Dr. Renee Clauselle was quoted in Dr. Randy Shuck’s Health Headlines on the Central Florida News 13 website on the health benefits of being a sports fan. Read the original article here.

It’s no wonder your friends aren’t available to hang out on Sundays in the fall and winter-according to a 2005 Gallup Poll, 64 [...]]]>

Dr. Renee Clauselle was quoted in Dr. Randy Shuck’s Health Headlines on the Central Florida News 13 website on the health benefits of being a sports fan. Read the original article here.

It’s no wonder your friends aren’t available to hang out on Sundays in the fall and winter-according to a 2005 Gallup Poll, 64 percent of Americans claim to be professional football fans, and as of 2010, women make up 44 percent of the NFL fan base.

Being a sports fan doesn’t mean you’re expected to know all the players and stats of your hometown teams and destined for a beer gut-it’s about coming together in the name of good times as part of a community.

“Bonding over sports-the highs and lows of the game-strengthens ties, helps us feel supported, and makes it easier for you to open up about personal things,” says Renee Clauselle, PsyD, who runs a private psychology practice in Long Island, NY.

1. It Inspires You To Get Active

You’ve seen swimmer Dara Torres’ amazing abs. You can’t take your eyes off tennis pro Maria Sharapova’s legs, which go on for days. Watching these lovely ladies (or their male counterparts) do their thing is enough to get you moving. “Whenever I watch a marathon, I’m inspired to run,” says Kathryn Olson, CEO of The Women’s Sports Foundation.

2. Watching Live Sports Is A Workout In Itself

Okay, so watching big, burly dudes toss around the pigskin might not get you to hit the treadmill, but it can help you torch some calories without even trying. The average 150-pound woman burns more than 100 calories per hour attending a live sporting event. And that’s just while sitting! Walking from your car to the stadium, then up eight or more flights of stairs to your seat, is another way to easily torch a few more calories, not to mention leaping from the bench when your team scores a touchdown.

3. You’ll Live Longer

Since research says the odds are that two in five of your girlfriends follow football, consider taking turns hosting a small gathering on Sundays or Monday nights during the season. “It’s nice to have a standing weekly meet-up where you feel connected and part of a group,” says Dr. Clauselle.

Maintaining a strong social network, especially one with healthy pals, improves your chance of living longer by 50 percent.

4. It’s Good For Your Relationships

Research shows sharing a common interest, like college football, may boost your marital bliss.

“The stereotype is that there are many disagreements in relationships over the time spent watching sports, but our evidence says otherwise,” says Lawrence A. Wenner, PhD, a Loyola Marymount University media ethics professor who has studied sports and relationships. ”

Bonus: If his team wins, it could up your chances of getting lucky that night-testosterone, the libido-enhancing hormone, will be surging through his body, and it’s likely he’ll want to keep those good feelings going in the bedroom.

5. It Will Make You Smarter

For better, not worse, watching sports might improve your communication and help you stay organized.

According to a 2008 study from the University of Chicago, scientists discovered that watching a game is a workout for your brain. In the study, a dozen pro- and college-level hockey players, eight hockey fans and nine people who had never seen or played the sport were asked to listen to a broadcast of a hockey game while a machine recorded their brain function.

Afterward, they were each given a test to analyze their comprehension. Results show that athletes and sports fans not only understood the game much better than their counterparts but also experienced brain activity in motor areas associated with planning, controlling, and performing.

Dr. Renee Clauselle of Child & Family Psychology appeared on ABC’s Eyewitness News First at 4 to talk about how children can exercise their brains through imagination and unstructured playtime. Watch the segment here!

7 Quick Tips to Trick and Train your Brain to Stick to Your New Year’s Resolutions By: Dr. Renee Clauselle Imagination-Cafe Blog

Only less than 10% of us will keep our New Year’s resolutions, so how can we break bad habits and replace them with new ones? And stick to them? “Train your Brain,” says psychologist [...]]]>

7 Quick Tips to Trick and Train your Brain to Stick to Your New Year’s Resolutions
By: Dr. Renee Clauselle Imagination-Cafe Blog

Only less than 10% of us will keep our New Year’s resolutions, so how can we break bad habits and replace them with new ones? And stick to them? “Train your Brain,” says psychologist Dr. Renee Clauselle.

TV personality, Dr. Renee Clauselle, of Child and Family Psychology, has 6 very engaging tips to share so “The Resolute” among us can confidently make their lists, go for their goals and positively impact their lives.

Habits are just behavior performed so routinely that it becomes almost automatic and rewarding for us in some way. Our brains develop neural pathways to lead us to a reward, triggered a dopamine release, also known as the pleasure hormone and the more times this pathway is traveled to and rewarded, the stronger the habit will become. The good news is that objects or sensations that are pleasing or necessary for us can also be employed to motivate us to establishing good habits.

The key is attach new pleasurable associations as cues to new routines. To make it easier to stick with your New Year’s resolution, think of the things you find pleasure in, these increase your dopamine release, therefore, attach those things to your new routine or new plan.

Specific tips for Creating New Habits


Step 1: First, use Creative Awareness and “un-charge” old habits and all of their effects of pleasure to shift the associated remorse or guilt in fun ways. For example, imagine you are on a reality show coached by a team of experts or imagine that old reward, such as ice-cream, melting instead into a huge pair of old pants to be discarded from the “past” or the “before” picture of the heavier you.

Step 2: ID your new habits and practice experiencing their associate rewards. What habits would you like to create? Find images of the habits, put your face on that fit body in the ad, and envision or visualize a pleasure response to attach to that habit. For example, visualize and practice actually experiencing the endorphin rush you will get from running five miles or sticking to your exercise routine.

Step 3: Score the Music. Put your favorite up-tempo song on your iPod and link that song with the process of going to the gym or the health food store, or even thinking about it, or when the excuses begin to creep in. Thus, the pleasure received from hearing your favorite song will be attached to the process and new habit.

Step 4: Laughter is the Best Medicine and it’s own reward. Use your humor to spur you on. Invent fun things like calendar reminder calling you to “Wake up Gorgeous” timed to the alarm to get up to go to the gym or put an image of an unattractive and overweight person inside the cookie jar. The laughter and the reminder of your own support of yourself is a strong reward.

Step 5: Linked in: Associations Habits are more easily broken when surrounding associations are changed as well. Think of triggers for your old habit and change what they mean to you, for example, don’t equate coffee with cigarettes; begin to equate it with something else, like a crossword puzzle or calling a friend. Repeat the linking process several times until it becomes automatic.

Step 6: Set your brain up for success. Perhaps your goal is to lose 10 pounds. Link and create a visual “reward” tied to the success of that goal to something familiar and easily seen in your environment, like a red car. Every time you see a red car, you’ll be reminded that you will lose 10 pounds, are on your way to losing 10 pounds and therefore “success” is all around and already happening.

Step 7: It Takes A Village. Line and link up your family and friends as buddies for a no-fail system of mutual support. If you want to see your teenager save some money, maybe they put $10. into a bank each time you go to the gym or you cooking a healthy meal at home equates to your husband taking you on a movie date.

Try to change only one habit at a time. Break your goal down into more specific, smaller, trackable parts, if possible. Instead of making a resolution to be healthier, create a goal of walking 30 minutes a day, three times a week. This way you can celebrate your success incrementally instead of playing that old song of not keeping your New Year’s Resolutions, because this year you have ” trained your brain.”

What are your tips? Please share in the comment section below!

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I love, love, love Reptangles, Winner of the 2010 Parent’s Choice Award. What a way to teach analytic thinking, problem solving, creativity and development for fine motor skills. These clever and colorful turtles snap and slide together in over 100 incredible ways.

Dr. Renee Clauselle appeared on ABCNews.com to offer tips on how to avoid spoiling your child this holiday season.

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3 years to 5 years: The Mini-Kick Scooter develops visual motor skills and developing eye motion coordination, skills which later affect math skills, geometry, building blocks, and other visual spatial types of games, plus scooting is just fun!