Brain Food, Creating a Creative Habit, Microaggressions

Bringing you fun and useful conversations that will help you improve yourself, your family, and your community! Brain Food (00:00) When it comes to aging, mental health is as important as physical health. Fortunately, you can take care of both by focusing on one key area: food. One diet—the Mediterranean—is known for physical health benefits. But contemporary research suggests that it can also do a lot for our brains: it could even be a first line of defense in Alzheimer prevention. Dr. Lisa Mosconi is the Associate Director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC)/ New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She’s also the author of Brain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive Power. Creating a Creative Habit (19:29) They say it takes 21 days to establish a habit, which may or may not be true. But a common topic among creatives is how to best make creativity and creative pursuits a habit. Is creativity a task to treat like changing the oil in your car or is it a ritual like prayer or meditation? Here to discuss creating a creative habit or the ritual of creativity is Carrie Ann Rhodes. Reimagining Your Past (49:33) Painful memories can be hard to shake. But when you’re traumatized by past experiences, imagery rescripting is a technique that might help. It has long been used as a part of psychotherapy, especially in helping in helping to resolve childhood traumas that affect people into adulthood. But recent research focuses on how you can use imagery rescripting to help you change your memories, and even your self-image, from negative to positive. Dr. Susan Krauss Whitbourne is a Professor Emerita of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her latest book is The Search for Fulfillment. Microaggressions (1:04:06) It seems like every day someone we know is offended by a comment from a coworker, a family member, or even a complete stranger. The things we say have the power to profoundly affect those around us, for better or for worse. Yet there’s a way we may be offending people without even knowing it. It’s called microaggressions. Dr. Derald Wing Sue is a professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University, and is the other of several books, including Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation. Family Movie Night (1:22:36) This weekend the movie First Man released to theaters. The movie stars Ryan Gosling playing Neil Armstrong, the first man who walked on the moon. For our weekly Family Movie Night feature, our producer and family film reviewer Rod Gustafson is with us to talk about First Man and how movies about exploring space often reflect our overall optimism for the future.