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New Study on the Benefits of Brain Exercises/Brain Fitness

December 20, 2006 by Alvaro Fernandez

Ten ses­sions of exer­cis­es to boost rea­son­ing skills, mem­o­ry and men­tal pro­cess­ing speed staved off men­tal decline in mid­dle-aged and elder­ly peo­ple in the first defin­i­tive study to show that hon­ing intel­lec­tu­al skills can bol­ster the mind in the same way that phys­i­cal exer­cise pro­tects and strength­ens the body. The researchers also showed that the ben­e­fits of the brain exer­cis­es extend­ed well beyond the spe­cif­ic skills the vol­un­teers learned.

Keep read­ing a very impor­tant and time­ly Wash­ing­ton Post arti­cle that reports the find­ings of a JAMA study at Short Men­tal Work­outs May Slow Decline of Aging Minds, Study Finds.

A few oth­er very insight­ful sentences:

  • “Peo­ple think edu­ca­tion is for peo­ple who are already edu­cat­ed,” said Michael Mar­siske, one of the researchers. “This kind of train­ing works no mat­ter where you are in soci­ety.”
  • “What I per­son­al­ly take away from the study is, if you chal­lenge your­self to do some new learn­ing, some­thing that isn’t easy at the start, it can have dividends.”
  • “The study did not indi­cate that men­tal train­ing can hold off all cog­ni­tive decline per­ma­nent­ly. Rather, as is the case with phys­i­cal exer­cise, strength­en­ing the mind appeared to slow decline.”
  • “Men­tal exer­cise is the same way. It has to be con­sis­tent, and it has to be chal­leng­ing. Just like you have to keep increas­ing the weights at the gym to make it chal­leng­ing, you have to do the same with men­tal activity.”

You can learn more by:

  • Read­ing our Sci­ence overview of Brain Fitness
  • Down­load­ing our Brain Fit­ness Guide for Your New New Year Resolution
  • Read­ing our inter­view with Sharp­Brains’ Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­sor: Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Training

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Brain-based-Learning, Brain-Fitness, Brain-health, Brain-Training, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive-Training, Health & Wellness, Learning, Lifelong-learning, Memory-Training, Mental-flexibility, Mental-Health, Mind-Fitness, Serious-Games, Womens-Health

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