The basic needs
It goes without saying that one needs a suitable device and a good Internet provider in order to game with others in real-time with instant response time. As for practical devices from which one can engage in gaming, there are two sides to this coin: smart phones and tablets. As for Internet, your phone’s network provider should have you covered, but often signals fade and no standard service is truly reliable. For this reason businesses and people who simply spend LOTS of time online will opt for a VPN service through a reliable company that can network all of their devices together for both home and mobile use. This service is reliable, fast and secure.

When that English degree pays off
We all played Scrabble as kids, and Words With Friends is no different. This game allows one to stand toe-to-toe with friends and family members, as well as against anonymous strangers in the system’s network of players. Then the vocabulary battle begins. Words With Friends is one of the most popular free games that people from around the world are addicted to. Not only is it entertaining, it provides many other forms of instant gratification. When you score a large, complex word or win a match you can post your achievement to Facebook or Twitter for ultimate bragging rights.

Words With Friends is also one of these games that people genuinely become addicted to. They can’t stay away from the game when they are at work, in church, or on a flight when the captain orders all devices to be shut off. In a news report published by CBS News gaming addiction is clearly presented in a case that involved ‘Thirty Rock’ famed actor Alec Baldwin being kicked off an American Airlines flight at Los Angeles International Airport for refusing to suspend his Words With Friends game. Baldwin’s PR spokesman said that Baldwin loved the game so much that he was willing to leave his flight to continue the vocabulary battle.

Your brain
People form addictions all the time, be it to fast food, alcohol or gaming. When one is addicted to a game it can be for a number of reasons. For example, games can cause one to form a stimulus addiction that requires the brain’s need for a continuous chemical release that comes from such stimulation. These games offer a sense of well being, and intense pleasure from winning can often reflect a narcissism disorder.

Play in moderation
Words With Friends is an awesome game. However, if you find that the game takes away your time from work, having a social life, or preventing you from boarding flights, you may want to lay off the game for a while and focus on allocating a certain time of the day to feed your addiction to words.

Image source: http://www.crunchdot.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/7433147324riends.jpg.jpg

As a result, dopamine’s impact on the reward circuit of a drug abuser’s brain can become abnormally low, and the ability to experience any pleasure is reduced. This is why the abuser eventually feels flat, lifeless, and depressed, and is unable to enjoy things that previously brought them pleasure. Now, they need to take drugs just to try and bring their dopamine function back up to normal. And, they must take larger amounts of the drug than they first did to create the dopamine high – an effect known as tolerance.

Decreased Dopamine Transporters in a Methamphetamine Abuser

Methamphetamine abusers have significant reductions in dopamine transporters.
Source: Am J Psychiatry 158:377–382, 2001.

We know that the same sort of mechanisms involved in the development of tolerance can eventually lead to profound changes in neurons and brain circuits, with the potential to severely compromise the long-term health of the brain. For example, glutamate is another neurotransmitter that influences the reward circuit and the ability to learn.

When the optimal concentration of glutamate is altered by drug abuse, the brain attempts to compensate for this change, which can cause impairment in cognitive function. Similarly, long-term drug abuse can trigger adaptations in habit or no conscious memory systems. Conditioning is one example of this type of learning, whereby environmental cues become associated with the drug experience and can trigger uncontrollable cravings if the individual is later exposed to these cues, even without the drug itself being available. This learned “reflex” is extremely robust and can emerge even after many years of abstinence

Chronic exposure to drugs of abuse disrupts the way critical brain structures interact to control and inhibit behaviours related to drug abuse. Just as continued abuse may lead to tolerance or the need for higher drug dosages to produce an effect, it may also lead to addiction, which can drive an abuser to seek out and take drugs compulsively. Drug addiction erodes a person’s self-control and ability to make sound decisions, while sending intense impulses to take drugs.

• Neuron to Neuron
  Each nerve cell in the brain sends and receives messages in the form of electrical impulses. Once a cell receives and processes a message, it sends it on to other neurons.
• Neurotransmitters – The Brain’s Chemical Messengers
  The messages are carried between neurons by chemicals called neurotransmitters. (They transmit messages between neurons.)
• Receptors – The Brain’s Chemical Receivers
  The neurotransmitter attaches to a specialized site on the receiving cell called a receptor. A neurotransmitter and its receptor operate like a “key and lock,” an exquisitely specific mechanism that ensures that each receptor will forward the appropriate message only after interacting with the right kind of neurotransmitter.
• Transporters – The Brain’s Chemical Recyclers
  Located on the cell that releases the neurotransmitter, transporters recycle these neurotransmitters (i.e., bringing them back into the cell that released them), thereby shutting off the signal between neurons.

To send a message a brain cell releases a chemical (neurotransmitter) into the space separating two cells called the synapse. The neurotransmitter crosses the synapse and attaches to proteins (receptors) on the receiving brain cell. This causes changes in the receiving brain cell and the message is delivered.

Most drugs of abuse target the brain’s reward system by flooding the circuit with dopamine.

This three-pound mass of gray and white matter sits at the centre of all human activity – you need it to drive a car, to enjoy a meal, to breathe, to create an artistic masterpiece, and to enjoy everyday activities. In brief, the brain regulates your basic body functions; enables you to interpret and respond to everything you experience; and shapes your thoughts, emotions, and behaviour.

The brain is made up of many parts that all work together as a team. Different parts of the brain are responsible for coordinating and performing specific functions. Drugs can alter important brain areas that are necessary for life-sustaining functions and can drive the compulsive drug abuse that marks addiction.

Brain areas that are affected by drug abuse -

• The brain stem controls basic functions critical to life, such as heart rate, breathing, and sleeping.
• The limbic system contains the brain’s reward circuit – it links together a number of brain structures that control and regulate our ability to feel pleasure. Feeling pleasure motivates us to repeat behaviours such as eating – actions that are critical to our existence. The limbic system is activated when we perform these activities – and also by drugs of abuse. In addition, the limbic system is responsible for our perception of other emotions, both positive and negative, which explains the mood-altering properties of many drugs.
• The cerebral cortex is divided into areas that control specific functions. Different areas process information from our senses, enabling us to see, feel, hear, and taste. The front part of the cortex, the frontal cortex or forebrain, is the thinking centre of the brain; it powers our ability to think, plan, solve problems, and make decisions.

Some drugs, such as marijuana and heroin, can activate neurons because their chemical structure mimics that of a natural neurotransmitter. This similarity in structure “fools” receptors and allows the drugs to lock onto and activate the nerve cells.

Although these drugs mimic brain chemicals, they don’t activate nerve cells in the same way as a natural neurotransmitter, and they lead to abnormal messages being transmitted through the network.

Other drugs, such as amphetamine or cocaine, can cause the nerve cells to release abnormally large amounts of natural neurotransmitters or prevent the normal recycling of these brain chemicals.

This disruption produces a greatly amplified message, ultimately disrupting communication channels. The difference in effect can be described as the difference between someone whispering into your ear and someone shouting into a microphone.

When some drugs of abuse are taken, they can release 2 to 10 times the amount of dopamine that natural rewards do.

In some cases, this occurs almost immediately (as when drugs are smoked or injected), and the effects can last much longer than those produced by natural rewards. The resulting effects on the brain’s pleasure circuit dwarfs those produced by naturally rewarding behaviours such as eating and sex.

The effect of such a powerful reward strongly motivates people to take drugs again and again. This is why scientists sometimes say that drug abuse is something we learn to do very, very well.

And it likes powerful fuel: quality fats, antioxidants, and small, steady amounts of the best carbs.

The following foods are called main foods for your brain:-

 1. Avocado

Start each day with a mix of high-quality protein and beneficial fats to build the foundation for an energized day. Avocado with scrambled eggs provides both, and the monounsaturated fat helps blood circulate better, which is essential for optimal brain function – and it’s possible the avocado’s plentiful antioxidants help combat diseases like diabetes .

2.     Blueberries

These delicious berries are one of the best foods for you, period, but they’re very good for your brain as well. Since they’re high in fiber and low on the glycemic index, they are safe for diabetics and they do not spike blood sugar. Blueberries are possibly the best brain food on earth: they have been linked to reduced risk for Alzheimer’s, shown to improve both memory and learning ability (and motor skills in rats), and they are one of the most powerful anti-stress foods you can eat. Avoid: dried, sweetened blueberries.

 3.     Wild Salmon

Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for your brain. These beneficial fats are linked to improved cognition and alertness, reduced risk of degenerative mental disease (such as dementia), improved memory, improved mood, and reduced depression, anxiety, hyperactivity and cardiovascular disfunction.

4.     Nuts

Nuts contain protein, high amounts of fiber, and they are rich in beneficial fats. For getting an immediate energy boost that won’t turn into a spike later, you can’t do better than nuts. The complex carbs will perk you up while the fat and protein will sustain you. Nuts also contain plenty of vitamin E, which is essential to cognitive function.

5.     Seeds

Seeds contain a lot of protein, beneficial fat, and vitamin E, as well as stress-fighting antioxidants and important brain-boosting minerals like magnesium. Sesame seeds in particular are a real Swiss Army Knife of health benefits.

6. Coffee

Coffee is good for your brain. Did you know coffee actually contains fiber? That’s going to help your cardiovascular system. Coffee also exerts some noted benefit to your brain in addition to providing you with a detectable energy boost (note: it’s not as simple as boosting your brain-power, but it can make you work more effectively, depending on the work you’re doing). There is also evidence that it may provide an electrical jolt to backwater parts of your brain as well as potentially strengthening synapses associated with learning and special memory.

7.     Oatmeal

Nature’s scrub brush is one of the best foods for cardiovascular health, which translates to brain health.

8.     Beans

One more for carb-lovers. (The brain uses about 20% of your carbohydrate intake and it likes a consistent supply). Beans are truly an amazing food that is sadly overlooked. They’re humble, but very smart. Not only are they loaded with fiber, vitamins, minerals and protein, they’re ridiculously cheap. An entire bag of beans usually costs only a few dollars and will provide many meals. Beans provide a steady, slow release of glucose to your brain – which means energy all day without the sugar crash.

7.     Brown Rice

Brown rice is a low-glycemic complex carbohydrate that is excellent for people sensitive to gluten who still want to maintain cardiovascular health. The better your circulation, the sharper your brain – and as part of a campaign to get the Philippines to switch from white to brown rice, it’s been claimed that brown rice can boost your memory.

In spite of above mentioned  tea,chocolate,oysters,olive oil and tuna are called important foods for your brain also.

If you want to learn more about the benefits of foods for your brain, check out the book Train Your Brain: Your Food Matters on Amazon.

This is a post from the guys over at Beach Body. The creators of programs like P90X, Insanity and TurboFire.

If you want to learn more, check out the book Train Your Brain: Your Food Matters

Now I’m going to let Denis take over…

By Denis Faye

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Something that has been a major subject for anyone who has a website is “what color should we make our buttons?”

Questions like these are essential to improving conversions and getting more of your web visitors to actually do something beyond just passively reading your article.

It takes some thought, but even more testing to find out how colors change the way your visitors use your website.

Are you trying to get more people on your email list?

How about get more people to buy your product?

You need to know how the color of the buttons on your site impact how many people click the image. The best way to learn this is to test!

Test, test, test!!!

Check out the video below from Derek Halpbern to learn more about how color affects your conversions.

I came across the post and video by Derek Halpbern of Social Triggers in his post, What’s the BEST color for high conversions?  and had to share the video that Derek recorded.

Check it out. Derek really knows what he’s talking about and shares information that will help anyone who has a website.

In fact, I’m going to be using this tip on my websites to improve the conversions on each of my personal and affiliate blogs.

This short little article talks a little bit about how kids can use the games from Lumosity to grow their brains and train themselves to learn better.

Children can learn and re-shape their brains faster than anyone else. Not surprisingly, we’ve found that teenagers who train with the Lumosity brain games improve dramatically. There is also increasing support for the idea that training can help address the cognitive symptoms of ADHD.

Dr. Robert Myers describes some activities that can help a child deal with ADHD in his article,5 Simple Concentration Building Techniques for Kids with ADHD:

“As a child psychologist and the father of a son with ADHD, I developed a host of exercises that help ADHD kids improve their concentration. The key is presenting them as games that are actually fun for parents and children to do together.

…For older children and adolescents, check out the cognitive exercises provided by Lumosity.”

One of his recommendations is to practice relaxation and positive imagery. For example,

“ADHD kids can “imagine” that they’re paying attention in class or able to handle teasing, and this can in turn change their behavior at school.”

I believe that regular physical exercise can also help children (or adults) control ADHD. Instead of rushing into stimulant prescriptions, perhaps it’s worth trying some of these fun and harmless behavioral interventions.

Read the original article at Brain Training for Kids 

Earlier today I was listening to the Tony Robbins Personal Power audio while on my run and he was talking a lot about putting the power to do anything in your own hands.

It’s all about creating a ritual, following through with it and getting momentum because of your consistent actions.

Nike has a pretty awesome marketing campaign running right now that really has been hitting home with a lot of people and I wanted to share it with you.

This campaign is called the “Find your greatness” campaign.

Find Your Greatness

Check the comments section under the video: