Online Brain Training

Online Brain Training

Dark chocolate tells your brain to expect something fun!



Brainfit for Life-Start Online Brain Training Here.

So you have been reading about online brain training, and you are ready to go, you plugged those words into your search engine browser, and got taken to a site that says "buy our stuff", in so many words, and based on your life experience, you hesitate before pulling out your credit card, and you decide to read a bit, research a bit, before buying.

That is a good decision, because as always, the devil is in the details.

The details of online brain training being that you can increase your neuroplasticity (new connections between neurons after learning) and your neurogenesis (the growth of new neurons), which are the essence of the brain fitness explosion that you have been reading about, by attending to the pillars of brain fitness, which are physical exercise/activity, nutrition, including omega 3 fatty acid, getting good rest, stress management, and engaging in what are novel learning experiences for you.

Novel learning experiences are usually described by the experts as the kind of learning involved in learning a new language or learning how to play a new instrument, not listening to music, but making your fingers and brain practice it.

However, in regards to the novel learning experience, there are programs that you can do online that enhance your neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, including Lumosity and The Happy Neuron, and others that you can buy and use on your computer at home, like Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Pro, and the Posit Science Brain Fitness Program.

Online brain training works best if you are attending to all the Pillars of Brain Fitness.

If you want an excellent primer on brain fitness, neurogenesis, and neuroplasticity, then I suggest you read Brainfit for Life written by Simon Evans,Ph.D. and Paul Burghardt,Ph.D. who are neuroscientists at the University of Michigan, and don't worry about the jargon.

They write for us lay people, so their language is less complicated than what most advertisers use in an attempt to impress us, and the price of the book is $18.00.

Evans and Burghardt lay out a blue print for online brain training which gives us the best chance of aging gracefully, which is very important to this 62 year old brain because I have two children, one 11 and one 5, and I want to be part of their lives for a long time.

They do begin with physical activity/exercise as the most important aspect of brain fitness, and there is good news on that front, if you are not interested in getting a membership at the local exercise club, and flinging around big barbells.

You can get the necessary exercise at home doing a little longer, a little faster walk around the block, for example, or you can even take up what 89 year old Bill and 82 year old Pat do, to prepare for their trips overseas, a workout they do at home using very simple tools.

So even your exercise pillar can be taught to you online.

Then Evans and Burghardt talk about the other pillars of brain fitness, nutrition, including lots of omega 3 fatty acid for the membrane around neurons, good sleep, and stress management.

I have used a tool in my counseling practice called Heartmath for stress management since 2001, and it is an easily learnable skill, which we can cue on any given heart beat if we want, and it actually opens higher perceptual centers in the brain for...neurogenesis and neuroplasticity.

So now we have reached the novel learning experience pillar of brain fitness.

The experts say that maximizing neurogenesis and neuroplasticity with novel learning experience means giving my brain the kind of workout that comes with learning a new instrument or a new language.

However, I do not have the time to learn a new language or new instrument, so I have looked at the research like the IMPACT study which was published in 2009 and put the Posit Science Brain Fitness Program to the test, with surprisingly excellent results, to determine the value of using computerized brain fitness programs for their novel learning experience benefits.

Turns out there is other research about computerized brain fitness programs, in particular the dual n back task, which increases IQ, and Evans and Burghardt touch on that tool, so being the good consumer that I am, who desires a functional brain for a long time, I have tried the following programs, and recommend them.

The online program that I like is Lumosity. You can keep it running in the back ground and when you need a brain break just boot it up and work on it for a few minutes, and you will see your scores and the challenge level increase.

This is the program studied in the IMPACT study, and it did wonders for my word recall issues.

Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Pro is addictive. You will love it, and it will teach you very quickly how poorly you pay attention. Enjoy. Warning, your kids will be much better at this than you so get a head start. Mike

Omega 3 Fatty Acid for Cordial Conversations Between Neurons

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