Brain training and brain teasers are part of Novelty, Variety, Challenge

brainsBrain fit­ness can include play­ing train­ing games on com­put­ers (Los Ange­les Times):

…Today, the term “fit­ness” is as like­ly to encom­pass the body as it is the mind…Fernandez says that the key com­po­nents of any brain-train­ing pro­gram are nov­el­ty, vari­ety and chal­lenge — fac­tors that engage more areas of the brain and stim­u­late new brain con­nec­tions. “If you’ve already [solved] 1 mil­lion cross­word puz­zles and you do one more, it’s rou­tine. There will be no ben­e­fit. But if you play a new video game, it can be very ben­e­fi­cial to you.” (Edi­tor’s note: need­less to say, the reverse is also true. If you have already spent hun­dreds of hours play­ing videogames, per­haps it’s time for a tough cross­word puzzle?)

One of my main pieces of advice to old­er adults is to step out of your com­fort zone in gen­er­al,” says Gaz­za­ley. “The brain responds to chal­lenge, not to com­fort. Trav­el to a new coun­try, try to fig­ure out a new cur­ren­cy and how not to get ripped off in the taxi. Learn a new lan­guage or new musi­cal instrument.””

The arti­cle con­tains a nice side sto­ry, Brain teasers can help tease out how your brain works, link­ing to sev­er­al fun brain teasers avail­able in our site for adults and kids alike:

About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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