The Brain Fitness Revolution is here with us

Roger Doo­ley, author of the Neu­ro­mar­ket­ing blog, wrote in April an excel­lent overview of the Brain Fit­ness field in the Future­Lab blog. Enjoy his entry Mar­ket­ing Neu­ro­science: Brain Fit­ness.

Let me quote a cou­ple of sentences:

“The two big dri­ving forces for the brain fit­ness move­ment are demo­graph­ics, par­tic­u­lar­ly the aging baby boom pop­u­la­tion, and research, which indi­cates that the rate of brain impair­ment can be slowed by some kinds of men­tal stim­u­la­tion and activity.”

“The real ques­tion for com­pa­nies like Posit is whether peo­ple will pay a pre­mi­um price for their prod­uct rather than, say, work­ing free cross­word puz­zles or engag­ing in oth­er men­tal activ­i­ty that costs noth­ing. Some peo­ple who have the resources will hap­pi­ly pay for what they think is a proven and con­ve­nient solu­tion to their prob­lem. Even though peo­ple can walk for free, they still buy expen­sive tread­mills and join health clubs in the name of car­dio-vas­cu­lar fit­ness. It’s no big leap to imag­ine spend­ing a few hun­dred dol­lars if it seems like­ly to stave off the specter of men­tal decline.”

He also talks about the clas­sic Nun Study, pro­files Posit Sci­ence, and men­tions Nin­ten­do’s game Brain Age.

Nei­ther the con­cept of Brain Fit­ness is rel­e­vant only for seniors, nor its only ben­e­fit is to pre­vent cog­ni­tive decline and, poten­tial­ly, help delay con­di­tions such as Alzheimer’s. In the 90s, eat­ing well and exer­cis­ing were shown to be cru­cial to our well-being and healthy aging. We join phys­i­cal fit­ness gyms to work out our bod­ies, expand car­dio­vas­cu­lar capac­i­ty and devel­op good mus­cles. Train­ers teach us that nov­el­ty and vari­ety are impor­tant and that hav­ing some struc­ture helps us achieve our phys­i­cal fit­ness goals. Now, the need to keep exer­cis­ing our brains is start­ing to become under­stood, and Brain Fit­ness, or Mind Fit­ness, will grow to one day become as wide­spread as phys­i­cal fit­ness, for kids, adults, and seniors. “Brain gyms” may well com­ple­ment today’s gyms.