We often talk in this blog about how to expand fundamental abilities or cognitive functions, like attention, or memory, or emotional self-regulation. Think of them as muscles one can train. Now, it is also important to think of ways one can use our existing muscles more efficiently.

Let’s talk about how to manage better the overwhelming amount of information available these days.

Hundreds of thousands of new books, analyst reports, scientific papers published every year. Millions of websites at our googletips. The flow of data, information and knowledge is growing exponentially, stretching the capacity of our not-so-evolved brains. We can complain all day that we cannot process ALL this flow. Now, let me ask, should we even try?

Probably not. Why engage in a losing proposition. Instead, let me offer a few strategies that can help manage this flow of information better.

1. Prioritize: strategic consulting firms such as McKinsey and BCG train their staff in the so-called 80/20 rule: 80% of effects are caused by the top 20% of causes. In a company, 80% sales may come from 20% of the accounts. Implication: focus on that top 20%; don’t spend too much time on the 80% that only account for 20%.

2. Leverage a scientific mindset. Scientists shift through tons of data in efficient, goal-oriented ways. How do they do it? By first stating a hypothesis and then looking for data. For example, an untrained person could spend weeks “boiling the ocean”, trying to read as much as possible, in a very fragmentary way, about how physical exercise affects our brain. A trained scientist would first define clear hypotheses and preliminary assumptions, such as “Physical exercise can enhance the brain’s ability to generate new neurons” or “Those new neurons appear in the hippocampus”, and then look specifically for data that corroborates or refutes those sentences, enabling him or her to refine the hypotheses further, based on accumulated knowledge, in a virtuous learning cycle.     

 

 

For a limited time only: we can offer a 10% Discount and Free shipping for SharpBrains readers who want to buy MindFit brain fitness program. Simply visit this website introduce the Discount Code SB-MF-10 in the Discounts/Coupons field as you check out. 

Note: by clicking here you will visit a different website, unafiliated with us.  Please remember that we have not developed MindFit, but consider it one of the programs with good grades in our 10-Question Evaluation Checklist, so we are glad to have secured this discount.

Below you have some demos, so you get a sense of the types of exercises we are talking about. Have fun!

The “Inside and Outside” task was designed to train your divided attention skills. Divided attention is the ability to pay attention to more than one thing at a time. Read the rest of this entry »

Following our July and August editions, here you have our Monthly Digest of the Most Popular Blog Posts. Today, October 2nd, we will list the most popular September posts. You can consider it your monthly Brain Exercise Magazine.

(Also, remember that you can subscribe to receive our RSS feed, check our Topics section, and subscribe to our monthly newsletter at the top of this page).

Market News

Education, Training, Health events: some events I will blog about/ speak at over the next 2-weeks.

Brain Fitness and SharpBrains.com in the Press: including a great Washington Post article.

Brains Way Smarter Than Ours (and yours, probably): roundup of relevant news, including some Awards.

News you can use

10 (Surprising) Memory Improvement Tips: on the relationship between stress and memory.

Judith Beck: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person: a cognitive therapy pioneer tells us about the latest application of brain training: diets.

Brain Wellness: Train Your Brain to Be Happier: our essay to participate in LifeTwo’s Happiness week.

Research

11 Neuroscientists Debunk a Common Myth about Brain Training: summary of our 11 original interviews with leading neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists.

Neuroplasticity 101 and Brain Health Glossary: no one is born knowing it all…check this summary of concepts and keywords that can help navigate through the brain fitness field.

Working Memory: an image that says much: bad and good news.

Best of the Brain from Scientific American: review of this great book.

An online application system is now open for the AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships.

Corporate Training & Leadership

Carnival of the capitalists with a brain: we hosted this business blog carnival with a brain spice.

Executive Functions and Google/ Microsoft Brain Teasers: examples of what our executive functions are.

Software Product News

MindFit by CogniFit, and Baroness Susan Greenfield: a brain fitness program starting to get traction in Europe.

Penn Treaty First To Offer Brain Fitness Program: today’s press release on another brain training software (Posit Science)’s deal with an insurance provider.

Visualization Software of IBM for the Future of Medicine: Interview: “It’s like Google Earth for the body”. Hopefully it will include the brain.

Brain Teasers

Brain Teasers with a Neuroscience angle: enjoy.

SharpBrains Announcements

Services: we will formally announce soon how we “help companies, health providers, investors, and policymakers understand and profit from the emerging brain fitness field.” But now you know.

Speaking: if your organization needs a good speaker and brain fitness expert, please contact us.

Finally, we are starting to look for qualified guest bloggers to add their perspective. If you are interested, please contact us and let us know about what you would like to write about, and include a brief bio or links to samples. Thank you.

Growing media attention on the brain fitness field. At least on the “Healthy Aging” segment (I predict the media with catch up soon with developments in other areas, from cognitive training for kids and adults with ADD/ ADHD to stroke and TBI rehabilitation, to peak performance for corporate training).

First, a superb article by Leslie Walker at the Washington Post: Cross-Training Your Brain to Maintain Its Strength

Quotes: ”A growing body of research suggests that mental activity in middle age and earlier can help later in life. As a result, Web sites such as HappyNeuron.com are springing up to offer online games to people of all ages, while blogs like SharpBrains.com provide commentary on the fledgling industry.” (Note: we can also provide commentary on the commentary!)

“People who engage in very challenging tasks — not just in work but during leisure activities such as reading, crossword puzzles, bridge, chess and travel — tend to slow down their mental aging process very significantly,” says Breznitz, who is also a member of Israel’s legislature and has developed a brain-training program called MindFit.”

“Also contributing to the brain workout boom are state-of-the-art imaging techniques that have allowed scientists to validate a theory developed decades ago. By taking detailed pictures of brain neurons, scientists watch parts of the brain that had seemed dormant light up and assume new responsibilities in response to stimuli. Theoretically, this means brain decay can be halted or even reversed.”

“The brain is constantly rewiring and recalibrating itself in response to what you do,” says Henry Mahncke, who holds a PhD in neuroscience and is vice president of Posit Science, the San Francisco developer of the Brain Fitness software. “It remakes itself into a more efficient operation to do the things you ask it to do.”

Comments: the article touches many key points. I especially enjoy the quote “To be effective, scientists say mental activity must become progressively more challenging. Otherwise, the brain adjusts and learns to perform repetitive tasks with less effort”, a key message I make often in my lectures to explain why well-designed programs can be more effective than doing crossword puzzle number 512,789. The article also relates how many retirement communities and senior centers and individuals are trying out the new brain fitness programs coming to market, and shows some healthy skepticism on the state of the research. Now, this is an invitation to the reporter to interview neuropsychologist Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg to get the full picture of the science behind the field, since these programs haven’t appeared in a vacuum. Our 10-Question Evaluation Checklist can provide useful guidance to anyone considering a program.

Boomers use online brain games to stave off dementia (AccountingWeb)

Quotes: “The Internet offers a plethora of brain games for those who don’t subscribe to a daily newspaper or don’t want to purchase games. AARP, for example, offers plenty of free games on its site. More games appear at SharpBrains.com, including a page that contains the Top Ten Neuroscience Brainteasers, and you can sign up to have the College Board e-mail you the SAT question of the day.”

“The generation that refuses to age is not going to sit back and wait for Alzheimer’s Disease and other signs of dementia to take hold. Instead, savvy Baby Boomers are expanding their minds (no, not the way they did in the 60s) with the aid of the computer, puzzles, and games. A brain health movement is sweeping Read the rest of this entry »

We are glad to see that MindFit is finally making it into the popular press, at least in the UK. The program is making big news in the UK (BBC, Times, Daily Telegragh, Guardian…) because Baroness Susan Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution and a well-respected neuroscientist, is endorsing it. We evaluated it last year and liked what we saw, based on our 10-Question Checklist. Now, remember that no program is “best”, but that different programs can be more appropriate for specific people and specific goals, so read the checklist first and take a lot at other programs too if you are in the market for “brain training”.

MindFit is a software-based assessment and training program for 14 cognitive skills important for healthy aging. We typically recommend it for people over 50 (up to any age, you simply need to know how to use a computer and a mouse) who want a novel and varied mental workout.

The program has Read the rest of this entry »

Just released in Scientific American:
Memory workouts beat other computer games in study

Some quotes

• “Training the brain with a computer workout program may be better than classic computer games at staving off age-related mental decline, scientists reported on Friday.”
• “Researchers in Israel compared how one brain-training program, MindFit, fared versus a workout with a sampling of classic computer games, such as the puzzle game Tetris.”
• “The study, funded by a grant from game maker CogniFit Ltd., involved 121 volunteers over 50 who used the MindFit training program or a sampling of computer games for three months.”
• “Both groups benefited, but the group using the MindFit program showed a statistically significant improvement in spatial short-term memory, spatial learning and focused attention.”
• “Improvement was especially pronounced in users who started out with some form of cognitive decline.
• The findings, which were presented on Friday at an Alzheimer’s conference in Salzburg, Austria, were similar to a smaller study done at the University of California last year.”

 

Special Offer: For a limited time, you can receive a complimentary copy of our Brain Fitness 101 e-Guide: Answers to your Top 25 Questions, written by Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg and Alvaro Fernandez, by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. You can subscribe Here.

Related blog posts

- Brain Fitness: November Monthly Digest: a collection of articles and links including news, resources, brain teasers, and more.

- Neuroplasticity 101 and Brain Fitness Glossary: an overview of the emerging science and some key concepts to understand it.

- Brain Training Games and “Games”: a 10-Question Checklist on how to evaluate programs that make brain-related claims.

- Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology Interview Series: in-depth interviews with 11 scientists and experts in cognitive training and brain fitness.

- Books on neuroplasticity and memory training: reviews of Train Your Brain, Change Your Mind, by Sharon Begley, and The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge. Both books are fascinating and powerful; each would have merited appearing in the 2007 New York Times List of 100 Notable Books.

Very interesting week:

Awards:

1) MindFit ‘Brain Gym’ Software Receives 2007 Award Business and Aging Award by the American Society on Aging (ASA).

“Most people neglect to exercise their brains as much as they should.  MindFit was created specifically for baby boomers and seniors as a fitness center for their minds,” said Prof. Shlomo Breznitz, Ph.D., founder and president of CogniFit, Ltd. 

More on MindFit program.

2) Posit Science received the ASA Small Business award

(You can learn more about the similarities and differences between MindFit and Posit Science here)

3) Keeping Brains Fit: MindAlert Awards Recognize Three Successful Educational Programs, (American Society on Aging-MetLife Foundation MindAlert Awards)

Baby Boomer Summit

Boomer Business Experts Predict “What’s Next” in ‘07 

Marketers need new strategy to reach boomer wallets

Serious Games Summit

Game Friday: Harnessing Collective Intelligence with Jane McGonigal

Serious Games Squared

Persuasive Games: The Missing Social Rituals of Exergames

Other

Mind control: The future of gaming?

Amazing demo of what we remember visually, and why

Very fun article in the Birmingham News today on SharpBrains and brain exercises, titled Want a workout for your brain?.

The journalist explains things very well and with great humor (for the humor, you need to read the article!). Here are some quotes:

- “Think of it as a gymnasium for your mind,” SharpBrains CEO and co-founder Alvaro Fernandez says from his office in San Francisco.

- (On only doing crosswords) “That’s good, but, like your body, you don’t just exercise one part of the brain,” says Fernandez, who holds an MBA and a master’s degree in education from Stanford University. “You need constant variety, and new things, to keep your brain working hard.”

- “He sees mental gymnastics as the next mainstream adult trend and points out that therapists have long used a variety of similar exercises to help in the recovery of brain-injury patients. Athletes and airplane pilots have had access to exercises designed to improve their peripheral vision and reaction times, Fernandez says.”

- “With SharpBrains co-founder Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, a clinical professor of neurology at the New York University School of Medicine, Fernandez has collected what he says are the best computer-based brain workouts available, including a program to help children with attention deficits and another aimed at reducing stress management among business executives.”

See our second press release below, and visit our Press Room for the great press we are starting to get about our brain fitness gym.

Special Offer: For a limited time, you can receive a complimentary copy of our Brain Fitness 101 e-Guide: Answers to your Top 25 Questions, written by Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg and Alvaro Fernandez, by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. You can subscribe Here.

SharpBrains introduces First Online Brain Fitness Center

– Unique, Full-Service, Science-Based Fitness Center Ushers in the Next Workout Revolution: Mental Exercise –

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Thirty years after the emergence of the exercise boom, the fitness revolution has finally gone to people’s heads: SharpBrains.com has launched the first online brain fitness center. Complete with a variety of science-based mental exercise equipment, personal brain trainers, and nearly 200 articles, interactive blog postings and interviews with industry experts, SharpBrains is spearheading the evolution of the fitness industry to include a sound mind as well as a healthy body.

The new mental exercise movement is founded on using structured, computer-based brain fitness routines tailored to each member’s specific needs and level of ability. Just as crunches and kick-boxing tone abs and increase cardio strength, Read the rest of this entry »