New Brain Fitness Guide

We are very excit­ed to announce our new­ly released Brain Fit­ness for Sharp Brains: Your New New Year Res­o­lu­tion. We wrote it in order to pro­vide an intro­duc­tion to the con­cept, sci­ence, and prac­tice of brain fit­ness in plain Eng­lish, by answer­ing the Top 25 ques­tions we have received over the last four months. Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and myself (Car­o­line) have been work­ing hard on this.

You can click here to get your copy of the com­plete guide. Oth­er­wise, keep check­ing back this blog, as we will pub­lish a new ques­tion and its answer every Mon­day and Thurs­day before 9AM Pacif­ic Stan­dard Time. If we missed your press­ing ques­tion, let us know!

Here is a sneak pre­view of the ques­tions we will be answering …

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Intro­duc­tion
Top 25 Ques­tions About Brain Fit­ness   

 

Defin­ing Brain Fitness

• What are cog­ni­tive abilities?
• Are cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties the same thing as intelligence?
• What is brain fitness?
• Is brain fit­ness sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven to improve cog­ni­tive skills?

Brain Fit­ness Programs

• DoI real­ly need a brain fit­ness program?
• How do I start a brain fit­ness program?
• I already do cross­words and sudoku. Do I need any­thing else?
• Why are com­put­er pro­grams bet­ter than paper-based ones or sim­ply attend­ing a class in person?
• How do I know if the com­put­er-based pro­grams work?
• Why are so many pro­grams appear­ing now?
• Is it nec­es­sary to train under the super­vi­sion of a doc­tor or oth­er specialist?

Healthy Aging

• What does “normal aging” mean? Do we all age the same way?
• Are there spe­cif­ic pro­grams for adults?
• Does a brain fit­ness pro­gram pre­vent Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of dementia?
• I don’t want to ever retire. What can I do to remain sharp?

The Oth­er Pil­lars of Brain Fitness

• Are yoga and med­i­ta­tion good for my brain?
• Are there herbal and vit­a­min sup­ple­ments that will pro­tect my memory?
• Is phys­i­cal fit­ness important?

Spe­cif­ic Top­ics in Brain Fitness

• How can I improve my con­cen­tra­tion and my memory?
• Can a brain fit­ness pro­gram help me become more creative?
• I am a busy exec­u­tive with a chal­leng­ing job. All this doesn’t sound very rel­e­vant to me.
• Are there spe­cif­ic pro­grams for kids? My kids have prob­lems with math-why should they do these things that may dis­tract them?
• Dur­ing my preg­nan­cy, I felt real­ly absent-mind­ed. Is this nor­mal? What can I do?
• Ever since menopause, I can’t real­ly think or con­cen­trate as I used to. Is this nor­mal? What can I do?
• I play casu­al games online, such as Bejew­eled. Is that good? Do I need some­thing else?

Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series
Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg
Dr. Daniel Gopher
Dr. Torkel Klingberg
Dr. Brett N. Steenbarger
Dr. James Zull

Glos­sary
Resources
Books
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