What is brain fitness: improving cognitive and self-regulation abilities

Brain fit­ness is our brain’s abil­i­ty to read­i­ly cre­ate addi­tion­al con­nec­tions between neu­rons, and even to pro­mote new neu­rons in cer­tain parts of the brain. Research in neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy and neu­ro­science shows that vig­or­ous men­tal activ­i­ty can lead to good brain fit­ness, which in turn, trans­lates into a sharp­er mem­o­ry, faster pro­cess­ing of infor­ma­tion, bet­ter atten­tion, and oth­er improved cog­ni­tive skills.

In gen­er­al, brain fit­ness prod­ucts are geared to change the tra­jec­to­ry of the life curve so that younger minds improve their peaks (or reach them faster) and old­er peo­ple do not expe­ri­ence such a loss in var­i­ous cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, like men­tal flex­i­bil­i­ty, work­ing mem­o­ry, and others.

If the brain is flex­i­ble and mold­ed through expe­ri­ence, the ques­tion is, “What tools can help pro­vide the right kind of expe­ri­ence to help refine our brains, from a struc­tur­al and func­tion­al point of view?” The goal of this guide is pre­cise­ly to help you answer that question.

Keep learn­ing by read­ing more arti­cles in the Resources sec­tion, and also please con­sid­er join­ing our free month­ly Brain Fit­ness eNewsletter

This new online resource is based on the con­tent from the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (May 2009, $19.95), by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg.