The word "fitness" is associated with physical exercises, it is now fashionable, and every year more and more people begin to go in for sports, physical culture, go to gyms.
However, there is still fitness and brain. "What is it?" - you ask. Brain Fitness- these are regular mental (intellectual) loads, interesting tasks and educational games that help maintain flexibility and soundness of mind until old age.
Brain fitness program
How to keep a healthy mind and body? The answer is simple, the minimum you have to do is exercise your body and brain in the morning. Brain exercises wake up your brain and activate it for the whole day. The principle of operation is comparable to a simple charge, consisting of exercise that give energy for the whole day. Combining exercises for the brain with exercises for the body can not only prolong life, but also significantly improve the quality of your life right now.
As a warm-up in the morning, you can use special brain games developed together with Russian scientists.
But that's half the battle. If you want to be successful in something, then it is better to take training in a special program. Here are some of them (and right after them):
Development of memory and attention in a child 5-10 years old
The purpose of the course is to develop the child's memory and attention so that it is easier for him to study at school, so that he can remember better.
After completing the course, the child will be able to:
- 2-5 times better to remember texts, faces, numbers, words
- Learn to remember for longer
- The speed of remembering the necessary information will increase
The secrets of brain fitness, we train memory, attention, thinking, counting
If you want to overclock your brain, improve its performance, pump up memory, attention, concentration, develop more creativity, perform exciting exercises, train in a playful way and solve interesting puzzles, then sign up! 30 days of powerful brain fitness are guaranteed to you :)
Super memory in 30 days
As soon as you sign up for this course, a powerful 30-day training for the development of super-memory and brain pumping will begin for you.
Within 30 days after subscribing, you will receive interesting exercises and educational games in your mail, which you can apply in your life.
We will learn to memorize everything that may be required in work or personal life: learn to memorize texts, sequences of words, numbers, images, events that occurred during the day, week, month, and even road maps.
Speed reading in 30 days
Would you like to read books, articles, newsletters, etc. that are interesting to you very quickly? If your answer is "yes", then our course will help you develop speed reading and synchronize both hemispheres of the brain.
With synchronized, joint work of both hemispheres, the brain starts to work many times faster, which opens up many more possibilities. Attention, concentration, perception speed amplify many times over! Using the speed reading techniques from our course, you can kill two birds with one stone:
- Learn to read very fast
- Improve attention and concentration, as they are extremely important when reading quickly
- Read a book a day and finish work faster
We speed up mental counting, NOT mental arithmetic
Secret and popular tricks and life hacks, suitable even for a child. From the course, you will not only learn dozens of tricks for simplified and fast multiplication, addition, multiplication, division, calculating percentages, but also work them out in special tasks and educational games! Mental counting also requires a lot of attention and concentration, which are actively trained in solving interesting problems.
Money and the mindset of a millionaire
Why are there money problems? In this course, we will answer this question in detail, look deep into the problem, consider our relationship with money from a psychological, economic and emotional point of view. From the course, you will learn what you need to do to solve all your financial problems, start saving money and invest it in the future.
Online brain fitness games
Here are some powerful brain fitness games. Some of them you can play right on this page!
Fifteen
Game "Memory Matrix"
- Develops memory capacity
- Improves visual memory
- Improves spatial memory
Immediately after the start, a field with several filled cells will appear on the screen. In 3 seconds, you need to remember which cells are painted over, and click on them when the field is cleared. With almost every successful round, the field expands. The more cells you need to remember, the more efficiently memory develops and more points are earned. The first results will be after 10 minutes of the game.
The Stroop Challenge - Reboot game
For example, to begin with, I would like to recommend the Stroop Challenge Reboot game. The goal of the game is that you will need to choose 1 of 2 offered cards by determining whether the name of the color on the first matches the color on the second. You can pass without a single mistake by showing good time? Let's try!
entertainment site
site - an entertainment site dedicated to brain fitness with a cloud of games, simulators and developmental exercises. Our site gives you the opportunity to keep your brain active and flexible thanks to its games. Yes, that's right, games. They also develop various skills, such as: Memory, Mental counting, thinking, orientation, reaction, logic, attention and much more.
We also offer our partner's website where you can find a lot of interesting games to suit your taste:
Just as great brain fitness is reading philosophical books, where you need to think and analyze a lot, and in combination with speed reading this practice is mind boggling. :-)
Piggy bank game
I can't help but recommend the Piggy Bank game from the same site where you need to register with only your E-mail and password. This game will suit you brain fitness and relaxation for the body. The essence of the game is to indicate 1 of 4 boxes in which the amount of coins is the largest. Will you be able to show an excellent result? We are waiting for you!
Workouts over a cup of coffee
FROM brain fitness site. You can develop even with a cup of coffee. Workout over a cup of coffee what could be better? Is not it? The game form of fitness will help you get distracted from other things, brain fitness will become your entertainment, which will help the development of your brain, individual qualities such as: Logic, observation, attentiveness, coordination, memory and much more. Workout with a cup of coffee can be both in a cafe, at work, and at home. Having a smartphone, laptop or tablet with you, you can train whenever you want.
Game "Mathematical Comparisons"
I present a wonderful game "Math Comparisons" with which you can relax your body and tense your brain. The screenshot shows an example of this game, in which there will be a question related to the picture, and you will have to answer. Time is limited. How many times can you answer?
Hiking in gym, morning jogging, weight lifting in gyms help our body maintain sportswear make a person strong, healthy and outwardly attractive. The human brain needs similar training, it must be constantly kept in good shape, developing and improving cognitive abilities: attention, logical thinking, memory, accuracy of actions, speed of perception and processing of information, its comprehension.
Brain training
The above training process does not talk about frequent watching TV shows, spending many hours in in social networks and other similar situations. The quality of thinking and even the duration of human life depend on the efficiency of the brain. The development of such abilities makes a person more successful, allows you to quickly analyze the situation and take right decisions. Increase brain activity will allow you to quickly find a way out of any situation, analyze and work it out.
Brain fitness for the brain originated in the US about 30 years ago. Initially, it was a method of rehabilitation of people with various diseases, on the basis of which it was possible to obtain a clear picture of the state of mind at the current time, for which biofeedback was used.
Since then, this area has been actively developing, annually millions of dollars are invested in it by the American government. With the help of this method, such pathological conditions as depression, sleep disorders, chronic fatigue, frequent headaches and hyperactivity are successfully treated today.
Website for mind fitness - simple and affordable
If the use of this technique helped exclusively sick people, perhaps its use would be known only in narrow circles with limited access to such information. Modern psychology has long adopted the use of such approaches, and mind training has been actively used for various groups of people.
Based on statistical data, only 10-11% of people manage to do all the previously planned tasks during the working day. More than half of working people suffer from forgetfulness, many experience difficulties in communicating and conveying their point of view to others. In all of the above situations brain fitness can be of real help.
With Wikium you can organize the process of brain training (brain fitness) according to an individual program
The use of this method will help to achieve desired result. A person can gain practical skills in the following situations:
- achieving success;
- career advancement;
- planning of life situations;
- correct analysis of what is happening around.
This is just a short list of things to aim for. In fact, you can get a much greater result that will exceed all your expectations.
Scientists tend to believe that we are not using the brain to its full potential and that it has some backup storage. But do not think that billions of nerve cells are a lot, and if there are spare cells, then you can relax ..."A well-built brain is worth more than a well-filled brain."
The more developed the brain, the faster we make decisions, react to stress, think critically - and fortunately, today training the brain (intelligence, memory) is a topic that is almost catching up in popularity with fitness and healthy lifestyles.
To develop the brain means to put it in atypical and unusual situations. Scientists describe the process of “pumping up” the brain as follows: new synapses are formed between neurons, the cerebral cortex becomes thicker (and more sinuous), the substance of the brain sprouts with new capillaries, axons begin to conduct nerve signals faster, thus, functional connections between individual brain structures are strengthened.
So, 15 practices!
1. Get out of your comfort zone
If the muscles love the accuracy of actions, a given number of repetitions, a clear schedule, then the brain prefers everything exactly the opposite: it is intolerable to routine work, lack of impressions, familiar surroundings.
The more difficult it is for you to decide on any changes in your life (even in small things) - the more you really need it.
2. Learn to speak
Hearing once again from a friend: “How are you?”, “What's new?”, Come up with new phrases every time - give up stereotypes in communication, as they say, “break the pattern” of a boring interlocutor. Of course, do not forget about politeness.
If you approach everything spoken creatively, from different angles, you thereby stimulate the memory and speech center in the brain - the left temporal region of Wernicke's and Broca's areas.
Tell stories or start a vlog. Learn storytelling. Today we have a lot of technologies in our service, so you shouldn't come up with excuses - it's better to look for opportunities for development. If you don't like the camera - just talk more and read aloud to each other. Remember that famous line from the movie:
"All is not lost and life is not over as long as you have a friend and a couple of stories to tell."
3. Develop the senses
Move around your own apartment or take a shower with your eyes closed. Try to feel the value of the coins in your pocket by touch. Try Braille, a reading and writing system for the blind. Although these exercises look rather strange, you will make new sensory areas of the brain that are usually underused or not worked intensively. In the end, arrange days with your family to communicate in sign language.
4. Take up music. Or math
Neuroscientists have found that some departments are activated in response to actions that seem to be completely different in nature. For example, while solving mathematical problems and listening to music, you can register similar activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex of the brain.
Today, scientists have every reason to believe that music involves more departments and areas of the brain than any other activity.
5. Take different routes
As recent studies by physiologists show, this develops spatial memory and even contributes to an increase in the size of the hippocampus.
And the Scandinavians have a saying: “Returning the same way, you gradually turn into a ghost.”
6. Learn languages
The data obtained by scientists shows that the brain grows when learning languages, and in the most literal sense of the word. Its separate areas of the hippocampus and some parts of the cerebral cortex grow. But that's not all: in bilinguals and polyglots, the brain is so good at working with new information that they become capable of more multitasking and can easily solve several different problems in their minds in parallel.
Let's say more: those who took the time to learn (albeit at a conversational level) any language other than their native one are given an average five-year "delay" from dementia caused by Alzheimer's syndrome. To date, the preventive effect that the study of languages has is much stronger than any medicinal methods of treating this disease.
7. Trick your brain
Do the usual things in an unexpected way, Swap hands, try to brush your teeth, write, draw, type on the keyboard, hold the spoon with your left hand. If you are left-handed, then vice versa. Aerobatics - computer mouse.
While you are doing familiar things in an unusual way, there is an activation of the motor cortex - ("transferred" from the left hemisphere of the brain to the right), which has a beneficial effect on your abilities. There are even such tricks as creating artificial physical inconvenience for yourself, for example, walking around the house in a slipper on one foot and in a high-heeled shoe on the other, and after a while change their places.
8. Get into the habit of aerobic training
If we talk about very difficult things, then there are pathological processes (many of which are caused, among other things, by a fixed lifestyle), which literally kill the functioning cellular structures of the brain. Of course, this does not happen in one day, but originating at a relatively young age, the symptoms of brain fading become noticeable already at a fairly mature age.
Moderate exercise, at least 150 minutes per week (or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise) physical activity), plus a daily walk of at least 500 meters. This practice increases the volume of the cerebral cortex in the frontal and parietal areas, which are responsible for memory, attention and switching from one task to another.
Here is a diagram that American scientists compiled based on an analysis of tomography data from adolescent and elderly subjects:
And you must admit: it is much easier to accustom yourself to physical activity while you are still in your prime.
9. Do something “impossible” for yourself
Of course, scientists published research back in 2013 showing that the left and right hemispheres are more dependent on each other than previously thought, and in almost all complex processes they work together. But the stereotype about "techies" and "humanities" is still very strong, and it really often works. You can, considering yourself a 100% logician, a "techie", think that you will never be able to, for example, dance, draw or take pictures. But in vain.
It is a well-known fact that brilliant ideas and solutions often come from people who do not know the rules (and therefore do not follow the generally accepted taboos).
10. Get creative
It can come in handy anywhere - from creative solutions in everyday life to career and business. Steve Jobs said, “Creativity is just making connections between things.
When creative people are asked how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't actually do anything, they just noticed." Creativity exercises look strange, but we assure you that the brain really strains to its fullest when doing them.
Here is one such exercise. We take a sheet of paper and draw crosses. For starters, 6 in height and 9 in length are enough. You can also print this picture:
Now we tune in to a creative wave, take a pen and start turning crosses into pictures and small sketches. Can't be repeated and prerequisite is the use of this element.
The task may look different, for example, like this:
Or like this:
Similar forms for the development of creativity can be found on the Internet, in a variety of ways.
11. Keep a diary
Firstly, keeping a diary will help put things in order, and secondly, it will help you better understand yourself. Moreover, the more eloquent is the description of everything experienced during the day - describe the sounds, smells, tactile sensations - the more useful it will be for the brain. In addition, it also helps to develop creativity quickly.
Back in the 20s of the last century, scientists, having studied in detail the biographies of more than three hundred historical geniuses (such as Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, Johann Sebastian Bach), discovered striking coincidences in the habits of these people. One of the signs of genius, scientists called the tendency to eloquently describe their feelings and thoughts in a diary, in poetry, in letters to friends and family.
12. Develop working memory
In addition to long-term and short-term memory, the so-called working memory is also distinguished, in which information about what we are doing right now is stored and processed. It ensures our efficiency in conditions when we are inundated with a stream of incoming tasks: calculations, communication with clients, answering letters, calls, and small decisions. And the latest research suggests that a good working memory score is far more useful on your career path than a dry IQ. Working memory capacity is limited. Usually only 7-9 elements are stored there at a time.
Here is one of the exercises for its development. Say the name of the color in which these words are written:
For the development of working memory, it is also very useful to solve simple mathematical problems, add or multiply numbers in your head, or memorize sequences of words and symbols.
13. Do Weird Exercises
Some of them are well known to us since childhood, but if you try to do it now, you will understand how exciting it is.
Exercise "Ear-nose". It looks very funny, but worth it. With the left hand we take the tip of the nose, and with the right hand - the opposite ear, i.e. left. Release your ear and nose at the same time, clap your hands, change the position of your hands "exactly the opposite." You will understand that in childhood it turned out better.
Exercise "Mirror drawing". Lay a clean sheet of paper on the table, take a pencil in each hand. Try to draw a vase. Or draw mirror-symmetrical drawings with both hands at the same time or write letters. When doing this exercise, you will feel the relaxation of the eyes and hands, because the simultaneous work of both hemispheres improves the efficiency of the whole brain.
Exercise "Alphabet". Look at the double rows of letters, where the letters L, P or V are written under each letter of the alphabet. Now the most interesting. You pronounce the upper letter, and indicate the lower one with a movement. L - left hand rises in left side, P - right hand rises in right side, B - both hands go up. The exercise is performed in sequence from the first letter to the last, then from the last letter to the first.
14. Develop fine motor skills
Scientists have convincingly proven the relationship between finger motor skills and speech function. Sometimes, in order to grow more neurons, it is enough to invent a hobby related to motor skills: learn to knit, weave from beads, embroider or create origami.
15. And, finally, fingering.
Some exercises for the brain and the development of certain areas of it seem strange, but believe me: your brain will be grateful for such a charge. finger, or finger gymnastics is an incredibly useful practice. It is often used in pedagogy and rehabilitation. It is also practiced by yogis, in whose community such manipulations are called “mudras”. This video describes four exercises to develop fine motor skills and increasing concentration.
Just try to repeat it. If you are a guitarist or a piano player, you will surely be able to do this with ease. The rest - patience and success!
Brain fitness: what is it
Regular physical activity and keeping your body in shape have long become fashionable, and now you will not surprise anyone with a membership card of a prestigious fitness club. But times are changing, and in order to keep up with progress, you need to pay attention to new trends: fitness training is now becoming popular not only for the body, but also for the mind.
More recently, scientists believed that intelligence develops only in childhood, reaching a peak in adolescence, and after that it is no longer possible to influence the level of mental abilities. Ideas about the human psyche converged on one thing: with age, the brain only fades irrevocably. Fortunately, towards the end of the 20th century, the first studies began to appear that confirmed that our brain remains active throughout life, and gave rise to a new theory - the theory of brain plasticity. Plasticity allows the development of cognitive functions even in old age, which was confirmed by the result of an experiment by Japanese researchers at Tohoku University, which they conducted in 2008. Their experiment showed that regular reading, combined with mental math, improved the cognitive performance of 124 subjects aged 70 to 86.
The only catch is that the plasticity of the brain decreases the faster the less time is given to its training. Specialists write about it for the general public, articles and popular science books are published that describe the principles of the brain (though more in the West). All this led to a real boom in Internet startups offering training programs and improving the cognitive functions of the brain, and even in an unobtrusive and interesting game form. In 2015, analysts predict the growth of this market segment to $2 billion, which means that we have a lot to choose from!
How do brain fitness exercises work?
Imagine that you have decided to learn how to play football perfectly, and you want to figure out what is needed for this. NLP skill classification methods are suitable for this, because this area of \u200b\u200bpsychology was originally created in order to model the desired behavior of other people. So what are the skills good footballer? They can be divided into several levels.
First level. Basic skills: Running, dribbling skills, accurate and strong blows on the ball, general endurance.
Second level. Advanced Skills: Offense, defense, teamwork.
Third level. Ability to play football well.
To learn how to play football well, you need to start with simple and basic skills, gradually moving to more complex ones. The training of our intelligence works in the same way: our mental abilities can be decomposed into many basic building blocks, which are called cognitive functions and are trained separately. It is for this reason that on any site offering brain training there are many games aimed at developing memory, attention, reaction speed, thinking flexibility, and so on.
It is impossible to train everything at once, and it is not necessary. Strengthen each brick of your thinking individually, and the whole building of intelligence will become stronger, which is confirmed by the results of research. Subjects who regularly train individual brain functions with the help of games also improve their results in general intelligence tests. The most interesting thing is that classification is not everything, each of them has its own additional properties.
For example, let's take attention: you can develop its intensity, volume, switchability. To develop intensity in games, it is proposed to focus on one object, while extraneous stimuli force the player to be distracted. The volume develops by simultaneous focusing on several objects, as it develops, their number also increases. Switchability is developed by quickly changing focus from one object to another, the task of the player is to reduce the time required for this.
Best Brain Training Programs
Now there are many programs, thanks to which home brain fitness training has become available to everyone. Here are 3 sites that will help develop intelligence.
Lumosity.com
Number one in this market is a large selection of exercises, the site allows you to create a personal program and track results in a convenient way. Develops attention, memory, speed of thinking and its flexibility, problem solving skills, there is a version for iOS and Android. There are interesting puzzles that allow you to immediately benefit in the real world, for example, playing waiter, during which you need to remember appearance people, their faces, names and orders, and even nothing to confuse. As a certain Vladimir writes in one of the reviews, “I realized that it was not in vain that I bought a subscription to Lumosity when I came to a party with a bunch of people. After talking a little with the guests, I suddenly realized that I remember all those present in person and by name. "The disadvantage is only in English.
Cognifit.com
Ranks second in popularity. The name of the site stands for "cognitive fitness", which immediately sets you up for a serious approach to training. So it is: each beginner is invited to take a series of tests that determine his level in various skills, after which the system draws up an individual training program that allows short time to pull up problematic areas and develop strengths. What pleases is the availability of high-quality translation into Russian (a mobile version is also present). There are quite exotic games, for example, that allow you to train distance estimation.
Upliftme.ru
This is a Russian startup with an excellent selection of games that develop reaction speed, flexibility of thinking, memory, and attentiveness. There is a training mode, during which it is proposed to go through 53 gradually becoming more difficult stages, but there are fewer tools for tracking your progress than the leaders. But Upliftme has other advantages, firstly - it's amazing low price paid subscription in comparison with the above-mentioned sites, and secondly, many games on this site help to increase the level of one's erudition. For example, LightSpeedGeography allows you to remember the names of all countries in the world and their capitals, and games a la YummyWords and WordCraft are useful in learning English vocabulary.
Fitness for the brain: what to remember
Such sites can really affect the development of cognitive abilities at any age, while you are still able to see the image on the monitor and hold the mouse, but the main thing is to visit them regularly. If you decide that it is enough to perform a fitness complex of exercises for the brain only occasionally, it will not have the desired effect.
As an example, consider a study conducted in mid-2014 at Florida State University. 77 students were randomly divided into two groups: part of the whole day (8 hours) played the computer game Portal 2, while the rest were engaged in tasks from Luminosity. Before that, the subjects passed a series of tests on problem solving, spatial imagination and concentration. After the game, they were given the same tests again. Surprisingly, the students who played Portal 2 showed even a slight advantage over those who spent 8 hours playing Luminosity. The conclusion is as follows: rare activities, even 8-hour ones, affect the intellect only at the level of entertaining games.
The same conclusion was made by scientists who studied the effect of reading, solving crossword puzzles, dancing and playing music on the prevention of senile dementia. The best effect was given by chess, but only if the subject trained at least several times a week. If a person practiced chess only once every seven days, there was no positive effect.
So choose the most suitable site or app for you, and then just exercise regularly. You will be able to remember more, react faster, concentrate better, and approach problems more flexibly at any age. And a bonus for you with constant training will be the opportunity to maintain the sharpness of thinking until old age!
Anna Meinster
Brain fitness - that's what I called this article, because it will talk about how to train your cognitive functions of the brain. It is obvious to me that for self-improvement it is important to train your brain with various exercises, thanks to which develops: memory, attention, thinking, reaction speed, concentration, intuition, etc. To date, thanks to high technologies, a project has been created that makes smart games for brain development.
This program was developed jointly with scientists from Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov and clinical psychologists from well-known Moscow clinics. It uses gaming technologies, which are based on the most effective methods development of cognitive functions of foreign and domestic researchers.
Brain fitness will be useful at any age: it will help children and adolescents develop memory, increase intelligence and reach new heights in the learning process. For middle-aged people, cognitive training increases work capacity, improves attention and working memory. In old age, mental work is kept at a high level.
Brain fitness with BrainApps
I present to your attention Brain Apps- smart games to develop your brain.
A few months ago I signed up for Brain Apps and began to do training almost every day with the help of games developed by this company.
What is interesting every day the program offers to play different games and from simple to more complex move through the levels by developing your brain. Within a few weeks, I noticed the first results. For example, I began to memorize phone numbers the first time, read faster and easier to absorb and remember information. There is a feeling that these games form new neural connections and the brain begins to work more efficiently every day!
These are the skills that these games develop.