If historians are correct, the ancient Babylonians, one of the earliest civilized societies, practiced the art of the New Year's resolution. To this day, cultures around the world use the turning of the year as a time to reflect on what's past while looking to the future. This New Year more people than ever before will be making brain fitness training their top resolution.
Many of the traditional favorites - losing weight, exercising, quitting smoking, to name a few - already move us in the direction of better brain health. Brain training takes us a big step further by fostering brain plasticity, a state that we can use to improve our memory, concentration, and mental acuity while helping to stave off the onset of Alzheimer's symptoms and early dementia.
After many decades of insistence that the adult brain didn't and couldn't generate new brain cells, scientists now understand that this is far from true. The right kind of brain exercise stimulates the production of new nerve cells and prompts the brain to rewire existing connections so that they respond more effectively to the task being trained.
Brain Training Benefits
Academics & Problem-Solving: If you're applying to college or graduate school, you can make brain training part of your pre-test regimen. Traditional test preparation only helps with the tests being taken, but appropriate brain training can increase thinking ability for testing and for your eventual program of study. If you have a learning dysfunction, brain exercise may be able to help correct it. Accommodations work around a disability, whereas brain exercise tackles it head-on.
Job Success: Many jobs nowadays involve processing information and solving tricky problems, demanding a high degree of mental focus. Ironically, the daily blizzard of e-mails, meetings and phone calls make it extremely difficult to find and maintain that focus. By using brain training to increase our attention span and train our cognitive skills we can increase our level of productivity and effectiveness in the workplace, enhancing our earning potential.
Mental Health And Well-Being: When we reach our forties, our brains begin to decline if we don't do anything to prevent it. But a regular schedule of brain training helps reduce memory loss, and lowers our risk of developing Alzheimer's symptoms and dementia. Not only that, but recent studies indicate that we can combat depression through stimulating neural growth, an important aspect of an effective brain training program.
Self-Growth: The recent upsurge in brain training technologies has revealed that brain exercise can lead to improvements in seemingly-unrelated areas - such as musical ability and self-esteem. When we reflect on the brain's central role in any and all aspects of thinking (including feeling) this begins to make perfect sense. If we're already engaged in activities such as physical exercise, yoga, reading, therapy, and mindfulness meditation, a program of mental exercise fits right in.
Sticking With Your New Resolution
Studies have shown that we tend not to keep our New Year's resolutions. Women will do better at them if they share them with their friends. And men succeed more often if the goals are broken down into manageable milestones. Brain training has the built-in advantage of challenge and reward. If we find a training program that works for us, it will become an activity we look forward to. Many programs also provide the option to share our achievements in some form of on-line community, and to track our detailed progress through our training scores.
If you decide to make brain training one of your New Year's resolutions, make sure to select a brain training product that is effective and right for you. Not all brain fitness products are equally effective. Some engage us with brain teasers or games that don't require significant focus and attention and won't induce significant if any neural growth. Others work but cost hundreds of dollars or require a big time commitment.
Check out a program's scientific basis before you buy. Make sure that the vendor sets out clearly what the program will achieve and in what time period. And figure out whether and when you will be able to make time for the training in your schedule. (Typically, you'll need to work on it when you're feeling relatively fresh and rested.)
Brain training could be the best New Year's resolution you'll ever make. With the right level of commitment it can bring about a big jump in mental ability and set us on the road to long-term brain health.
Many of the traditional favorites - losing weight, exercising, quitting smoking, to name a few - already move us in the direction of better brain health. Brain training takes us a big step further by fostering brain plasticity, a state that we can use to improve our memory, concentration, and mental acuity while helping to stave off the onset of Alzheimer's symptoms and early dementia.
After many decades of insistence that the adult brain didn't and couldn't generate new brain cells, scientists now understand that this is far from true. The right kind of brain exercise stimulates the production of new nerve cells and prompts the brain to rewire existing connections so that they respond more effectively to the task being trained.
Brain Training Benefits
Academics & Problem-Solving: If you're applying to college or graduate school, you can make brain training part of your pre-test regimen. Traditional test preparation only helps with the tests being taken, but appropriate brain training can increase thinking ability for testing and for your eventual program of study. If you have a learning dysfunction, brain exercise may be able to help correct it. Accommodations work around a disability, whereas brain exercise tackles it head-on.
Job Success: Many jobs nowadays involve processing information and solving tricky problems, demanding a high degree of mental focus. Ironically, the daily blizzard of e-mails, meetings and phone calls make it extremely difficult to find and maintain that focus. By using brain training to increase our attention span and train our cognitive skills we can increase our level of productivity and effectiveness in the workplace, enhancing our earning potential.
Mental Health And Well-Being: When we reach our forties, our brains begin to decline if we don't do anything to prevent it. But a regular schedule of brain training helps reduce memory loss, and lowers our risk of developing Alzheimer's symptoms and dementia. Not only that, but recent studies indicate that we can combat depression through stimulating neural growth, an important aspect of an effective brain training program.
Self-Growth: The recent upsurge in brain training technologies has revealed that brain exercise can lead to improvements in seemingly-unrelated areas - such as musical ability and self-esteem. When we reflect on the brain's central role in any and all aspects of thinking (including feeling) this begins to make perfect sense. If we're already engaged in activities such as physical exercise, yoga, reading, therapy, and mindfulness meditation, a program of mental exercise fits right in.
Sticking With Your New Resolution
Studies have shown that we tend not to keep our New Year's resolutions. Women will do better at them if they share them with their friends. And men succeed more often if the goals are broken down into manageable milestones. Brain training has the built-in advantage of challenge and reward. If we find a training program that works for us, it will become an activity we look forward to. Many programs also provide the option to share our achievements in some form of on-line community, and to track our detailed progress through our training scores.
If you decide to make brain training one of your New Year's resolutions, make sure to select a brain training product that is effective and right for you. Not all brain fitness products are equally effective. Some engage us with brain teasers or games that don't require significant focus and attention and won't induce significant if any neural growth. Others work but cost hundreds of dollars or require a big time commitment.
Check out a program's scientific basis before you buy. Make sure that the vendor sets out clearly what the program will achieve and in what time period. And figure out whether and when you will be able to make time for the training in your schedule. (Typically, you'll need to work on it when you're feeling relatively fresh and rested.)
Brain training could be the best New Year's resolution you'll ever make. With the right level of commitment it can bring about a big jump in mental ability and set us on the road to long-term brain health.
About the Author:
Oxford-trained scientist, author, and technologist, Martin G. Walker is a member of The British Neuroscience Association, Learning and The Brain, and MENSA. His company Mind Evolve Software publishes free information on the field of neuroscience and brain training as well as effective and affordable brain training software under the brand name Mind Sparke.
No comments:
Post a Comment