CEO Brain Training

13/06/2025

Children aren’t designed to sit still all day. Movement helps their brains develop, supports emotional regulation, and builds focus. When we treat movement like a reward, we miss what it really is — a biological need. Respectful parenting means giving our kids the space to move before the meltdown, not after.

📘 Want more insights like this? My book Guidance from The Therapist Parent is packed with practical strategies to support your child with empathy and understanding.

🔗 Available at www.thetherapistparent.com and on Amazon worldwide.

06/05/2025

Adolescents who sleep longer perform better at cognitive tasks

Studies looking at how much sleep adolescents get usually rely on self-reporting, which can be inaccurate. To get around this, a team led by researchers turned to data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States.

As part of the ABCD Study, more than 3,200 adolescents aged 11-12 years old had been given FitBits, allowing the researchers to look at objective data on their sleep patterns and to compare it against brain scans and results from cognitive tests. The team double-checked their results against two additional groups of 13-14 years old, totalling around 1,190 participants. The results are published today in Cell Reports.

The team found that the adolescents could be divided broadly into one of three groups:

Group One, accounting for around 39% of participants, slept an average (mean) of 7 hours 10 mins. They tended to go to bed and fall asleep the latest and wake up the earliest.

Group Two, accounting for 24% of participants, slept an average of 7 hours 21 mins. They had average levels across all sleep characteristics.

Group Three, accounting for 37% of participants, slept an average of 7 hours 25 mins. They tended to go to bed and fall asleep the earliest and had lower heart rates during sleep.

Although the researchers found no significant differences in school achievement between the groups, when it came to cognitive tests looking at aspects such as vocabulary, reading, problem solving and focus, Group Three performed better than Group Two, which in turn performed better than Group One.

Group Three also had the largest brain volume and best brain functions, with Group One the smallest volume and poorest brain functions.

The senior author said: “Even though the differences in the amount of sleep that each group got was relatively small, at just over a quarter-of-an-hour between the best and worst sleepers, we could still see differences in brain structure and activity and in how well they did at tasks. This drives home to us just how important it is to have a good night’s sleep at this important time in life.”

https://sciencemission.com/Adolescents-sleep-land-cognitive-tasks

13/04/2025

Helping your loved ones rebalance their sticky emotions.

Sometimes, the 'problem' is not the problem.
Often, the pain-brain invents a story to justify the feelings arising.
Usually, the auto-pilot takes the story seriously as to help keep it stuck because the problem cannot be solved in that 'state' of consciousness.

This strategy looks beneath the story and targets the balancing of emotion, thus bringing a better brain state for new solutions.

Emotions are real and valid and need to be expressed.

1. Let the sticky emotion be expressed physiologically through Reptilian Brain’s need for rhythm, movement and physical expression.

2. Let it be expressed in art form through Mammalian Brain’s expression of colour and shape, sound and metaphor.

3. Let it be re-balanced by Pre-frontal Cortex’s ability to understand and respond to clues of subconscious 👉needs👈 as yet unmet.

4. Give a brain training vocabulary to your loved ones with language to shift that problem state into a Happy Brain solution state; better decisions are made here!

Help your loved ones build these neuro-circuits for re-set and re-balance.







-regulation
life

23/03/2025

17/03/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/15zLcnx9h8/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Did you know? Morning Facts

23/11/2024

One of our favorite neuroscientists Dr. Andrew Huberman reminds us to get morning sunlight before screen light! ☀️🧠
Here is our drawing of a retinal ganglion cell (RGC) in the retina, who is receiving morning sunlight! Some RGCs express the photopigment melanopsin and are responsible for conveying light information. These RGCs send light information to your brain, specifically to the SCN (suprachiasmatic nucleus), which is involved in setting your body’s circadian clock. ⏰
Getting outside in the morning is a great way to start your day! How do you/would you incorporate this “sunlight before screenlight” in your morning routine?


Reference:
Joshua W. Mouland, Timothy M. Brown,
Chapter 8 - Beyond irradiance: Visual signals influencing mammalian circadian function,
Progress in Brain Research, Elsevier, Volume 273, Issue 1, 2022.
https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pbr.2022.04.010.

03/11/2024

Podcast Episode · Parenting with Impact · 10/09/2024 · 34m

08/10/2024

Research-based mindfulness strategies to support neurodivergent adults

02/10/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/aYF4m4jrgWyd8NXv/?mibextid=WC7FNe

Ever wondered why some children struggle with disruptive behavior, sensory issues, or poor retention in school? https://ilslearningcorner.com/2016-03-hidden-allergies-cause-for-disruptive-behavior-sensory-issues-poor-retention/

26/09/2024