Research Show Mind Games Improve Your Thinking

When most people think about computer games the last thing they think about is brain health. However thanks to recent research we now know many computer games are actually mind games. There are many different types of mind games or brain games on the market.

These games are designed to be fun but entertainment is not their main goal. The main goal of these mind games is to improve cognitive skills and make you more focused and a better thinker. These types of games usually fall into a couple categories and are preventative in nature. The same way some games are mind games and focused on the brain other games promote physical activity.

There are many new studies that equate mind games with a healthy brain. One such study was conducted by Stanford University on children who have suffered from brain damage as a result of cancer. These children had issues with memory and thinking skills and had issues with organization, behavior, regulating emotions and evaluating success and changing course if necessary.

The children were subjected to 40 sessions of mind games over an 8 week period. All of the children showed higher brain function after the training sessions than they did before they started. The children showed improved problem solving, quicker processing speeds and memory which were measured using standardized tests.

The fundamental message of this study and many brain studies is you can improve the brain even after an injury. The brain is very resilient and can grow with knowledge and stimulation. Another recent study looked at the affects of mind games on self esteem.

In a small scale pilot study at the University of California Berkeley they looked at how playing mind games can help people manage their emotions. Participants took part in a half hour a day training session for 30 days. Those that completed the mind games saw a boost in self esteem that the control group did not.

The group that showed the biggest boost was people who came into the study with a negative view about themselves. As a result these participants reported they showed less depression symptoms and could handle stress better. The people who had showed depression symptoms began to think in a new way and were more problem focused.

Studies have shown that mind games and brain fitness program may also improve will power which can help with addiction. The more science learns about the brain and how it works with all of this research the sooner we can have solid ways to treat brain disorders and keep brains healthy.

This is really important in a society that is rapidly aging. The changes in demographic due to the increasing number of seniors and baby boomers arriving to retirement age will create an important change in the dynamic of our society. It is key to maintain people at their peak in terms of brain health for the maximum time possible, as it will change how our society deals with aging and how we take care of our seniors.

Attaining Your Dreams May Be Determined by Brain Fitness

The ability to conduct simple daily activities is hinged on brain fitness. Balance and co-ordination and other locomotive functions are all the brain’s doing. Apart from the physical, intellectual functions like planning and decision making require a perfectly working brain. Factors that challenge brain fitness include poor diet, depression and drugs. Lack of exercise; both physical and mental exercise, result in low brain fitness.

Poor diet may either refer to malnourishment or the taking of unhealthy foods. Malnourishment deprives the brain of essential energy and causes significant reduction in cognitive functions. Lack of water is especially known to cause the brain to shrink. If prolonged, poor feeding will not only cause low brain fitness but also irreversible brain damage. Foods with a lot of fat on the other hand will increase the risk of blood clots and aneurism. Even before such blockage occurs, the brain fitness will decline due to poor circulation and low oxygen.

Exercising has been proven to not only increase cardiovascular fitness but also influences brain fitness. Physical exercise increases circulation and removes harmful toxins through sweat. It is also regarded as a stress remover which contributes to the brain’s overall health. After a hearty exercise session, an individual releases endorphins which help in better oxidation and hormone balance. Stress and depression cause poor brain fitness and may deteriorate to diseases like dementia and schizophrenia.

Brain fitness must therefore start with good physical and mental health. The right diet should be taken as well as the right medicine. To deal with depression or emotional instability, it is recommended that the individual should seek therapy and other support systems. Next the subject should indulge in brain fitness activities that boost memory and mental manipulation. These may be in the form of games and puzzles. Simple habits such as reading and activities that require calculation will greatly increase brain fitness.

Brain fitness does not only mean increasing one’s intelligence quotient, but also increasing emotional intelligence. This means that one must be able to interact with people meaningfully without buckling under social pressure. Being socially cognitive enables one to sustain important relationships. Social interaction requires one to process a lot of information and those with impaired brain fitness find this difficult to do. Developmental disorders such as child abuse and autism adversely affect cognitive social behavior.

Some of the brain’s impressive abilities are taken for granted in everyday life. These are such as facial recognition and voice recognition. Such unconscious processes are not subject to brain fitness training but are considered to be innate. A brain fitness program is designed only to improve cognitive function only. The exercises are important to combat the threat of dulling of these functions by malaise and aging. Memory is usually the first victim of mental impairment which throws all other cognitive functions off balance. The restoration of brain fitness often requires a concerted effort of socializing, exercise, diet and supplements. It may also need a specialist for specific problems or a coach to aid with one’s progress in the neuroscience field.

Brain Fitness Or Why Your Mind Needs A Workout Too

You probably realize how important it is to stay in shape and keep fit and feel good with yourself. Exercising your body is an essential way to keep your body healthy and manage your energies. But did you realize that it is equally important to consider brain fitness too? Let’s discuss how this can occur and how it can be of benefit.

Many of the same things you do to keep your body fit will also apply to your brain and what we usually refer to your cognitive abilities. For example it is essential that your brain receives proper nutrients through a good diet. Nutrition has been proven to be an important part of a good brain health. It is important to avoid sugary or fatty and junk foods. And stay away from foods with chemicals or preservatives. They are not good for your body and they are certainly not good for your brain.

As you can imagine, the ingredients that are good for the body are also good for your brain. Stick with plenty of green vegetables and fresh fruits. Make certain to drink lots of water in order to keep yourself hydrated and help to flush impurities from your system including your brain.

It is very important to make certain to take in essential vitamins and nutrients. Vitamins like C, D, E and B complex are very beneficial to the brain. If you are depleted in one or more of these vitamins they can really affect how you think and respond to the world around you.

And exercise is very important to your brain as well. You may not realize it but you can exercise your brain. There are brain games in the form of drills or tasks which challenge your brain and gets it to operate in certain ways. As you perform more of these drills, your brain should respond positively to the challenge and improves how it operates.

There are exercises to help your brain in a number of different areas. For instance if you want to improve your memory, there are a number of drills and exercises you can try. In addition there are other drills which will help you to perform mathematical calculations, improve your language skills, your concentration or even your eye-hand coordination.

Other drills can be of benefit when performing complex visual interpretation or spatial reasoning tasks and spatial visualization. You can find many of these brain games and tasks at scientifically validated websites that specialize in brain fitness and cognitive skills development. It is very important to select a program that start by assessing you and then can create a training program based on your results

It is a good idea to focus on these activities on a regular basis. As you challenge your mind, it will certainly respond in a very positive manner and help you in everything you do. So remember that while it’s certainly very important to pursue a good fitness routine for your body, you need to do the same thing for your brain. As you grow older, this will really create a difference in your life.

Brain Plasticity Can Help You Keep That Thought

The brain is an amazingly complex yet somewhat resilient organ. A feature called brain plasticity allows the brain to retain information as it learns new things. It can also enable different parts of the brain to perform functions they normally cannot do. Let’s explore this further.

In simple terms, brain plasticity refers to the ability of the brain to change throughout a person’s life. This is a physical process and it is driven by many factors. But repetition plays a very critical role in brain plasticity.

For example when we learn something new, then neural pathways are created to account for this action. If the learned activity gets repeated, more neural pathways can be created which can further help a person to retain and remember this new information.

This type of activity is very much in use with children. A young child has relatively few neural pathways. But as the child is exposed to new things and learns more, he/she creates many new neural pathways which plays a critical role in that child’s ability to learn and remember.

At the same time, as some functions degrade that can be related to a breakdown in neural pathways. So if we forget someone’s name, it may be because some of the neural pathways associated with that memory have become broken or damaged.

But the changes in our brains which can occur through brain plasticity can be either for the better as in the ability to remember things or negative as in a breakdown in neural pathways which can cause a lapse of memory.

The physical process of aging has been associated with a decline in mental functioning. This is due to a breakdown in neural pathways. But recent studies have shown that with the right kind of training, even an older person can apply the process of brain plasticity to reform new neural pathways and improve mental functioning at any age.

It is therefore believed that advanced techniques employing brain plasticity can be used to help people to regain many mental functions which were otherwise thought to be lost. So it need not be a fact that the older a person gets, the more his/her mental processes decline.

Brain plasticity can also be used to help to retrain certain areas of the brain to perform functions it otherwise is not designed for. Techniques have been used to help people to regain functions which were otherwise lost due to injury or disease of certain areas of the brain.

Employing techniques which take advantage of brain plasticity can be an exciting non surgical alternative to help people to retain their mental functions and even improve upon them no matter what their age. So very exciting breakthroughs are occurring every day and will continue to evolve.

As an example, by constantly brain training, you could really have an impact on your cognition and the quality of your cognitive skills. Brain fitness has been demonstrated to be an important part of a health lifestyle and everyone might want to try to keep their brain healthy the way you would for your body.

Thanks to brain plasticity, we can now help our mind be sharper and healthier over time.

The Importance of Memory Games

Memory games are considered as one of the primary methods for ensuring that our brains are working at their best. These games have become a subject of great interest to people because they are founded on sound science. Memory is the ability to register, store, hold and retrieve new information. Memory can be divided into some distinct sections that is, short term or working memory and long term memory. Working memory is a key aspect of how we deal with temporarily retained information, whereas long term memory or permanent memory concerns itself with all that we can do accurately and rapidly. Knowledge can be stored as episodic memory, the form of memory that stores events in the precise order in which they happened.

Alternatively knowledge can also be stored as semantic memory in permanent storage. Semantic memory is the memory of knowledge and meaning as such it is the expert or conceptual knowledge that we have developed. It is important to make these distinctions of memory because they play important parts in deciding which type of memory games are appropriate to be indulged in. Some common and simple memory games include trying a new route to work, learning a new language or playing a new musical instrument and travelling to a new and unfamiliar destination. These games stimulate those parts of your brain that are involved in the manipulation, storage and retrieval of information from memory.

There are myriad questions that the designers of memory games are out to establish in their bid to better understand the functioning of the brain and by extension the inner workings of the human mind. Answering some of these questions will be beneficial in tuning the brain and mind to work at their best. Some of these questions are what dreams are made of, why we sleep, what influences our biological clock, memory creation and why we age among others. Memory games are also very important for mental health and well being, neuroscientists have shown that regular brain fitness training can provide considerable benefits to people with cognitive decline.

Memory games have been documented to have beneficial effects on dyslexic college students. One such memory enhancing game used on such students increased their cognitive development, brain activity, working memory and reading performance. And it documented that the results lasted up to six months after the memory training was conducted. Another famous experiment on the importance of Memory games was conducted on nuns. The nuns were asked to write autobiographical essays when they were 20 and tested again when they were 80. The results showed better cognitive ability and less evidence of cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease among those whose earlier essays contained more complex ideas and stories.

The lesson here is that the earlier you begin engaging in Memory games aimed at exercising your brain the longer you will retain your brain fitness. Therefore the importance of engaging in games aimed at testing and keeping your mind fit cannot be gainsaid and it is beneficial for you to consider such games early on in life.

Mental Training And The Improvement Of Your Capacities

The brain is one of the most important organs in our body and one of the most mysterious one. The unique thing about our brain is the way it can make us feel and process the information around us. We normally refer to mental health therefore as a positive situation in which we feel positive with how we perceive and respond to the world around us. Let’s explore this topic further.

Mental training techniques exist to help to teach the brain and the mind to operate more effectively. The idea behind these techniques is maintain and improve your cognitive abilities. The end objective is to make it possible to help our brains to do a variety of tasks much better. For example you can try a number of techniques to help improve your memory function or your eye-hand coordination.

These techniques can be very important to students who want to learn more effectively and who need to process an important amount of new information everyday. The better someone can process and then remember, the easier it is for that person to learn new things because he/she can store more of what it being taught.

These training techniques can also be very important ways to help older people to retain much of their mental capacities. Many people believe that mental function decreases as we age. But a number of techniques can often be employed to help older people to think as efficiently as they did years earlier.


There are a number of older people who feel that there is no alternative to a steadily diminishing mental function as they age. However, recent studies suggest that this is not necessarily so. Therefore it is an important thing to utilize effective techniques to help older people to retain much of their mental capacity.

Mental training and brain fitness can also be used to help people to improve many mental functions such as mathematical techniques or language understanding. These techniques can be a huge difference in how a person’s brain operates and responds to the world.

The Internet has been a wonderful way to find many effective mental training techniques. If you do an Internet on the topic, you will encounter a great many websites dedicated to neuroscience and the brain. You will find that you can implement a number of effective techniques. But while many of them can be implemented by the patient alone, a number of them can only be implemented only with the assistance of someone else.

You will also find that the techniques are usually grouped into the kind of improvements that can be expected as well the kinds of people who should be pursing them. It is therefore important to make certain that the techniques you pursue are appropriate for you age and goals.

In any case if you apply some of the mental training techniques which are widely available, you can begin to realize some of the many benefits which can expected. Just make sure you train your mind with a scientifically validated program that will ensure that your training is really effective and not a waste of your time.

First Brain Training Program with Free Intelligent Reminder System

CogniFit, a leading developer of online brain fitness and cognitive programs announces the release of a new free intelligent reminder system integrated in its scientifically validated brain training platform.

Memory loss is today one of the top health concern of baby boomers, seniors and the aging population. People around the world are looking for tools to help them improve their memory and cognition. Carlos Rodriguez, Chief Operating Officer at CogniFit, explains: “The intelligent reminder system is a remarkable leap forward to helping people of all ages remember better. By combining a scientific approach to brain training with an intelligent reminder system, people have now all the tools at their disposal to remember better”.

People with memory problems have a tendency to forget to complete tasks that are critically important to maintain proper health. This includes tasks such as taking medications, following a treatment or following a specific diet.

The health and economical costs of memory decline and forgetfulness are significant for individuals, families and society at large. The intelligent reminder system tackles this problem by offering individuals and professionals a full-fledged solution to track daily activities and tasks.

CogniFit is today the only platform that combines a memory assessment and a personalized brain training of cognitive abilities with an intelligent reminder system. Juan Liniers, Web manager at CogniFit, explains: “The online reminder system tool is a unique and powerful way to let individuals, friends and family members follow-up on each others’ daily tasks. The system also offers to users the possibility to assess their memory and compare where they stand within their age group. It is key for all of us to know where our memory stands.”

About CogniFit

CogniFit (http://www.cognifit.com) is a leading developer of online cognitive program that enable people to discover and improve themselves. Founded in 1999, CogniFit has developed a unique and patented technology that helps consumers assess and train their cognitive skills and abilities to improve their quality of life. CogniFit is headquartered in New York City with branches in Spain and Israel.

For additional information or interviews inquiries, contact Nathanael Eisenberg media@cognifit.com or at +1 646 340 1740.

How Can You Adapt Your Motor Control

Have you ever wondered why you hand goes up to grab and object or how your legs move to help you walk from place to place? This is all part of motor control, which is part of the nervous system and the brain in your body. Your motor control and skills require both cognitive skills and physically processes to manifest as movement or speech.

Motor control is something we develop, not something we are born with. As small babies we have little to no motor control and what we do have is mostly reflexive. As we get older it develops and in our child and teenage years we fine-tune them even more as we learn different skills and activities. Repetition of certain skills makes us better at them over time and improves our motor control.

It is fascinating to understand that many of our daily gestures and reactions are in reality managed and control by our brain. Obviously, if we have a physical problem to a specific muscle it will be hard to use it effectively. But on the other hand, your brain is also responsible for these actions and movements. Not having a good brain health or having very week cognitive abilities in the motor control domain can significantly affect your ability to move.

There are two different types of motor control skills; gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills are big movements and include such things as running or jumping which use your large muscles in the arms, legs, torso and feet. Fine motor skills are small movements such as grabbing something and holding it and use the small muscles such as fingers, toes, wrists, lips and tongue.

Once you have mastered all these skills you being to add even more to your motor control skills through motor coordination. This includes being able to create coordinated body movement where all of your muscles, brain, spinal cord and skeletal system work in perfect unison.

These types of skills begin to become second nature and our body replicates many of them exactly each time. Think about how you pour a glass of water or the steps you go through to get out the door in the morning. Our body has each of these things stored and replicates them day after day when our brain says it is time to do them.

The central processing unit for all of our motor control skills is the brain. It takes all of the information it gets from the nervous system and processes it so that you get the desired movement you are looking for. It is really amazing how much it can accomplish and how quickly and this is important for good brain fitness.

Keeping your brain healthy is one of the ways you can keep your motor skills sharp. Just like the rest of your body your brain needs a good workout here and there. Anything you can do to stimulate the brain and make it learn something new will improve your brain functioning and overall health.

Key Findings Of Cognitive Research

Cognitive research involves the study of our brain, cognitive abilities and how we think and react to others and our environment. Some recent findings suggest that mental functioning does not necessarily have to decline as a person ages even if naturally this decline happens for every one of us. Let’s explore this further.

The general consensus for many years was that mental functioning could only deteriorate and decline over time. It was something which was unavoidable and simply had to be dealt with. You were born with a certain brain capacity and there was nothing that could be done to alter it. However as indicated earlier, this is not necessarily so.

Recent cognitive research suggests that the brain is a very flexible organ and its mental processes can be enhanced if it is properly trained. This means that it must be subjected to effective techniques and exercises to challenge how it processes information. Brain plasticity has shown that your brain is malleable and that you can create new neuronal pathways as you use and challenge it.

If a person pursues an active and stimulating life, then he/she will tend to maintain good mental function and brain fitness. Keeping this function high is therefore possible but it does take work.

There are many effective techniques which can be used to improve mental capacity and function. They can be found in a variety of ways. The Internet is a great place to find effective techniques to enhance mental function. Many of them are focused exercises to enhance different types of functioning. What is important is to carefully select a scientifically validated program to make sure that what you use is effective.

For example there are techniques to enhance memory function and others to improve language comprehension or your concentration. Some are directed at children while others are better suited to older adults.

But the cognitive research has shown that the use of these techniques can have a significant impact on the ability of an older to retain and sometimes improve many mental functions over where they were previously. The old held beliefs that a person will lose mental functioning does not necessarily have to hold entirely true.

The unique trick in applying these techniques to an older person is that challenging the brain becomes difficult at times because that person may have already experienced what is being presented (which creates routine). The key to improving mental function is to challenge the brain with new information and mental processing tasks. This is how a young child learns so quickly and effectively. The information is fresh and new.

But the good news is that few really effective techniques and exercises exist which people can use to improve their mental functions. Some of them must be used with a trained professional while others can be done individually. Either way they are important ways to extend the ability of someone to enjoy life to the fullest and not suffer much of the declines otherwise expected over time.

Finding Balance Through Good Mental Health

Mental and brain health can cover a whole range of aspects. It can be mental health diseases that people suffer from such as depression, anxiety and stress or all the way to another form of healthiness everyone should strive for. Even if you don’t suffer from a specific mental health disorder there is a lot that anyone can do to improve your overall mental health.

Keeping a good mental health is a critically important element of you well-being. Like your physical condition, you want to pay special attention to your mental health for the long run. This is not something that can be magically improved. You need to start having certain habits that will help you improve your brain fitness and other cognitive abilities.

Your mental health can also include things like your outlook on life or how healthy your brain is. The way you see the world around you, perceive things and process them is a huge part of who you are and how you handle the situations that arise in your life. When you understand how your mind affects your life you can start to learn how you can affect your mind and your thinking.

Our brain fitness is ever evolving. The more we put into it the more we get out of it. Many people don’t think about the brain this way, we take what it does for us for granted and never even realize that we have to feed and exercise it to keep it healthy. There are many things you can do to keep your brain healthy.

One of the things you can do is to stimulate and challenge your brain and do it often. The brain is stimulated when it is learning and discovering something new. You could be reading a book, playing a game or even learning a new hobby. All of these things help get your brain to perform to its top operating condition which is good for your overall mental health. Obviously more serious conditions such as dementia or Alzheimer’s can have an important impact on your overall health and your capacity to have a good brain fitness.

Eating the right kinds of foods can also keep your brain sharp. Certain oils and proteins are so good for your brain and will also help improve your mental health. When our mind is clear and healthy we make good choices, which helps keep your life stress free and with less untended, too issues. When your mind is sharp you feel better about yourself and the choices you are making.

There are so many stresses we encounter in a typical day and how we handle them is key to our health. People with good mental health can think through these situations and find solutions quicker. That means problems don’t linger and stick around causing your problems. So when you are thinking about your health and what you need to do to get in shape don’t forget your mind. As the saying goes “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Start taking care of your mind and keep a long, health brain health.

Memory Exercise Comes In More Ways Than One

Physical exercise has been known to positively affect the body in a plethora of ways and improve your overall health. Physical exercise has shown also to have some sort of mental benefits such as reducing your level of stress. And while memory exercise often gets related to mind games and brain fitness tasks, various forms of physical activity combined with brain training can have an important impact on your mental health. From running on the treadmill to even picking up a few weights, this form of activity can stimulate and promote growth of brain cells.

The brain plays a vital role in the lives of every human on earth and it is a tool that we use everyday. So it only makes sense to work on it, keep it in shape and stay on top of everything to ensure it has enough oxygen and other nutrients to remain healthy. Daily physical activity has been shown to be a useful way to increase blood flow to the brain. And through countless studies, it has been found that your aerobic capacity increases oxygen in the brain and all other organs which is very beneficial for you.

When oxygen levels decrease, your ability to concentrate becomes less and less. And when you cannot focus, the ability to learn new information is tampered. The direct correlation of memory exercise is there as studies show physical activity increases the flow of oxygen to your brain. Even walking 15 minutes a day can help.

Aerobic exercise has been found to also build new brain cells. Intense activity will grow new brain cells in the hippocampus, which is one part of the brain responsible for memory. A study conducted by the Scott Small of the National Academy of Sciences showed a three-month program of vigorous exercise produced new neurons in this area and improved testing of mental recall as well.

The study found a 30 percent increase in the number of brain cells within the different human participants. With that study, each participant was exercising one to two hours a day, four days a week on a treadmill or stationary bicycle.

While not everyone has the desire to get out and run, you may want to consider it when hearing the kind of effect memory exercise such as brain fitness can have. Brain fitness can help you train your cognitive skills and help you maintain or improve your overall brain health. And on top of running, lifting weights can have positive implications as well. Other activities as dancing or even socializing can help the brain grow new neuronal pathways through brain plasticity.
When adding this to the equation, it can help you stay mentally sharp and focused as it has been proven to help individuals score higher on tests of reasoning and working memory.

So as you begin to think about ways to elongate your memory and sharpen the overall focus and concentration, you may want to think a little more about combining brain fitness activities with physical exercise. The results make it all worthwhile.

Brain Fitness And Your Mind Gym

Our brain is one of the most complex organs in our bodies. Research on the brain and neuroscience in general are shedding light on several aspects that were misunderstood.

The brain is incredible in what it can do from controlling our bodily functions to providing us with the ability to perform complex actions and thoughts on an ongoing manner. We generally recognize the importance of keeping our bodies healthy through fitness but little emphasis is put on the brain.

In reality, brain plasticity has shown that the same idea of keeping a good brain health can be done through brain fitness that will help to keep us functioning at an optimal level. Here are some tips to help us to achieve better functioning of our brain through good fitness.

One of the most important aspect which is very important for a good brain fitness is to make sure you follow a healthy diet. It is very important to understand that we need to feed our brains with healthy food that provide the necessary nutrients for the brain to function properly. Try to avoid foods or drinks with excess sugars, fats, and preservatives. Stick with lean meats and plenty of vegetables.

Minimize your intake of alcohol and by all means do not take drugs unless prescribed by your physician. Excessive amount of alcohol is not only a poison for your body but also greatly affects the brain and can have serious long-term consequences. It is also very important to drink plenty of fluids. Water is probably the best fluid to drink for your body and brain. It keeps the body and cells hydrated which is important. And it helps to flush impurities from the cells and our bodies. The same holds true for the brain. It will help the brain to avoid degradation and deterioration over the years.

It is very essential to take in necessary nutrients. Vitamins like vitamin C, E, and B complex are very important and really improve the functioning of the brain.

And as much as our bodies respond well to exercise, so does the brain. This is an essential part of good brain fitness. There are several brain exercises you can do which stimulate and “work” the brain. You can find them in a variety of outlets.

These exercises focus on different functions of the brain. For example there are many of them which help to improve memory function. Others are focused on working the numerical functioning parts or concentration of our brains.

Still others help to stimulate and improve the manner in which we learn speech and languages.

Your doctor can recommend some of the drills and exercises. You can usually find them online. Just make sure to use a scientifically validated program so your training is really effective.Also keep in mind that doing a different activity such as dancing can also be a good brain exercise tool.

In any case if you follow some of these suggestions, you should really help to improve your brain fitness and increase your mental capacities.

Extend The Life Of Your Mind With Brain Fitness

It is obvious that as we age, so too does our appearance, physique and endurance. One area that does not have to take quite as rapid of a plummet is our mind, but brain fitness is crucial to extend the life of our mind. By taking care of yourself and your mental muscles, you can stay as sharp as a whistle.

Alzheimer’s has become more and more common with people as they age. Sadly, it is a disease that can be prevented by many simply by staying conditioned mentally. There is no denying the fact that simple exercises and consistently training your brain can enhance its capabilities and overall life.

Alzheimer’s is a disease that destroys brain cells and drastically affects ones memory, thinking and behavior. To many people’s surprise, it is also the seventh leading cause of death in the nation. And scarily, the death rate is only increasing with many experts predicting 11 to 16 million individuals 65 and older will have the disease by the year 2050.

There is no current cure for the disease, but it is well known that actively participating in brain fitness workouts and exercises can delay or completely deter the disease from coming on. The phrase “use it or lose it” certainly applies to this situation as the neural pathways and connections in our brains must be worked out.

Mental training boosts our brain power and countless studies back this up. Brain fitness workouts can and will keep our minds sharp over the years. Anything from challenging and interactive games to consistent ready of challenging material can increase the agility of our brain.

Fortunately, there are a number of web sites, books and material to help with the process of training and minds. There are different levels of material to ensure everyone is challenged to the fullest regardless of their age.

When you go to work out your body, it is never suggested to focus specifically on the upper body or vice versa. The same holds true for your brain as we want to stimulate more than just one single area. And with so many different parts to the brain, it is crucial you take the time to figure out what brain fitness workouts will enhance what parts of the brain.

The first wave of the 80 million baby boomers is beginning to reach their 60’s now making brain fitness ever so crucial. It is an integral part of our lives to stay fit and healthy and with the proper training you can extend your life physically and mentally.

The Death Of Neurons Could Result In The Decline Of Yourself

A neuron consists of a nerve cell that is the essential building block of the nervous system. Similar to that of other cells in the human body, these cells actually specialize in transmitting information throughout the body. They communicate information in both chemical and electrical forms. And researchers recently discovered the death of them can lead to the death of you.

Researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center recently discovered a mechanism in which the most common form of brain cancer promotes the death of neurons. This process has become known as neurodegeneration. As a result of these findings, there is hope that it will lead to new therapies that can suppress neurodegeneration caused by the brain cancer.

The study reveals clear evidence of just how important neurons are and how detrimental and problematic they can become when hampered with. The research goes into great detail about how the oncogene, or the gene that has the ability to cause cancer, promotes neurodegeneration by increasing glutamate toxicity to neurons and impact brain fitness.

Glutamates are responsible for the transmission of signals between neurons and are crucial to the learning, development and memory of our brain. But if glutamates build up and create spaces between neurons, it can lead to neuron death.

As the first study of its kind, it shows researchers just how the link and the death of neurons could actually lead to a fatal kind of cancer for many. Gliomas is the most common brain tumor and the second leading cause of cancer death for adults between the ages of 20 to 39 years old. By identifying the importance of AEG-1 in brain cancer development, a new target for inhibiting this process can be found.

Scientists have equally identified the importance of understanding glutamate transport to better recognize other neurodegenerative diseases like glioma-induced neurodegeneration, Alzheimer’s and epilepsy as well.

The next step is to construct advanced animal models so researchers can further study the role of AEG-1 and glutamate in brain development and function. As soon as this is done, the models will allow the team to test the drugs identified in the small molecule screening process.

At the end of the day, the primary goal is to develop treatments for neurodegeneration that is caused by GBM and other diseases. And while it is a work in progress with much work to be done, the beginning steps are set up an extremely optimistic future.

Brain Health Improvements Are Possible

We are always looking for ways to be healthier. Whether it is eating right or getting more exercise there are plenty of things we think about when it comes to our health. Many people fail to think about brain health however. The brain is one of your most important organs and essential to almost all of life’s most important functions.

Our brain helps us remember the day to day stuff. It helps us keep track of our most precious memories. It makes our arms move and our feet walk. It helps us sing, dance and enjoy the world around us. Brain health should be on everyone’s radar if you really want to be in optimal health.

Keeping your brain healthy is simple all it really requires is keeping it active. Our brains work like sponges and the more you put into them the more productive them become. For a long time it was thought that you were born with X amount of brain cells and died with X amount of brain cells but that is simply not the case. Our brain grows and decreases in capacity based on what we put into it.

When we are younger and learning all the time our brains are soaking it up and expanding in capacity. As we become an adult and life tends to become more repetitive and we seem to challenge ourselves less because we are busy with work and families. Once we get into elder years the brain starts a natural decrease in capacity.

Knowing all this gives you an advantage to keep your brain sharp. When the natural decline of later life comes if your brain health is high you can keep at bay diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s. Brain health and brain fitness promote a more active brain that has better cognitive memory and makes critical thinking easier.

Brain health can consist of many different types of activities. It could include things like learning a new skill or taking on a new hobby to stimulate your brain. It can also mean eating foods that are good for your brain such as fish and avocados. You could also use a computer software program with activities designed to keep your mind sharp.

Regardless of what you choose to do to improve your brain health the most important thing is that you do something. The more you do to improve your brain capacity the more positive results you will see both short term and long term.

How Brain Fitness Could Improve Your Memory

Stress it seems is just a natural part of today’s society. Everybody deals with stress due to all of the pressures put on us each and every day. We all have bills to pay, things that we have to do, and places that we have to be and these responsibilities never seem to cease or even slow down. All of this stress is not good and can lead to severe memory loss problems or even dementia some time down the road.

Stress triggers certain hormones in our bodies that help us cope with certain stressful situations. But too much of these hormones being released over a long period of time is what can give us memory loss problems and other brain disabilities later on in life. This is why it is extremely important to recognize just how much stress you are dealing with on a daily basis and do all you can do combat this stress.

Of course controlling stress is easier said than done, and most of us just naturally accept it as it is just a normal part of living today. But if you don’t recognize how severe your stress levels are and choose not to do anything about it, the repercussions can take a toll for the worse as you age.

If you feel like you are getting over stressed and you just can’t take it anymore, there are many professionals who can help. But there are also many things that you can do first to see if they can alleviate some of the stress that is a normal part of your life to keep a good brain fitness. That way you can go through your daily routines without having to feel like there is no end and no remedy to your stress.

Always recognize the true scope of the situation and learn to take many deep, relaxing breaths. Most situations we find ourselves in are not as bad as we make them out to be. The more we over think a situation, the more stressful it becomes. When you catch yourself over analyzing something, stop yourself and just concentrate instead on taking a deep breath.

Since memory loss is triggered from stress, learn to turn your stressful situations into a fun challenge instead. The way that we view things in life is exactly what creates the stress. So instead of viewing something as stressful and something that you don’t want to do, see it instead as a challenge that you will learn and grow from. Make it fun and keep a great brain fitness.

Learning Disabilities And Cognitive Skills

Odds are good that you know someone who is affected by a learning disability. There are many individuals that suffer from learning disabilities in many different ways, from dyslexia and dyscalculia to auditory and visual processing disorders. But, did you know that weak cognitive skills can cause learning disabilities?

Most people know that learning disabilities can be caused by genetic limits or poor and inadequate teaching. What most people do not know is that weak cognitive skills are widely involved in learning disabilities. They impact learning and brain fitness heavily because there are many processes going on when an individual is reading and trying to understand what they read.

The entire learning process can be thrown off course if an individual has a weakness in just one process. Reading involves the process of visual images, letters and words, while at the same time the process of recalling and associating those images with correct sounds. Next, you must make mental associations between those sounds to make the words they are associated with. Finally, you must comprehend what that word means and how to apply it to what you are reading.

When you think of reading like that, it can be easy to see just how one weak cognitive skill could make the whole process of learning difficult. Everything has to work perfectly or nothing will work how it is supposed to.

The good news about weak cognitive skills is that it is able to be tested and trained to strengthen the skill. If you believe you or someone you know suffers from weak cognitive skills it is important to be tested to uncover the specific skill weakness. Once tested, you will receive customized training to strengthen the weaknesses. There are testing centers across the nation you can visit.

Weak cognitive skills can have a negative effect on your life when there is no reason to suffer from it. The testing and customized training can remove or greatly improve a learning disability which can change your life. Remove the suffering and give yourself the best chance to learn at your highest capacity by being tested today.

Both genetics and poor and inadequate education can cause learning disabilities, but remember that weak cognitive skills play a huge role. Many learning disabilities are either worsen or entirely caused by weak cognitive skills, so be on the lookout and address any weakness that you may see because improvement could be just around the corner.

Risk Of Alzheimer’s And Your Brain Fitness

As we age we become more susceptible to mental diseases that take a toll on the brain. Diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia are common brain disorders that many people acquire as they reach the later years of their life. Recent discoveries in health have shown that for some people, these diseases can be treated and could even be prevented before they arrive.

Studies have shown that people who live a more mentally active life have a far less chance of obtaining Alzheimer’s or dementia. So if you have a family history of either of these two diseases, you want to make sure that you do all you can to keep mentally active as you age and make sure you receive a proper brain fitness.

Mentally active doesn’t just mean to go through your daily routines and try to think as much as you can. In order to really keep your brain fresh and active you should challenge yourself mentally each day. Brain exercises would include mentally challenging games like puzzles and problem solvers, cross words, brain fitness programs, just to name a few.

Get on to the internet and just do a brief search for mind games and you will see all kinds of options to keep you from getting bored. The more you use these kinds of games, the more of a workout your brain will get, and the less likely you will be to get Alzheimer’s later on in life. The key is to make sure that you are consistent with playing these games over time, and that you aren’t just doing it once a month or even just once a week.

Real physical exercise and eating healthy are also key components in keeping your brain young and active. A proper diet ensures that you are getting the required nutrients and minerals your brain needs to remain sharp and think adequately without tiring too soon. And proper exercise will help boost your body’s metabolism so it can properly rid itself of toxins.

The more you work to keep your mind and body healthy, the better chance you will have to remain free of brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. Your brain reacts to mental workouts just like your muscles react to their physical workouts.

With time and consistency you can turn your brain into an efficient and healthy information processing machine, without having to worry everyday about suffering a strong cognitive decline. Following these tips will help you stay more focused on certain tasks and will even make you more productive throughout the day.