9/7 Getting Started and Why learn about brain health?

Quick Links:

BrainHQ website: www.brainhq.com

Handout

Quiz

Presentations

• Mary's Wednesday Night presentation

As returning students, you know the drill on how to access BrainHQ (https://v4.brainhq.com/)

You are probably also familiar with our website: bhqonline.org.

During this session, we will look at some of the new features of our Brain Fitness class. We will review how to use the website, all the options on the site and more.

We will also discuss the new Zoom format, and how each of the different Zooms may work.

And we will introduce you to a new student site (sdcestudent55.com), which includes the fall schedule for Emeritus, but also a Guide to Online Instruction, an updated Guide to Zoom, Job opportunities and more.

We will then discuss why we are studying brain fitness, and how our fall topics may benefit your physical and cognitive health and more.

Accessing BrainHQ site:

Access by going to brainhq.com. You will be redirected to v4.brainhq.com. Remember to use email associated with the account and the original password (fall2020, spring21, summer18). If you would like additional help on this, join our Wednesday 6:30 – 7 sessions with Debbie.

Take a look at our course website: Go to website by typing in: bhqonline.org

o Home page: Everything you need to get started. Includes a welcome video. Provides links for most of the sections of website under “Welcome to Brain Fitness Online”. Links to BrainHQ site as well as a short video on logging into BrainHQ. The official syllabus and a video tour of the syllabus. View the biographies of your brain fitness instructors.

o Accessing lessons (BF Fall Topics ’21): Clicking on the link takes you to the page listing all weekly lessons. Clicking on a weekly lesson takes you to the lesson page. Most of the lessons are created in the previous week. You can also access the weekly lesson by hovering over the title (BF Fall Topics ’21) and selecting the week. It is recommended that you use the course website to access lessons. The weekly handout has the same information, but the website includes images, videos and a link to the weekly quiz.

o Weekly Emails Fall 2021: If you miss an email, you will find it on this part of the website.

o The Zoom Classroom: Become familiar with this updated page! It includes all of the Zoom sessions during the week, links to the Zooms sessions, a calendar with the links and more details such as phone numbers, and tutorials and videos on using Zoom. Lots to learn on this page!

o FAQs (Frequently asked questions): Find out more about the class, the BrainHQ program, how to deal with technical issues, video tutorials on the different activities and interviews with PositScience.

o Prospective Brain Fitness students: Point your friends to this page as we explain the program and how to get started.

o Student Registration: All of the updated tutorials for Fall 2021.

We will be offering Zoom sessions for topics on multiple days of the week, with different instructors. In addition to several different sessions on Wednesdays, there is also a Tuesday afternoon and Friday morning session. Attend any or all of the sessions. See the Zoom Classroom for more. On the Zoom page, you will see a list of the sessions with names of instructors. Click on the instructor for a quick link to the Zoom classroom. Below this, you will see a calendar. Using the agenda view will give you the best results. This calendar will include details such as phone numbers, passcodes, etc. At the very bottom of the Zoom classroom page is all of this information.

Not actually new but expanded. We have taken the sdceschedule.com site and added features to make it a site just for students. We have even created a new domain name which reflects the student side. You can continue to use sdceschedule.com, or you can access it at: sdcestudent55.com. Highlights of this site include:

Fall schedule and more:

Not only is the Fall schedule there, but you will also find details on some of the classes, information on instructors and tutorials for registration. This part is a work in progress.

Student guides:

You will find three guides on this site:

• Guide to Understanding Online Instruction: We have been asked to create some tips for online students, so we created this guide. It is a lot of information, but a great tool for learning specific things. Not only can you learn the technical requirements of going online, what to expect and how to prepare for your class, you will find a fairly comprehensive guide for safe online use. Make sure and take a look at this guide!

• Guide to Using Zoom: We have kept the handout, but added some video links from Zoom and from YouTube. If you have any questions on Zoom, make sure and check out this site.

• Guide to accessing all classes on sdce.edu: It may be confusing to find your classes in the catalogue. This guide provides a tutorial on doing just that. You will also find a link to just Emeritus classes on this page as well.

Student Resources:

Things that might be of value such as:

• Job opportunities for older adults: We sometimes get notices about openings for older adults. We will put them on this page.

• Rising to success: This document outlines the services available to you as students. You may be surprised on what you can find.

• Past classes: If you want to remember a class you took in the past, you can visit this archive of former sites.

History of the program:

The Brain Fitness class began as a sabbatical project by Professor Pat Mosteller. She was originally looking for ways to make our health classes more brain friendly and she stumbled upon the PositScience Brain Training program. Initially, this was a 40 session program which met 3 times a week (in person). Each visit included a 60 minute training on the program, as well as a lecture and discussion.

At one point, it became clear that some students wanted to continue with the lessons and the BrainHQ training but could no longer attend these three day a week sessions. So, we created an online version to go with the “face to face”. In the process, we had created a hybrid type of class, where students could get credit for coming to the lecture, or they could do online only. This successful model worked until Pandemic.

Since then, we have focused on online only. We have found that students do enjoy the live interaction of meetings, and the Zoom sessions have been well-attended. In response to this interest, we have created multiple Zoom sessions with different instructors (who will each bring their own perspective to the class).

Brain healthy habits and lifestyles are prominent in news and journals. Our intention was to bring this information to our Emeritus students and provide them with concepts and tools that will help them to make the necessary changes for a brain healthy lifestyle. Understanding how the brain works will help you to benefit from the changes, especially if you can envision it as you are doing the exercises. Schools have embraced this type of curriculum in their Growth Mindset lessons.

The BrainHQ program:

Clearly an incentive to taking this class, the BrainHQ program features a series of brain exercises designed to make you brain sharper and more responsive. There are six categories of exercises (attention, brain speed, memory, people skills, intelligence and navigation). Although the exercises may be different, the benefits of these exercises will sometimes overlap. The BrainHQ program incorporates the research surrounding brain health as well as the design of the exercises.

The BrainHQ site includes links to some of the research using BrainHQ and the results in the brain. This research has suggested that the training rewires the brain and improves brain activation, timing and connectivity between different regions. It also looks at the Institute of Medicine’s Checklist for Brain Training and have successfully checked off the five components listed to determine if a brain training program is scientifically proven.

By consistently using the BrainHQ exercises, you may find benefits in your cognition and more. Consecutive sessions are the best. Benefits can be seen in as little as 20 minutes per session.

Value of the Brain Fitness class:

As a class, we felt it was important to include weekly lessons. When the program initially began, our weekly lessons were tied to the activities on the program. The program also offered a study guide which was used to develop our curriculum at that time.

We gradually began to expand our curriculum, first with recent news about the brain, and then by highlighting certain brain healthy lifestyle choices. The class has now evolved into weekly lessons which are sometimes repeated but are sometimes new.

Things to note about our weekly lessons:

• Our lessons focus on the brain healthy lifestyle, and things that you can do to achieve this lifestyle.

• The curriculum is based on the sources that we use. We try to use sources which are peer reviewed, from reputable websites and publications. It is conceivable that another source may disagree. Wherever possible, multiple sources will be used. We will also provide links to our sources in case you want to have a look.

• We may include some science in the lessons. We are not brain scientists, so we may lack some of the scientific background to explain all of the concepts. We include these more technical parts of the lesson to challenge you, and perhaps encourage you to look further into the topic. You are not expected to understand everything in the class. We welcome your feedback on what you have discovered.

• We avoid giving medical advice and will always advise you to consult your physician if you have specific medical conditions.

• We understand that research is occurring each day, and that a concept which was widely believed in the past may no longer be accepted today. A fine example of that is the concept of brain plasticity, a relatively new concept originally researched by Dr. Michael Merzenich, the founder of PositScience (BrainHQ).

• Our lessons can be accessed by a handout or on the course website. We recommend that you use the website to get a full understanding of the lesson, and to take the quiz.

• The Zoom sessions will be based on the lesson. But each instructor will bring their own design and ideas into the lesson, so no two Zoom classes will be the same.

Categories of topics for Fall 2021:

Although some overlap may be seen between categories, our lessons can be broken into three categories:

• Improve your cognitive health (expectations, mindfulness and meditation, communication skills, laughter and patience)

• Improve your general health (gentle exercises, managing chronic pain, holiday foods, nourish your soul, holiday gift giving, goal setting)

• Improve your understanding (connection between the gut and the brain, safe use of medications and supplements, managing sleep disorders, managing high blood pressure and diabetes, managing chronic pain)

Don’t forget to keep in touch with us! Join the Zoom sessions, participate in the quizzes, send us emails about your progress. Hoping for a fun and informative fall semester of Brain Fitness!