THRIVING IN TIMES OF STRUGGLE

Comments? Send me a text message. 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?  Support the show If you want to support...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 adulth...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 fo...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 o...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 s...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 e...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 c...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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, bas...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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?  W...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 ha...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 an...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 s...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 acti...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 d...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 t...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 wo...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 proficie...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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. MI...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 hab...

Comments? Send me a text message. 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 tak...