The Online Brain Games Blog

Below are a few of the best online links I’ve come across lately regarding brain health and fitness, exercise, brain games, memory improvement, and anti-aging. I hope you’ll find them as informative and useful as I did.

• Exercise can extend survival even in ‘oldest old’ – The benefits of physical exercise just can’t be stated enough. From the article:

They noted that exercise reaped benefits even for previously sedentary 85-year-olds; their three-year survival rate was double that of inactive 85-year-olds.

Oldsters didn’t have to be super-athletes to live longer; walking at least four hours weekly counted, even if it was just in 15-minute strolls a few times daily.

How cool is that? And as previously written about here on this blog, it has been shown that physical exercise can even reverse brain decline.

• 47 Ways to Fine Tune Your Brain – This article comes from the Dumb Little Man website, but these tips are far from dumb. The article looks at dozens of tactics that will help you maintain your brain into old age and help to increase your mental agility and cognitive development.

• Increasing cognition by playing games – It’s estimated that at least 65% of Multiple Sclerosis patients endure cognition problems on a day to day basis. Can playing brain games help them?  From the article:

Is it really possible to improve some, MS related, cognition issues by playing computer games? Doctors from Baylor College of Medicine here in Houston seem to think so.

If this article motivates you to play some brain games, remember we’ve got a ton of free brain games right here on this site in addition to a great list of the top commercial brain games as well!

• Do Brain Workouts Sharpen Thinking? – Well, it all depends. From the article:

According to Zelinski, a brain game or any other activity can’t improve thinking or turn back the mental clock unless it’s both challenging and novel enough to build new connections between brain cells.

We think that’s excellent advice! In fact, if you wan to learn more about how to choose a brain game that will work for you specifically, subscribe to our newsletter and receive a free brain games guide.

• Obese People Have ‘Severe Brain Degeneration’ – Of course we all know about the health risks associated with obesity, but maybe you didn’t know about how it affects your brain.  From the article:

A new study finds obese people have 8 percent less brain tissue than normal-weight individuals. Their brains look 16 years older than the brains of lean individuals, researchers said today.

• Drinking Coffee Could Reverse Alzheimers – Being a coffee drinker myself, I especially liked this article! According to a recent sutdy:

Hefty jolts of caffeine have reinvigorated the brains of old, demented mice at the University of South Florida.

Well, that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed the brain fitness news links presented this month and found them enlightening.

Related Posts:

• Simon Says Play Online Brain Games
• Why Should You Pay For A Commercial Brain Game?
• Play Online Brain Games to Reduce Risk of Mental Disease
• Brain Fitness is not just Playing Brain Games
• Yawning can Improve Memory, Brain Fitness and overall Brain Health

There are literally thousands of free brain games available online. In fact, The Online Brain Games Blog itself has links to hundreds of them. So why then, would anyone want to pay cold hard cash for a brain game? Well, having played both free and commercial brain games for some time now, I have some experience in this regard. As a result, I can provide you with five good reasons as to why you might want to consider purchasing a commercial brain game.

1) Neuroscience

One of the biggest differences between a free brain game and a commercial one, besides the cost of course, is that most commercial brain games are either designed, reviewed or tested by Neuroscientists. The big benefit to you in this is that you’ll know that neuroscience is being used in the game methodology and design with respect to how our brains best grow and improve. So one of the things you need to do when checking out any commercial brain game for purchase is to see the list of Neuroscientists that either designed, reviewed, advised, or tested that particular brain game.

2) Targeted Brain Training

Another major benefit of a commercial brain game over a free one is that most commercial brain games are designed to target more than one aspect of brain enhancement. For instance, areas such as memory, attention, cognitive control, and processing speed can be targeted and trained separately. The best games provide specific brain training in more than just one aspect of brain enhancement. Check the particular game you’re looking into for what areas of brain enhancement it targets.

3) Game Challenge Adaptability

In order for your brain to grow, it needs to be continually challenged. One benefit of almost all commercial brain games is that they will continually adapt to you as you get better. In other words, the better you get at a given game, the harder or more challenging it will become. This aspect of game adaptability actually provides you with some longevity with respect to how long a particular game will be of benefit to you and your brain.

4) Progress, Record Keeping and Positive Feedback

A nice feature of commercial brain games is that they keep track of your progress over time. If the game trains you in different cognitive areas, it will score and track your progress separately in each area. This provides you with positive feedback which ultimately helps you stay with the program.  It also lets you know what areas you need to spend more time training on as well.

5) Support

When you purchase a commercial brain game, you’re buying from a company dedicated to that games success. As such, you’ll have support lines with which you can call or email should you need assistance of any kind. This is something you just don’t get with a free brain game.

As a final note, you need to understand that what might be greatly beneficial for one person with respect to a particular brain game (free or commercial) might not be as beneficial to another. There is no “one size fits all”. I cover this along with how you can best choose a brain game specifically for you in a special report I send out to The Online Brain Games Blog newsletter subscribers. If you’d like to obtain this report for free, fill out the request form below and it will be sent you via email immediately.

–>

Related Posts:

• Play Online Brain Games to Reduce Risk of Mental Disease
• Brain Health and Fitness News Links Sept 2009
• Simon Says Play Online Brain Games
• Brain Health and Fitness News Links June 14th 2009
• How To Build Your Brain Without Emptying Your Wallet

Tis true.. Walking backwards may be good for your brain.  This is because it fits the criteria of a neurobic activity.  And remember, neurobic activities can causes new neural connections to grow in your brain – and that’s a good thing!

Recalling an earlier post I wrote, in order to be a brain building neurobic activity it must have one or more of the following going for it:

1) Involve one or more of your senses in a novel context.
2) Engage your attention.
3) Break a routine activity in an unexpected, novel way

I’d say walking or running backwards fits the neurobic criteria quite well.

Exercising backwards is also called retro-exercise. Retro-running has been popular for many years in Europe. In fact, they have races which vary from sprints to the 26.2-mile marathon. Additionally, I have personally witnessed numerous people walking backwards as a form of exercise in public parks in China.

Here are a few of the many benefits of walking or running backwards:

• Running backwards burns a fifth more calories than traditional jogging
• 100 steps backward walking is equivalent to 1,000 steps conventional walking.
• Your balance increases
• Your hearing increases
• Your peripheral vision increases
• Helps people recover from knee-joint surgery and injuries ranging from the ankle to the groin
• Your tummy becomes your back and creates a nice reaction for your abdominals
• An athlete who can walk forward at a given pace that enables his heart rate to rise to 106 bpm will see it soar to 156 bpm while walking backward at the same pace.
• Running forward at a 10-minute mile pace may raise the heart rate to 151 bpm, while running backwards at the same speed raises it to 174 bpm.

The drawback, of course, is a lack of hindsight.  Because of this it’s recommended that newcomers to backward walking or running do it gradually on a flat track or treadmill to avoid potholes, signs, cars and other hazards.

Sources:

bodyresults.com

pyroenergen.com

darkwing.uoregon.edu

stopgettingsick.com

msnbc.msn.com

medicinenet.com

Resources:

Keep Your Brain Alive: 83 Neurobic Exercises

Related Posts:

Will Writing With The Opposite Hand Strenghten Your Brain?

Neurobics and Other Brain Boosters

Juggling Can Boost Brain Power

Related Posts:

• An Apple a Day Improves Your Memory
• Inside The Brain – The Plasticity Facor
• How Big Is Your Brain Buffer?
• Have a Poor Memory? Then Try Sleeping On It
• The Top 5 Ways to Beef Up Your Brain

What does Leonardo DiCaprio have to do with brain plasticity? Well, in order to prepare for his role in the movie The Aviator, DiCaprio worked with Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz of UCLA, who is a leading physician of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Dr. Schwartz explained what OCD is and the brain mechanisms that go into it. He also worked with an OCD patient of Dr. Schwartz. He spent a few days with him, living around him and talking to him. The net result was that DiCaprio was able to act and behave in the movie role just like he actually had OCD. He became so immersed in the role that it took him several months after the movie was over for him to rid himself of the OCD behaviors.  His brain had actually started to re-wire itself into someone with OCD, just from “acting” the role.

The video below by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz discusses DiCaprio and his role in the movie and how the brain changes.

So what does this have to do with you and me? It means that we are NOT permanently hard-wired the way we are today. We CAN change.. Old dogs CAN learn new tricks.  Because our brains have the ability to re-wire themselves (due to neuroplasticity), we can do and become much more than we think we can today. Our self imposed limitations are just that.. Self imposed. We can DO and BE different, if we so choose.

References:

The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force

Neuroplasticity (Wikipedia)

Neuroplasticity and brain games

movies.about.com

Related Posts:

• Inside The Brain – The Plasticity Facor
• How Big Is Your Brain Buffer?
• Yawning can Improve Memory, Brain Fitness and overall Brain Health
• How Sleep Affects Our Memory and Brain Health
• A Valuable Secret an 83yr Old Professor Gave Me About Aging and Brain Fitness