Brain Fitness Resources
INFORMATION ON BRAIN FITNESS:
- Sharp Brains: An excellent compendium of news and information about brain fitness.
- Posit Science’s Brain Fitness Channel: The company that developed the Brain Fitness Program. More information about the program and resources on brain fitness and brain training.
- Cogmed: Web site for Cogmed, another computer-based training program that targets working memory.
- On Line Brain Games Blog: An ongoing blog about online brain games and how they can be used.
SLEEP:
- The National Sleep Foundation pages on sleep and older adults. Basic information on why you may not be sleeping and well and what to do about it.
- Worried to Death: A blog focused on anxiety disorders that includes some discussions of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.
COMPLETE BRAIN FITNESS TRAINING PROGRAMS:
- Lumosity: A very user friendly program delivered over the Internet. Only costs a small monthly fee for regular use, and it’s updated frequently so that you won’t run out of training activities.
- Posit Brain Fitness Program: One of the best known brain training programs. It requires a software purchase and you should have some basic computer skills, including the ability to use a mouse.
- CogniFit: A scientifically-based brain fitness program delivered over the Internet. Similar to Lumosity, and also requires mouse and keyboard skills.
- Dakim Brain Fitness: The Dakim Brain Fitness Program. It’s an excellent training program that asks users to interact with a computer by way of a touch screen, so that typing and mouse skills aren’t needed.
- Cogmed: A brain training program that focuses on working memory training for young persons with ADHD but which now has been used with older adults.
DUAL N-BACK TRAINING PROGRAMS:
- Brain Workshop: Free downloadable software for dual n-back training. Read more about dual n-back training in my post about it here.
- Soak Your Head: Free dual n-back software for Windows. Read more about dual n-back training in my post about it here.
BRAIN TRAINING PROGRAMS THAT ARE FREE OR LOW COST:
- Matica Brain Training: A site that features multiple brain games that can be played for free. Registration required. Tried games that will help you develop faster reaction times and better motor coordination while doing something quickly.
- Samgine: Another website with free brain games. Commercially supported, so that you may have to sit through a video commercial to get to a game. Try the 60-second quiz for a speeded task that requires mental flexibility.
- Play with Your Brain: Another site with a number of interesting and possibly useful brain games. Ad supported. Try BallDodge for a challenge requiring speed and visual search.
OTHER BRAIN FITNESS BLOGS:
- My Brain Fitness: A retired psychologist in Western Australia reports on her work with the Posit Brain Fitness Program.
- The Tangled Neuron: Mona Johnson’s reports on memory loss and Alzheimer’s research.
Latest
- Brain Fitness and The Mind of a Monk
- Brain Fitness Tip: Training Without a Computer
I saw an interesting blog post yesterday evening on the site of the Huffington Post about the potential benefits of meditation – or at least about what one woman thinks might be the benefits. Priscilla Warner writes about the contrast between Tibetan monks’ apparent calm, evident even on brain scans, and her own anxiety disorder. Ms. Warner says that she suffers from panic disorder, a severe form of anxiety in which a person can have multiple anxiety attacks every day, even in the middle of the night. Her post is titled “I Want the Brain of a Monk” Although most people don’t suffer from anxiety this severe, many people have symptoms of anxiety. And research has consistently shown that higher levels of anxiety are related to more memory problems.
What’s the relation to brain fitness? In my brain fitness class, I often mention the usefulness of meditation in helping reduce stress and anxiety, both of which have negative effects on memory. You don’t have to go to Tibet to get the benefits of meditation. If you simply take 10 minutes several times a day to break in to the ongoing rush of getting things done, you’ve made a start. Use those 10 minutes to sit quietly, relax your muscles, and breathe deeply.
If you do that every day for two weeks, I think you’ll notice that you feel calmer and better able to focus. And if you’re better able to focus, you will be better able to pay attention and remember things.
Although many people are excited about the potential for using computers to train their brains, we shouldn’t forget that other techniques have been used to the train the brain for many centuries. I’m thinking about the large number of techniques for meditation. While free computer software still requires an investment in a computer, meditation only asks you to sit or lie quietly and focus your mind.
A recently-published study shows parts of the brain in long-term meditators are larger than the same parts of the brain in people who don’t meditate. The article by Eileen Luders and her colleagues appeared in a recent issue of the journal Neuroimage (Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 672-678, April 15, 2009). The study showed that portions of the orbitofrontal cortex and the hippocampus were larger in persons who had been regular meditators for 5 or more years. The study is interesting because the parts of the brain that were larger are often thought to be important in helping people keep themselves emotionally balanced.
A number of strategies are likely to be helpful for meditators. There has been a great deal of interest over the last several years in mindfulness meditation. Researchers have studied how it can be used in reducing anxiety and depression. Mindfulness is based on Buddhist meditation (for a brief article, click here) but you don’t have to be a Buddhist to practice meditation. In fact, one of the most important persons who has promoted mindfulness is Jon Kabat-Zinn, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts. You can see a video presentation by him on YouTube by clicking here.