enrich any kind of activity (live or virtual).
Art Fiskitjohn was grumpy and withdrawn until Roger casually mentioned to him that Marge claimed she could beat him in a scooter race. Learn how a community became energized around a drag race between three older residents of an Assisted Living Facility.
Roger Anunsen’s most effective programs started with a focus on the specific needs of a single individual and then expanded to engage and involve a much broader community.
Every activity involves a beginning, a middle and an end. We often make full use of the activity time but fail to exploit the engagement opportunities available during the preparation stage and the afterglow stage. Learn how to milk all of the benefit you can out of your activities.
The Drag Race was a complex activity with many moving parts. But, activities don’t have to be complex to be successful. Often the simplest of activities can have a profound effect on participants.
The simple act of watching a sunset was made special by encouraging mindfulness and being open to awe.
Roger Anunsen shares his thoughts about the brain health benefits of learning to savor life’s simple pleasures.
Hiram was remote and withdrawn until Roger did some "memory mining" around their shared passion for baseball. As Hiram reminisced about his past a fascinating story about his past were revealed.
This episode explores a number of techniques that help you tap into people’s memories and reflections about past passions that, once rekindled, have the power to renew people’s spirits and get them re-engaged with the present.
Like the memory mining techniques, people’s reminiscences and reflections about their past lives can suggest topics for activities that help them to engage more fully with their present lives.
Art Kempf struggled with dementia and a loss of meaning until Roger and Art’s wife got him to a wear his navy uniform at a Tommy Dorsey concert during their salute to the military. Art’s patriot salute to the music transformed him and the people around him.
One of MINDRAMP’s guiding principles is that effective interventions for multi-factorial conditions - like premature aging and dementia - require multi-factorial interventions. Decline, disease and debility are caused by multiple factors. Each one of the factors must be addressed, in combination, to have a significant impact on the health of your brain and the wellbeing of your mind. (See the episode on The CogWheels of Brain Health).
Cabin Fever may be a useful metaphor for the psychological impact of staying at home and social distancing during the COVID-19 epidemic. The common symptoms of cabin fever are either being stir-crazy (agitation and irritability) or withdrawal and depression. In this podcast, MINDRAMP's co-founders discuss how their methods to promote brain health and mental flourishing can be useful in combatting the negative psychological effects of coronavirus cabin fever.
The podcast consists of excerpts from a radio interview Roger Anunsen and Michael C. Patterson had with Robin Gunn, editor of the Oklahoma Senior Journal and host of a weekly radio show in Oklahoma City.
How are organizations that serve older adults keeping in touch and staying engaged with clients and prospects? How are they using virtual communication methods to help their people cope with coronavirus induced cabin fever?
This podcast episode pulls excerpts from a radio interview by host Robin Gunn on her Oklahoma Senior Journal radio program. Joining Robin by conference call are Julie David with Concordia Life Plan Community and Marilyn Olsen, Executive Director of Villages Oklahoma City along with Roger Anunsen and Michael C. Patterson from MINDRAMP Consulting.
This special episode features clips from a radio interview conducted by Robin Gun for her radio show in Oklahoma city. MINDRAMP co-founders Roger Anunsen and Michael C. Patterson are featured monthly on Gunn's Oklahoma Senior Journal, discussing various aspects of positive aging and brain health.
This episode focuses on MINDRAMP's Virtual Cognitive Activity Design project (VCAD), which MINDRAMP is now offering for free on our website at www.mindramp.or. The project is designed to help professional and family caregivers to continue serving older adults within the stay-at-home constraints imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. VCAD provides a system for design and implement engaging activities for older adults that: a) promote brain health, and b) take full advantage of virtual communication mechanisms like phones, radio, and virtual meetings on Zoom or Facetime.
According to researcher Becca Levy of Yale, current social trends should indicate that ageist attitudes would be on the decline. There is evidence, however, that the opposite has true. Ageist attitudes are worse and more pervasive now than they were two centuries ago. Why should that be the case and what can we do about it?
In this episode, we ask how negative age stereotypes develop and are perpetuated. With stereotyping, an “in-group” (young adults) tends to define and perpetuate a negative image of an “out-group” (older adults). Becca Levy’s Stereotype Embodiment Theory suggests that we acquire age stereotypes about old people when we are children and reinforce them during adulthood. As younger adults become older adults, they inevitably lose their in-group status and become associated with the out-group and find themselves to the same ageist prejudices and discrimination they perpetuate when young.
An important obstacle we confront in our Quest for Qualongevity - our effort to maintain quality-of-life across a long lifespan - is ageism. In this episode, we take a stab at defining ageism. We focus our discussion of ageism around three defining aspects of this "ism" cited by The World Health Organization: stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination against people because of their age.