There are lots of brain fitness programs and products out there that supposedly will improve your brain function. There are individual brain games to play, online brain games, brain supplements, even brain fitness gyms. It can be confusing to know which game, book, brain fitness program or software out there to choose from when trying to improve ones brain fitness.
To help us decide, lets first define what brain fitness really is..
I came across a great definition of brain fitness some time ago and it goes like this:
Brain Fitness is: 1. A state of general good health and well being of the brain 2. The ability to perform specific mental tasks and functions at normal or above skill levels.
Having this definition in hand, lets now discuss what we can do to specifically improve the state of general good health and well being of our brain.
Educator Alvaro Fernandez lists four primary things that help contribute to a state of general good brain health. He calls them, The Four Pillars of Brain Health.
They are:
- Mental exercise
- Physical exercise
- Nutrition
- Stress management
Most people, when they think of brain fitness, think primarily of mental exercises. In fact, most brain fitness programs you find available today are focused primarily on the mental exercise aspect of brain fitness.
Mental exercise programs usually come in the form of what’s called brain games. Brain games can be found in the form of free online brain games as well as a commercially available online and offline games.
As you can see, mental exercise (like playing free online brain games) is just one of the four pillars required for overall brain fitness. You cannot ignore the other three pillars and expect to enjoy the benefits of optimum brain health and fitness. They are called pillars for a reason – they support an overall structure. Any weakness in one of the pillars can seriously affect the stability of the structure as a whole.
We’ll be discussing each of the other four pillars of brain health and fitness more in depth in future posts.. So stay tuned!
