Brain Fitness Tools

Exercising your brain, so how can you become cognitively fit? Drawing selectively from the rapidly expanding body of neuroscience research as well as from well-established research in psychology and other mental health fields, there are four steps you can take. 

As our population ages and faces some of the challenges of getting older, more people are interested in protecting their quality of life.

 Brain fitness Tools

Brain fitness grew out of the study of neuropsychology and is the science of maintaining and training cognitive abilities. Its training principles are based on concepts derived from phenomena contributing to neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. Cognitive abilities like attention, memory, visual/spatial processing, auditory processes and language, motor coordination, and executive functions like planning and problem solving diminish over time unless they are used regularly. A major hypothesis is that improvement in cognitive abilities through brain exercise represents brain fitness, in an analogy with how physical exercise produces physical fitness. A major limitation on this hypothesis is how the effects of improvements on a mental task through practice can be separated from the improvements based on brain fitness. Brain fitness typically seeks to improve attention, memory, thinking, and stress management.

Brain fitness is the capacity of a person to meet the various cognitive demands of life. It is evident in an ability to assimilate information, comprehend relationships, and develop reasonable conclusions and plans. Brain fitness can be developed by formal education, being actively mentally engaged in life, continuing to learn, and exercises designed to challenge cognitive skills. Healthy lifestyle habits including mental stimulation, physical exercise, good nutrition, stress management, and sleep can improve brain fitness. On the other hand, chronic stress, anxiety, depression, aging, decreasing estrogen, excess oxytocin, and prolonged cortisol can decrease brain fitness as well as general health.

Brain fitness can be measured physically at the cellular level by neurogenesis, the creation of new neurons, and increased functional connections of synapses and dendrites between neurons. It can also be evaluated by behavioral performance as seen in cognitive reserve, improved memory, attention, concentration, executive functions, decision-making, mental flexibility, and other core capabilities.

Like physical fitness, brain fitness can be improved by disciplined exercise that presents a variety of challenges in a constructive environment. Recent research shows that regular brain “workouts” not only help prevent age-related cognitive decline, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other cognitively degenerative diseases, but can also improve normally functioning minds. Although puzzles and games like chess provide mental stimulation, the most neuroprotective exercises are scientifically based to utilize multiple cognitive processes and are able to generalize to overall mental faculties and performance.