Brain Train

Train Your Brain

I imagine the marketers (hopefully not the researchers) of emerging tools will play a bit to those memories, fears and worries.

(I heard a story recently about someone celling 'placebo pills', which is an ingenious scam).

However, there is some very intriguing information emerging about brain training.

We did not know until recently that the human brain was plastic, and not hardwired, and we did not know that it was possible to grow some new brain cells, which is called neurogenisis.

And researchers have developed some brain training tools which are coming to market now, and look promising.

However, they do not appear to make seniors or boomers into super brainiacs, and I will not force my children to undergo the training in hopes of Harvard admission.

And there does appear to be a voice of reason in the brain train, brain fitness, and brain game arena, and that is Alvaro Fernandez who writes a blog called Sharpbrains There appear to be four pillars to brain training, according to Mr. Fernandez, and this is actually very relieving to me.

They are;

1.Stress Reduction

2.Physical Exercise

3.Appropriate Nutrition

4.Brain Exercise, ranging from low tech like meditation to high tech like using brain fitness software programs.

At this point, there are a number of the high tech brain fitness software programs emerging, some of which you subscribe to and use online, others of which you have sent to you for use at home.

But high tech is only part of the solution, remember that exercise and nutrition and stress reduction stuff.

I am reminded of Flow, by Czikzentmihalyi, and what he says about the speed at which the Central Nervous System processes. I process and interpret nonverbal communications and change my internal hormonal bath every 1/18th second, and too much stress hormone actually kills brain cells.

Our stress response system is built to respond to stressors lasting about a minute or two, not stressors that are constant.

The best tool that I have seen for heart beat by heart beat stress management is the emWave by Heartmath, which I have used in my practice for many years. Please take a look.

Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Pro-Excellent Novel Challenge

I like this high tech brain train program because of the free trial and the freedom to use online. If I do not like it, or get tired, I can cancel.

Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Pro Workout

You want some place to store your fitness test results, but Free Mind is so confusing.... Here is the tutorial.

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