Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Brain, Memory Games And Its Functions

An important aspect of the functioning of the brain is the ability to remember things. Some people seem to be better at it than others. However recent studies have found that there are memory games which can be used to help many people to improve their memory function. We’ll discuss this topic in further detail.

Memory is the ability to recall different stimuli. This can be sights, sounds, smells, information or feelings. Our ability to remember plays a vital role in how we think. For those of us who want to improve our memory, there are a number of ways to do so.

As indicated earlier, there are many types of Memory Games which can be used to improve a person’s memory. For example some people may want to improve their ability to remember a person’s face or name. There are effective brain games they can use to help them to associate people’s names or faces with other kinds of stimuli.

Memory games may also be very helpful when it comes to remembering facts and figures. This is especially important for students who want to be able to recall things they have learned or been exposed to.

Improvement in memory can also be very beneficial to actors who need to remember lines or other pieces of information. Different memory games can be used very effectively to enhance a person’s ability to do so.

You can find out more information on some of these games by performing a Google search on the topic. A number of people associated with mental processes and capacity have developed different games. Some of them are designed to be used on the computer and others can even be played on smartphones. They are not only a good diversion but they have a genuine purpose.

These Brain Games are designed to train your mind to retain information and retrieve it more effectively. There are a number of techniques associated with memory enhancements, which these games utilize.

Memory games are good for people of all ages. They can be helpful for children who find it assists them with their schoolwork. And it can be a good way for business people and other adults to remember people, information, and things more effectively. These games are also good for older people who find their memory and recall fading slightly. It can be a great way for them to stay sharp and vibrant.

Keeping Your Brain Healthy

Many things in daily life that you may not even be aware of can affect brain function. Many people are not aware of how daily habits can be destructive for your memory and cognitive function in the future. There are some things you can do to help ensure that you are maintaining a lifestyle that is conducive to mental health and brain health.

The diet you are eating may not be adequate for proper Brain Function. You always want to look for the foods that are high in the nutrients that promote proper brain health. Brain research suggests that omega 3 fatty acids are great food for the brain and this is something that can be researched very easily.

You also need to look at the things you are doing each day to stimulate your brain. You may not be using your brain to its full potential and this can cause you to lose some of the mental sharpness that you may have had. If you participate in some simple mental training, you can begin to improve you cognitive skills in no time.

Exercise is another aspect that is important for brain function. You do not have to complete a very strenuous workout, but you should try to get in some form of physical activity each day. This can help you with brain fitness as well as physical fitness for your body. The key is regularity and you want to make sure that you make this a part of your routine.

Forming new habits is something that many people do not give much thought to. This can be a great way to keep your Brain in optimal health. When you introduce your brain to something new it requires making new connections. This can keep your brain in the best shape possible and you will be offering something new and challenging.

You should look for mental training that offers something new occasionally. This is very important to introduce new learning experiences and this is where you will find that you can get the most brain fitness.

Brain fitness is very important to overall health. Many people put an emphasis on training their body, but the brain is a very important aspect of the body that needs ongoing fitness to be in the best shape possible. When you see your alertness and sharpness improve, this can be your motivation to keep offering brain fitness.

Memory And Its Relation With Mind Games

Mind games don’t always sound like a good thing but they are when they are meant to improve your brain activity and make you a better thinker. There are many things you can do to make your mind sharper and more in focus.

Even spending a few minutes a day playing mind games will go along way in improving your overall brain health. There are many computer games that are scientifically designed to improve your cognitive memory, give you more focus and make you a better problem solver.

Brains like all the other organs in our body need a workout here and there. Your brain and your Memory has the ability to increase in capacity and decrease in capacity and it does that based on stimulation. The more you feed your brain the stronger and more powerful it becomes. You will notice a much better quality of life when you can thinking clearly and quickly and feel more focused and alert.

There are many things you can do to feed the brains need for stimulation beyond even the mind games designed for that specific reason. Your brain benefits from learning something new, playing games such as puzzles and chess and even physical activity is great food for your brain.

As we grow up from children and are going to school and constantly learning about the world around us the brain has a natural propensity to grow. Once we are getting older and our world starts to become less stimulating the brain has a propensity to decrease in activity.

You can control that decrease and prevent it by keeping the brain active with things like brain games. Exercising your brain daily and keeping it active as you start to age will dramatically slow down the brains aging process. Being able to slow down that mental aging process can do a lot for staving off diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia as you age.

Once these things have started to take effect it is very difficult to reverse them but preventing them is much easier. So spend some time getting your brain and memory into shape each day playing mind games and stimulating your brain.

Your brain is one of the single most important organs in your body. It is ground control for everything that happens with your body. Keeping it in prime shape is essential to your overall health. Mind games are a great way to meet those goals and keep your brain mentally fit.

The Link Between Mental Training And Quality Of Life

Happy people don’t just happen. You know those people they are genuinely happy. When life gives them lemons they make lemonade. They seem to be able to cope with any situation no matter how stressful with a smile on their face. The difference between these people and negative people is they are using Mental Training to keep themselves positive.

Being positive and happy is all about being able to keep things in perspective. People who can keep things in perspective can let more run off their back. People who have a problem keeping things in perspective let every little life issue go from a molehill to a mountain.

You can get yourself to a place where you can deal with life’s little stumbles by doing mental training. Mental training allows you to get your brain to work more actively and alertly and give you better problem solving skills. When you have the skills to cope with stress it does not have to have such a negative impact on your life.

Mental training is used in a variety of applications in the real world. Athletes use mental training to give them better focus and less performance anxiety. Companies use mental exercises as a way to get better results from their employees through seminars and in house training sessions.

So now you know why Mental Exercises matters…how do you go about doing it? There are tons of different activities to choose from to help train your brain. If you have specific needs such as an athlete would then think about what you need to improve and do activities specially to improve that mental faculty.

You can play games scientifically designed to help your brain be more clear and focused. You can do things like puzzles, play a game of chess and even physical activity can improve mental clarity. Doing these types of activities for even a few minutes a day can improve help you achieve your mental training goals.

The mental toughness that you get from mental training can not only help if you have a specialized reason such as sports it will also help you overall have less stress and a better quality of life.

We often think about the food we eat or that we need to get to the gym more. However, we sometimes forget to mental exercise that most essential organ, our mind. So keep your mind young start doing mental exercises today and see what a difference it can make in your life.

What is Brain Training and Why it Matters

Although we spend our days trying to find ways to eat better and get more exercise the one thing that may not be as obvious is that our body has brain fitness needs as well. Keeping the brain sharp requires using it and actively pushing it to be better.

The brain is a use it or lose it organ. That means that if you are not giving your brain the proper stimulation over time it will deteriorate. Once the brain activity starts to deteriorate you will start to see cognitive memory loss, loss of focus and in some cases Dementia or Alzheimer’s.

There are many things you can work into your routine to improve your brain fitness. Even a few minutes a day spent doing brain activities can make a huge difference in your overall brain fitness. Here are a few ways you can accomplish that.

Learn a new skill will keep your brain sharp. When our brains are learning something new they are more active and healthier. You could learn a foreign language; learn to play chess or even oil painting. All of these activities are a good brain training.

Get up and move! Sitting around all day and being sedentary is terrible for your brain. You got to get out and move around. Walking is a great choice or maybe a night out dancing. Whatever you choose just know that people who are active experience less memory lapses and feel mentally vigorous.

Eat brain food. Just like with every other part of the body, brain training is very much affected by nutrition. The best brain foods you can eat include fish, blueberries, avocados, pumpkin seeds and spinach. There are many other foods as well that are beneficial to the brain to incorporate at least one or two a day of these into your diet.

Challenge your brain. There are tons of activities you can do to keep you brain sharp. Playing brain games such as chess, puzzles or Sudoku is one way. There are also specially designed computer software programs that offer Brain Fitness activities scientifically designed to improve cognitive memory.

Have a good laugh. Studies have show that humor keeps your brain stimulated and alert. The effect of a good hardy laugh can ramp up your thinking for hours. So find time to laugh in your day, sneak a peek at a joke site or hang out with people who make you laugh.

All of these components can improve your overall brain fitness. The more you use your brain the more likely you are to have a good memory, sharp focus and be able to problem solve much more efficiently.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Mild Cognitive Impairment And Dementia

Mild cognitive impairment also referred to as dementia is a loss of brain function that usually happens with certain diseases. Most types of dementia are non reversible and cannot be stopped or turned back. The most common type of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease.

Along with Alzheimer’s the other diseases that can cause mild cognitive impairment are Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s disease, Pick’s disease, progressive supranuclear palsy and certain infections such as HIV and Lyme disease. Usually dementia associated with these diseases is considered non reversible.

Other types of mile cognitive impairment may be reversed if they are found soon enough. The reversibly types usually come from brain tumors, changes in blood sugar, low B12 levels, use of certain medications and chronic alcohol abuse.

Dementia usually occurs in older individuals and is rare in people under 60 years old. The main symptoms of mile cognitive impairment are language problems, memory problems, perception issues, emotional or behavior issues and a decrease in cognitive skills such as calculation, judgment and critical thinking.

The first sign of dementia that is seen from the outside is usually memory loss or forgetfulness. You will find that people suffering from this will start to forget recent events and conversations will have difficulty multi tasking and problem solving and will generally take longer to perform tasks than before.

As your mild cognitive impairment worsens you ill start to see things like forgetting not only current events but also possibly your own life history. People will start to us words incorrectly and withdraw from social contact. Another sign is difficulty reading and writing as well as having delusions and possible violent or self destructive behaviors.

Once severe dementia sets in people can no longer understand language, recognize family members or perform basic activities required for daily living such as eating, dressing and bathing. Other issues a person may experience include incontinence and swallowing problems.

If you start to see these signs in yourself or a family member the best bet is to get them to the doctor right away for a series of tests to determine what is causing the mild cognitive impairment and if it is something that can be helped or reversed. If the person has a reversible kind of dementia the sooner they seek medical treatment the more likely they are to be able to reverse the damage.

There are many types of treatments available for mild cognitive impairment and depending what is causing it and how far along it is your doctor can discuss options with you on the best treatment paths.

Ways To Improve Motor Control

Motor control is something that is very important for many parts of daily life. If you have lost any type of motor control this can be very frustrating. You may not feel like you can function at a level that you are used to and this can prevent you from living independently. When you begin to look at ways to improve motor control, it can help you to regain some of the life you once knew.

Brain fitness and motor control go hand in hand. If your brain is not in the best shape possible your motor control can suffer. This can be very discouraging and you might be wondering what you can do to change this situation. There are some great things you can do to get brain fitness on a regular basis.

When you are looking for the right brain training you will want to find something that has some neuroscience backing. This is very important and there are some brain exercises that do not support science and you might do better to find something that has more science behind it and this can help you to feel more confident that you are doing a brain exercise that might actually work.

Memory consists of long-term, short-term, and working memory. These are all very important parts of memory for daily function. When you are looking for a memory exercise, it can be a good idea to find out which type of memory loss you are suffering with. This can help you to find an exercise that is meant for this type of memory loss and this can help you to find some guidance. When you find the right memory exercise for your type of memory loss, this will be something that you can begin doing right away to see some improvements.

It is has been reported that your brain can actually shrink as you get older. While this sounds frightening there are many things you can do to keep your brain function high even while this shrinking is occurring. Many people do not want to think about brain function decreasing because this can be a scary thought, but this is something that many people are facing and you want to make sure that you are on the right path and in sync with the many exercises that can be done to keep you sharp and mentally at your best.


The Frustration of Memory Loss

If you have had bouts of memory loss, this can be very scary and you may not know exactly what you need to do next. For many people this is something that they want to ignore. You do not want to wait for someone around you to notice this memory loss before you decide to take action and do something about it.

When you first notice memory loss that is out of character for you, this can be the time to react. It can be even better to not get tot his point at all and instead begin working on a memory exercise that can keep memory loss at bay. With so many people having memory problems, as they get older, it is important to take action while you are young in life and this can keep you on the right path always.

Neuroscience has uncovered a lot about the brain and memory loss and this can show you how you need to approach this subject. You should look for a memory exercise that has some science behind it and this can help you to find something that you can rely on.

You should never settle for any type of exercise that may not work and you never want to waste your time. Scientific backing is important and this can help you to find something that was designed with this type of background.

You should also make sure that you physical body is in the good shape. This does affect brain function and things like obesity or lack of physical condition is something that can affect memory. This is something that many people do not think much about and this is something that you might be able to improve to help you retain your memory.

You do not have to workout for hours a day, but some moderate exercise each day can help your brain to function at its highest and this is something you will want to consider carefully. Moderate exercise can help you in the early life and also later in life and this is something that is worth participating in each day.

When you begin to look at memory and brain plasticity, you will find that there are many ways that you can help to prevent memory problems at any point in life. Your memory is something that is vital to your existence and you never want to suffer with debilitating memory problems or you might no have the quality of life later that you have dreamed about.


Improving Memory After A Brain Injury

A brain injury can be a very scary time in someone’s life. Many people recover from a brain injury, but some may never be the same. A brain injury does not have to rob you of your independence and there are some brain fitness techniques you can use to help you regain some of the memory that you may have lost.

Brain plasticity is something that you may not know much about. The brain is a very pliable organ. This means that when you have some type of injury you may be able to recover some of the cognition and other cognitive skills that you have lost due to this type of injury. This is something you will want to spend some time thinking about and find the right exercises that are on your current level to help you overcome and go on with your life.

The brain is responsible for controlling all processes of the body. An injury can affect someone in many big ways. The memory is a common area that is affected after a brain injury. This can be very devastating depending on the degree of memory loss. This can be frustrating for the person affected and also those around them. When you begin to focus on a memory exercise, this can help you to possibly recover this skill that you have lost to some degree.

If cognitive skills are affected, this can be a very disturbing part of a brain injury. Brain research is improving the way brain injuries are treated and this can require a great deal of rehabilitation after this injury. The neurons in the brain are always forming new connections and this is where improvements can be made. A brain exercise that includes making new neuron connections is important to improving the quality of life for the person affected.

Mental health can be changed after a brain injury. The person may feel more depressed and this can inhibit quality of life. When you begin to really look at the brain for the answers you will find that the brain is responsible for mental health and there might be some exercises you can do to help overcome any mental problems depending on the degree.

A brain injury does not have to take away your life. If you are willing to put in the hard work you might be able to improve the current condition you are living in and help to add to the enhancement of your life. This can help you to improve memory and many other skills that are important to daily life.

Brain Fitness - The Way To Keep Your Brain Healthy

The brain is one of the complex organs in our body. It is the root of consciousness. But like other parts of our body, it is important to keep it healthy. Brain fitness is key to helping us to think, react and live a full life.

Fitness entails exercise and the brain responds to this very positively. There are a number of very effective exercises you can do to help promote good health and brain fitness. The brain reacts well when it is properly stimulated. So the first thing to do is to make sure you provide your brain with activities which stimulate and challenge it.

Without getting into specifics, this can entail memory games, critical thinking games and others. There are even some video games which have been shown to help stimulate and brain and activate certain key areas.

The bottom line is that it is very important to challenge your brain with activities and exercises. The other essential part of brain fitness entails providing it with proper nutrients and well oxygenated blood. At a minimum, a healthy basic diet is essential.

Eat plenty of whole vegetables, lean protein and whole grains. Avoid preservatives and chemical additives as much as possible. In some cases these additives can accumulate in certain areas of the body including the brain.

It is also very important to keep your brain and brain cells free of contaminants and infection. Brain cells need to ward off any threats from external agents and good nutrition and antioxidants can go a long way towards improving this situation.

The Internet has a great deal of helpful information regarding brain training. You can find the kinds of nutrients which are important. Specifically vitamins such as Vitamin A, C, B, and E have been found to help the brain operate more effectively. Check out relevant websites for more details.

There are also many good websites which can provide you with challenging brain exercises or brain training tasks. Keep in mind that some exercises are better suited to help certain types of brain functioning and may be appropriate for different age groups. For example certain kinds of exercises can be helpful for younger children who are developing skills for language, speaking, and other cognitive activities.

And as people age, the brain can lose some of its effectiveness. Memory can often become affected. Brain fitness can help to maintain memory and other cognitive activities at peak efficiency.

So very simply, take care of your brain and it will take care of you.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Brain Health For Better Brain Function

Maintaining brain health is something that many more people are becoming aware of. When you really look at how the brain functions you will find out how important this can be to all areas of the human body. There are many reasons that you might want to improve the way your brain functions and with many developments in neuroscience this is now a possibility.

If you have experienced a brain injury in the past, you may not feel like your old self. Your cognitive skills might have suffered and your brain function may not be what you would like. This is when brain fitness can help you to be better and some of the functions you might have lost may improve.

A brain injury can make it difficult to function at a level you would like and this is why you want to do everything you can to improve your condition and help you to lead a life that is more normal.

The elderly is another group that is at high risk for memory loss and many other problems that result in decreased brain health. The brain is a place that must be stimulated regularly, or you will have problems with memory loss and even other problems, as you get older.

You do not have to be aging or even have an injury to increase the way your brain functions. You could be high functioning and still benefit from brain training. Mental exercise is important to help you handle your stress and this can help you feel more alive. When you are at work you might be able to get more accomplished and you might find that your stress levels are not high. This is a great combination and the right mental focus can help you to achieve this life.

Many people are just getting through life rather then living it. When you give your brain a new challenge, you will be giving your brain the stimulation it needs to be at the best level of functioning possible. A simple memory exercise can do wonder for the brain and this can keep you alert which can be very important to anyone that is moving throughout their day doing the same repetitive things.

Increasing your brain function may be easier then you thought. This is something that can improve your brain health and help you to be more alert with all of the things you do each day.


Mind Games And Memory Games

Mind Games are a great way to train our brains to function more effectively. They can also be a lot of fun. So we’ll discuss more details on mind games and how they can help to improve brain function.

Mind games are an entertaining way to challenge our thought processes. There are all kinds of mind games. Some of the more common types include:


Memory Games – These are great ways to challenge your ability to remember faces, events, numbers, or other information. Not only are they entertaining but over time they can help users to improve their memory and recall. But developing different memory techniques, they can be better equipped to remember different things. These games can apply to a broad age range. Some games are appropriate for younger children while others may be perfect for older people who want to keep their memory as sharp as possible. You can find all kinds of memory games at a variety of retail outlets or online specialty retailers.

Vocabulary – These games help to improve your vocabulary and are ideal for learning new words or reinforcing the memory and recall of different words. They are wonderful for people who want to expand their vocabulary and learn more words and their meanings.

Cognitive Reasoning – These "puzzle" games are very popular. This can take the form of all kinds of memory games which challenge our ability to identify series, perform deductive reasoning, and a whole bunch of additional topics. These games really help to improve how we think and how effectively we think. You can find more details of these mind games but visiting a local teachers supply or bookstore. There are also extensive collections of mind games available on the Internet. If you search the term "mind games" you’ll have the option to review many kinds of games and learn how they can be of benefit.

It is important to understand how you plan to use the mind games. For some people it is strictly an entertainment item. People can stay intrigued and occupied by these games for many hours. And other people may get benefit from the use of these games by developing their cognitive abilities more acutely.

Be sure to investigate different games more thoroughly to determine which ones are best for your interest and objectives. In this way you can receive not only maximum enjoyment but maximum benefit from the use of these games.

The Symptoms Of Alzheimers Disease

Alzheimer’s is a medical condition which causes debilitating changes to the brain. Over time this worsens to eventually result in a loss of intellectual and social skills which can become severe enough to affect a person’s day to day life. With this disease, brain cells die which leads to a steady decline in memory and mental functions.

There are a number of current treatments including medications and mental management strategies which can temporarily improve symptoms in order maximize function and the patient’s independence. There are also important research efforts to find ways to cure this disease or at least slow its progression.

The early symptoms of this disease are most often associated with memory problems. You may forget where you are or have some mild confusion. Over time the disease will impact your memory more significantly as well as your ability to speak or write coherently.

The manner in which the brain changes with Alzheimer’s disease can lead to many different problems including:

1. Memory lapse – Most people forget things from time to time. However sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) usually exhibit more severe memory problems including repeating the same thing over and over again, forgetting appointments, misplacing items, and eventually forgetting the names of close family members or friends.

2. Sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease may lose track of time or even know what day it is. It may also cause people to become disoriented and even get lost in familiar surroundings.

3. Speaking and writing can become severely impacted by this disease. Eventually sufferers may lose all ability to speak or write.

4. Thinking and reasoning is greatly impacted to the point where patients can no longer perform simple mathematical operations or even balance their checkbook

5. Good judgment is impacted. For example a patient may leave food cooking on the stove and not realize that it is necessary to turn it off.

6. Changes in personality and behavior. This disease can lead to depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, mood swings, and mistrust of others.

Many scientists believe that Alzheimer’s disease is a result of several factors including genetic, lifestyle and environmental. The actual cause is not fully understood but what is known is that this disease kills brain cells.

A brain affected by this disease has fewer active brain cells and fewer connections than those in a healthy brain.

There are two types of abnormalities which are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. For some reason, patients with this disease develop plaques which are clumps of protein. They can damage brain cells and interfere with cell to cell communication.

And brain cells depend on a transport system to bring nutrients to them. This system depends on a complex protein called tau. In Alzheimer’s disease, these proteins form abnormal tangles which disrupt the ability to properly transmit nutrients and other essential materials. This leads to the death of brain cells over time.

There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) but it is being closely studied with the ultimate hope of a cure. In the mean time a great deal of effort is being placed on treatments to slow down the progression and bring a better quality of life to patients and their families.


Mental Health And A Healthy Life

The way we think and feel is primarily associated with mental health. There is positive and negative mental health. Ideally we strive to find ways to achieve positive mental health so we can lead full and well balanced lives. We’ll discuss this topic further and provide some suggestions for more information.

As indicated earlier, mental health is associated with the way in which we think and react to our environment. It helps us to cope with the challenges of life and influences how we feel about things.


Someone who achieves positive or good mental health tends to be a happy and well balanced individual. This person has a zest for life and well equipped to handle the many pressures of everyday living.

This is an ideal situation and we have all most likely experienced some negative aspects of mental health. In some cases our lives are not proceeding on a happy and well balanced basis. We may feel overwhelmed by many aspects of life and unhappy.

There are many treatments available to assist those who have not achieved optimum levels of mental health. It is possible to assist people to deal with different issues in their lives through counseling. This entails in depth discussions with people to uncover what is causing them issues and then suggest ways to correct it.

But rather than just telling the patient what to do, the counselor helps the patient to realize what issues are at hand and what needs to be done about it. The solution typically comes from the patient with assistance and encouragement from the counselor.

There are other types of effective treatment to address Mental Health issues which involve drug therapy. It has been found that there are some types of drugs which react with the brain to improve functioning and help achieve desired results. This can include treatments for problems associated with depression, scitzophrenia or other problems.

In some cases these drug therapies are combined with counseling to achieve even better results when it comes to improving the mental health of patients. There are many good sources of information when it comes to mental health. You can find some outstanding websites which address this topic by searching in Google using the search term mental health.

This will be an excellent way to better understand problems associated with mental health and how to be address and correct it. This will lead to a better state of mental health and help patients to achieve a better quality of life.

Brain Fitness And The Brain Organ

The brain is one of the complex organs in our body. It is the root of consciousness. But like other parts of our body, it is important to keep it healthy. Brain fitness is key to helping us to think, react and live a full life.

Fitness entails exercise and the brain responds to this very positively. There are a number of very effective exercises you can do to help promote good health and brain fitness. The brain reacts well when it is properly stimulated. So the first thing to do is to make sure you provide your brain with activities which stimulate and challenge it and do a proper brain training.

Without getting into specifics, this can entail memory games, critical thinking games and others. There are even some scientific games which have been shown to help stimulate the brain and activate certain key areas.

The bottom line is that it is very important to challenge your brain with activities and exercises. The other essential part of brain training entails providing it with proper nutrients and well oxygenated blood. At a minimum, a healthy basic diet is essential.

Eat plenty of whole vegetables, lean protein and whole grains. Avoid preservatives and chemical additives as much as possible. In some cases these additives can accumulate in certain areas of the body including the brain.

It is also very important to keep your brain and brain cells free of contaminants and infection. Brain cells need to ward off any threats from external agents and good nutrition and antioxidants can go a long way towards improving this situation.

The Internet has a great deal of helpful information regarding brain fitness. You can find the kinds of nutrients which are important. Specifically vitamins such as Vitamin A, C, B, and E have been found to help the brain operate more effectively. Check out relevant websites for more details.

There are also many good websites which can provide you with challenging mental exercises. Keep in mind that some exercises are better suited to help certain types of brain functioning and may be appropriate for different age groups. For example certain kinds of exercises can be helpful for younger children who are developing skills for language, speaking, and other cognitive activities.

And as people age, the brain can lose some of its effectiveness. Memory can often become affected. Brain fitness can help to maintain memory and other cognitive activities at peak efficiency.

So very simply, take care of your brain and it will take care of you.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Memory, Memory Loss And Memory Exercise

The brain is a mysterious and complex organ. It is the epicenter of everything we do. This is true of the human memory. Memory is the process of storing and recalling our past experience with detail. The process of memory has intrigued scientists for generations.

The memory is a complex, brain process that is part of who and what we are. Memory is how we process our actions and experiences. Memory is part of our personal identity and our source of knowledge. Memories, perceptions and imaginations all interact with each other. Remembering events is often emotional, including sadness and love. This is the tool we use to make decisions.

It is not understood how you remember things or what happens when you recall something. Scientists do not know how the brain organizes memories or what part of the brain they are acquired and stored. There is not enough information available to understand all the processes that go into memory but you can find memory exercise that can train your memory and avoid it to decay (what is usually called memory loss).

There are three parts of memory. Sensory memory, or the part of the human memory that deals with information we derive from our senses. This includes sight, hearing and touch. Memory loss can occur in different form in the different memories and that is why there are different memory exercise to train the different types of memories.

If our brain wants to remember something, such as a person’s name or a face, the feeling of touch, a song, or an important conversation, it is passed to our short term memory. The short term memory recalls what we have just seen or heard in order to finish immediate tasks. Sometimes this information is discarded, or it is placed into long term memory.

Long term memory is the most complex part of human memory. It has an unlimited capacity to store the information we get over our whole lifetime, and recalls this information easily. Depending on the type of information, this memory is stored throughout the brain. Long term memory includes memories of events we have experienced or learned and memory loss in this specific memory can have dramatic effects.

When human memory is moved to long term, it is easy to retrieve though the process of recall or recognition. Recall is when you are able to remember an event or fact without any cues to what you should remember. Recognition pulls memory after learning. Memory after learning consists of seeing someone you know, are asked about a specific event, or a question on a test. Memory loss is long term memory can be related to Alzheimer’s disease for example.

As intense as the human memory is, it is also easy to disrupt. Trauma, drugs or alcohol abuse, illness, and aging can make it harder to store and recall memories and lead to memory loss. By keeping your brain and mind fit and healthy as possible, doing consistently some memory exercises, you should be able to maintain an active, healthy memory and brain.

Why Brain Fitness Is Essential For Your Brain

What is brain fitness? There is a new industry emerging that helps us maintain or even increasing our brain function as years go by. This industry, backed by scientific research, says we can use certain methods to stimulate our brains. These programs claim to increase the connectivity between the many parts of our brains.

Since the largest percentage of the American population is increasing in age, and the wants and needs of the baby boomers are still driving our economy. Baby boomers want to keep their brain sharp and brain training might actually help them.

It is very important to understand, that in order for the brain to be sharp, you need to exercise it regularly. This is something that most people do not do. We spend much of our time watching television or surfing the internet. As people age, their physician may recommend that they exercise their brains regularly in order to keep their minds sharp.

Brain fitness means to keep your brain in good health or good physical condition. This can result in the exercise of your brain and maintaining proper nutrition. The brain is the only organ in your body that is both physical and mental. The mental part of the brain is called the mind. This is the target of the brain fitness industry. They provide different programs that can increase brain function and brain activity that will help stimulate new connections and new circuits to help keep your brain stimulated.

The ability for these connections and circuits to form depends on how physically healthy your brain is. The physical health of your brain depends mostly upon the physical activity, sleep, and nutrition you give it. This is also needed for all of your body parts. You need to be physically and mentally healthy and brain training is the gym for the brain!

Skills, knowledge and quick decision making are what brain fitness programs improve. However, you need the best ingredients to supply the proper nutrition, physical activity to amplify the delivery system for those ingredients and much needed sleep to keep those systems working well. If you do not maintain your brain through brain training, you have less of a chance to be sharp as you age.

In order to keep a healthy brain as we age, we must focus on all of these approaches. Brain fitness pertains to everyone, not just the baby boomer generation. What we do to keep our brains fitness when we are children or young adults, contributes to how efficiently our brains will work throughout our lives.


The Relation Between Brain Health And Brain Plasticity

The health of your brain will ultimately effect the fulfillment of your life. A brain that doesn’t function and fire the way it should can have unknowing results on your feelings and daily mood. This is why it is so important to learn more about brain health, brain plasticity and how both can dramatically improve your standard of life.

What is brain plasticity?

The ability of your brain to change dramatically through learning and experience makes the human brain so very unique. Plasticity refers to this fact that your brain is constantly changing for better or for worse as you age and live out your daily cycle.

And this is not just a figure of speech, the actual gray matter in your brain alters physically as you learn more and experience events throughout your life. Besides the gray matter changing form, your brain also uses neural pathways and connections that give you feeling and shapes the way you feel at any given moment. This is also constantly changing with time as well.

Anytime you learn something new, you are creating new pathways in your brain that will hardwire itself in their so you can recall it and perform the same task again without having to relearn how to do it.

These pathways also go away with time when you don’t have to use them for an extended period of time. If you have ever forgotten someone’s name, this is a good example of that neural pathway being broken.

Brain health can be optimized with certain mind training and brain rehabilitation exercises and programs. Using advanced and scientific programs like CognaFit will help keep your brain healthy as you age and you may also even increase cognitive abilities with consistent training.

New brain research is telling us that brain plasticity is even more remarkable than we originally thought. Our brain functions are tightly tied in with our emotions and feelings and we can train them to stay positive and healthy even as we get older. We can even use brain training programs on people that have known illnesses like autism, bipolar disorder and depression to better their lives and eliminate the illnesses for good.

So if you want to maintain great brain health or even improve your own memory and learning abilities, take advantage of your own brain plasticity and use scientifically proven programs to train your brain for the better. Remain sharp and witty through brain exercises and training.

Brain Research And Its Findings

We are learning a lot about our brains and how they function by using new technology and focusing in on new studies. Much of the current brain research is used to focus on overcoming brain trauma as a result of anxiety, stress, depression and other mental illnesses.

Through neurofeedback we can see how the brain fires electronically and use our findings to fix the misfires through brain training and rehabilitation. Physical trauma to the brain as well as emotional disturbances can lead to disruptions and in the way the brain functions. People with mental illnesses and depression have much different looking neurofeedback than those with no known mental illnesses.

Today we use a combination of machines and technology to read this neurofeedback and we are finding that we can indeed control the way our brains fire.

Through the use of MRI and EEG machines we can actually see how the brain fires when doing brain research. We can then test out how well certain brain training works to get the brain to fire as normal.
First you test out the patient’s brain activity before the training begins, during, and then once it is through. People with depression, anxiety, panic attacks and other mental illnesses like ADHD, autism, and bipolar disorder have all shown major improvements through proper mental brain training.

Analysis through EEG feedback as well as personality and mood changes gives us plenty of proof that these brain exercises through scientifically validated brain training programs do actually work.

People that have experienced daily occasions of panic attacks and severe depression due to emotional trauma experiences in their life have reported complete recoveries after going through such brain training. Of course it hasn’t worked for every single patient, but the good news is that we are on the right path and we can use these test results to build on our knowledge and create better brain function training programs to help even more people.

With time and enough brain research we may find the cures to many diseases and illnesses through brain rehabilitation without the use of medicines or radical surgeries to do so. We are finding much conclusive evidence that the brain does indeed have the power to retrain and cure itself from traumatic events.

As we learn more about how the brain functions, we will also learn more about how to train the brain to function more efficiently. Brain research is a vital part of the future for doctors and hospitals. The brain can accomplish marvelous feats and we are just at the forefront of learning its true capabilities.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Mental Health And Our Reactions

Mental health is viewed as the ways in which we think, feel and operate our lives. It can also help us to learn to handle stress, get along with others around us and make better choices and decisions. Mental health is just as important as physical health and it changes throughout our lives. We’ll discuss more about mental health and how to stay mentally healthy.

Mental health can be related to how we react to situations or how we feel about things. It can also influence how we function. In general there is good mental health which is typified by a well balanced individual who lives his/her life in balance and who has a positive outlook on things.

Bad mental health relates to diseases and problems which can cause people to respond or function in less than desirable ways. Some symptoms of bad mental health can include things like depression, psychosis or other social problems. Crimes may be committed against others by people who have mental health issues.

This is why it’s important to address mental health issues and help the patient to achieve a good balance in life. There are many techniques to address mental health issues. These can include the following:

Counseling – Techniques can be used to help people to understand why they react to certain stimuli in a certain way or why they function the way they do. Treatments may be used to change the way in which people respond or think.

Drugs – They have been a number of drugs which have been developed to work with brain functions to help improve a patient’s mental health. There are a number of problems people experience when their brains are not operating properly. Some of these drugs can address these issues and bring necessary relief.

Surgery – People may be suffering from poor mental health due to physical problems. These may be able to be addressed through exercise, drug treatments or surgeries. It may be necessary to undergo some type of surgery to correct an abnormality which is impacting the person’s mental health. For example there may be a brain tumor which can have a big impact on mental functions. Removal of this tumor surgically can correct these issues and bring a much better quality of life to the patient.

By addressing mental health issues, the patient can find relief and live a much fuller and happier life.

Cognitive Skills And Memory

Cognitive skills consist of a range of abilities of the brain that allow it to solve problems, focus butter and these skills are critical for learning. One of the main cognitive skills is memory. The other main cognitive skill is the ability to pay attention which is why this is such an important process for learning. Cognitive skills also encompass reasoning, logic and audio and visual processing.

The memory portion of Cognitive Skills is broken down into two areas. Long term memories and short term memories are the two main types. Long term memory gives you the ability to recall information that was stored in the past. This type of memory is crucial for spelling, recalling facts and comprehension. Short term memory gives you the ability to gather and store information for immediate awareness while you are performing another mental operation.

Short term memory is used for like remembering something until you write it down or remembering multi step directions to accomplish something. This is information the brain needs to complete something else but does not need to hole onto forever.

Cognitive skills are also essential for attention span. Attention is dividing into three areas sustained attention, selective attention and divided attention. Sustained attention is the ability to stay focused until the task is done. Selective attention is the ability to stay focused even when there are distractions around. Divided attention means that you are actually paying attention to more than one thing at once and processing all of the information.

The other thing that is controlled by your cognitive skills is logic and reasoning. Reasoning gives you the ability to work through problems and prove and disprove deductions to come up with an answer. This is the skill used for complex processing and problem solving.

In addition the ones already mentioned your cognitive skills also effect audio and visual processing. They give you the ability to analyze, perceive and segment audio and visual aids. How well tuned your cognitive skills are will also determine the speed with which you can process this type of information.

Cognitive skills can be a learned or sharpened skill. Using your brain daily for activities that help it grow will seriously increase the abilities of your cognitive skills. You can make your problem solving sharper and clearer. You can also increase your memory skills both short term and long term by building up your overall cognitive skills.

The Brain Functions And Brain Fitness

Your brain is one of the most integral organs in your body. It is the processor and main control center for every single body function from lifting your little finger to the feeling of joy and everything in between. The uses for our brains are endless but there are some key ways each of us use our brain everyday.

Movement - Your brain does many processes everyday that control everything about our motion. The brain sends signals through the spinal cord and through the nerves to carry out the action it requested. Your body can also produce movement not associated with the brain which is referred to as knee jerk such as the example when a doctor knocks your knee with a hammer. Most body motions are controlled by the brain however and brain fitness and mental health have been proven to be an important part of keeping it in shape.

Memory - Your brain is in charge of storing and accessing all your memories. From the recent memories like where your car keys are right now to deep rooted memories from your childhood. There are many different types of memories the brain processes and the sharper your brain is the sharper your memories are.

Emotion - Your brain is also the center of your emotions. It processes information from all the senses including hearing, smelling, seeing, touching and tasting to evoke certain feelings associated with the sense you experienced. The brain and brain fitness can also regulate your overall mood as well as highs and lows you may experience.

Reasoning - This function of the brain can be called reasoning, critical thinking, logic or problem solving. We use this part of the brain everyday to make decisions from the most simple to the most difficult. The brain is able to process tons of different types of information and form decisions based on input. The more you use your brain the sharper these reasoning functions become.

Beyond these basic functions we use our brain 100 different ways everyday. The brain controls even the things we think we don’t have to think about. Every action and reaction is calculated and processed by your brain.

There is an old myth that we use less than 10% of our brain. This myth is not true the reality is we use all the parts of our brain since they all have different functions. However what has proven to be true is that at any one time we are likely using no more than 25-35% of our brain.

Brain And Mental Exercise

It is easy to underestimate and forget about the true powers of the brain and its ability to heal the body. There have been many studies done over the years that prove that consistent mental exercise and brain training has actually improved the lifestyles of those that have been impaired by some kind of trauma or disease. One of these mental training programs that people use today is called brain training or brain fitness.

Just like you train your muscles to get stronger through exercise, the brain can be trained to improve as well. Only instead of getting bigger, bulkier and able to push through physical limitations like certain muscle functions, the brain can expand its capacity to learn, maintain knowledge and memory, and even improve attention spans and help you focus more on the task at hand.

By using an online brain training program, you can use as Mental Exercise for your brain on the internet. You should use scientifically proven program that available for anyone that has a computer and an internet connection. You want to make sure your program is effective.

Since the brain has an outstanding ability to reprogram itself just like a computer, you can train your brain to function more efficiently for your life and improve your cognitive skills in areas that will benefit yourself.

Imagine being able to learn new tasks and complete projects much faster than you ever thought possible. Or picture yourself reading through a book twice as fast as you normally would yet still being able to soak in more information and retain that information for practical use years into the future. These are just a few of the capabilities that you can train your brain to do through the use of brain training and persistent mental exercise.

One of the best things about personalized brain training is that it will give you training based on your current mental and cognitive state. It may be too tough to really know when your brain is ready to move on to the next and more demanding mental exercise, so the computer will assess your level for you based on previous exercises. When you are prepared to move on to more challenging brain training, it will present you more challenging tasks.
In order to get real results from mental exercise, you will need to make sure that you are consistent with the training and that you have good help and support along the way. Just like a physical exercise, the people that get the best results usually have the best staff and physical trainers to show them the way.