Martin-Seligman

Brain Fitness Program: how to select the right one

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You can use our check­list for guid­ance on how to nav­i­gate through the grow­ing num­ber of brain fit­ness programs.

Forbes recent­ly pub­lished a great arti­cle on Top Brain Boost­ers, by Alli­son Van Dusen, with good lifestyle advice on life­long learn­ing, com­put­er pro­grams, social inter­ac­tion, stress reduc­tion, sleep, exer­cise and emo­tion­al health, and nutrition.

The arti­cle also men­tions the Mind­Fit and Posit Sci­ence pro­grams, and includes our Sharp­Brains Check­list to help select the right com­put­er-based program.

Why did we devel­op a Check­list? Well, research shows that Phys­i­cal Exer­cise, Good Nutri­tion, Stress Man­age­ment and Brain Fitness/Exercise are all four crit­i­cal pil­lars for Brain Health. Most peo­ple already under­stand the first 3, but the 4th one, Brain Fitness/Exercise, is often mis­un­der­stood or over­looked. We have spent over 18 months inter­view­ing sci­en­tists and review­ing avail­able Brain Fitness/Exercise Pro­grams world­wide, and, giv­en the over­whelm­ing amount of pro­grams mak­ing “Brain Fit­ness” claims nowa­days, we would like to share the research-based cri­te­ria we use to eval­u­ate Brain Fitness/Exercise programs.

The Forbes Top Brain Boost­ers arti­cle asks “How do you know if a pricey brain fit­ness soft­ware pro­gram is right for you?”

And offers our checklist:

10 Ques­tions to Choose the Right Brain Fit­ness Program 

* 1. Are there sci­en­tists, ide­al­ly neu­ropsy­chol­o­gists, and a sci­en­tif­ic advi­so­ry board behind the program?

(Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gists spe­cial­ize in mea­sur­ing and under­stand­ing human cog­ni­tion and brain struc­ture and function.)

* 2. Are there pub­lished, peer-reviewed sci­en­tif­ic papers in PubMed writ­ten by those sci­en­tists? How many?

(Pubmed is a ser­vice of the U.S. Nation­al Library of Med­i­cine that includes mil­lions of cita­tions sci­ence jour­nals. If a sci­en­tist has not pub­lished a paper that appears in that data­base, he or she can­not make sci­en­tif­ic claims.)

* 3. What are the spe­cif­ic ben­e­fits claimed for using this program?

(Some pro­grams present the ben­e­fits in such a neb­u­lous way that it is impos­si­ble to tell if they will have any results or not…“brain train­ing” itself is a lim­it­ed ben­e­fit, because activ­i­ties like gar­den­ing or learn­ing a new lan­guage pro­vide “brain train­ing too”…you need to see some­thing more spe­cif­ic, like what cog­ni­tive or emo­tion­al skill that pro­gram is aimed at)

* 4. Does the pro­gram tell me what part of my brain or which cog­ni­tive skill I am exer­cis­ing, and is there an inde­pen­dent assess­ment to mea­sure my progress?

(The ques­tion is whether the improve­ment expe­ri­enced in the pro­gram will trans­fer into real life. For that to hap­pen we need assess­ments that are dis­tinct from the exer­cis­es themselves.)

* 5. Is it a struc­tured pro­gram with guid­ance on how many hours per week and days per week to use it?

(Brain exer­cise is not a mag­ic pill. You have to do the exer­cis­es in order to ben­e­fit, so you need clar­i­ty on the effort required.)

* 6. Do the exer­cis­es vary and teach me some­thing new?

(The only way to exer­cise impor­tant parts of our brain is by tack­ling nov­el challenges.)

* 7. Does the pro­gram chal­lenge and moti­vate me, or does it feel like it would become easy once I learned it?

(Good brain exer­cise requires increas­ing lev­els of difficulty)

* 8. Does the pro­gram fit my per­son­al goals?

(Each indi­vid­ual has dif­fer­ent goals/ needs when it comes to brain health. For exam­ple, some want to man­age anx­i­ety, oth­ers to improve short-term memory…)

* 9. Does the pro­gram fit my lifestyle?

(Some brain exer­cise pro­grams have great short-term results but are very intense. Oth­ers may be bet­ter over time)

* 10. Am I ready and will­ing to do the pro­gram, or would it be too stressful?

(Excess stress reduces, or may even inhib­it, neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis-the cre­ation of new neu­rons-. So, it is impor­tant to make sure not to do things that stress us in unhealthy ways.)

Spe­cial Offer: For a lim­it­ed time, you can receive a com­pli­men­ta­ry copy of our Brain Fit­ness 101 e‑Guide: Answers to your Top 25 Ques­tions, writ­ten by Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, by sub­scrib­ing to our month­ly newslet­ter. You can sub­scribe Here.

You may also enjoy these relat­ed blog posts:

- Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty 101 and Brain Fit­ness Glos­sary: an overview of the emerg­ing sci­ence and some key con­cepts to under­stand it.

- Brain Train­ing Games and “Games”: a 10-Ques­tion Check­list on how to eval­u­ate pro­grams that make brain-relat­ed claims.

- Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science and Psy­chol­o­gy Inter­view Series: in-depth inter­views with 11 sci­en­tists and experts in cog­ni­tive train­ing and brain fitness.

- Books on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and mem­o­ry train­ing: reviews of Train Your Brain, Change Your Mind, by Sharon Beg­ley, and The Brain That Changes Itself, by Nor­man Doidge. Both books are fas­ci­nat­ing and pow­er­ful; each would have mer­it­ed appear­ing in the 2007 New York Times List of 100 Notable Books.

Final­ly, this is one on the impor­tant top­ics we cov­er in our Sem­i­nars, so let us know if your orga­ni­za­tion needs more information.

All about Brain Fitness

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We are very hap­py to see how the sci­ence-based brain fit­ness field is emerg­ing, and we have pre­pared a Hot Top­ics sec­tion to keep you well informed. Our Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer, Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, has been writ­ing about brain fit­ness for many years. Here you have a selec­tion of the most pop­u­lar posts: Hot Top­ics on Mem­o­ry, Brain Fit­ness, Brain Teasers, Men­tal Exer­cise, Stress Man­age­ment, Phys­i­cal Exer­cise, Nutri­tion, News, Prod­ucts, Events, Stu­dents, Sci­ence, Resources, and more.

We are also open­ing up our mod­er­at­ed Mes­sage Boards to every­one inter­est­ed in learn­ing and shar­ing. You can self-reg­is­ter to cre­ate a new forum account and join the con­ver­sa­tion. Jump in and start ask­ing ques­tions and give us feedback!

This is a new field, and we are hap­py to con­tribute, and to lis­ten. Look­ing for­ward a stim­u­lat­ing dialogue!

Are there specific brain fitness programs for kids? My kids have problems with math.

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Here is ques­tion 22 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions.

Question:

Are there spe­cif­ic brain fit­ness pro­grams for kids? My kids have prob­lems with math-why should they do these things that may dis­tract them?

Key Points:
  • Learn­ing stress man­age­ment skills can reduce test anx­i­ety and improve learn­ing readiness.
  • If stress lev­els are too high, con­cen­tra­tion and focus are neg­a­tive­ly impacted.
Answer:

[Read more…] about Are there spe­cif­ic brain fit­ness pro­grams for kids? My kids have prob­lems with math.

Customer Satisfaction Survey/ Tech Museum Awards

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We usu­al­ly spend more time in this blog talk­ing about brain fit­ness sci­ence, pro­grams and trends than talk­ing about peo­ple. Today we are going to change that, since we have been receiv­ing great feed­back from a num­ber of sources. While we still need to improve a lot, we can start to see the results of what we do in our “brain fit­ness cen­ter”. And we could­n’t be hap­pi­er about the nom­i­na­tion this week of Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and myself, as Sharp­Brains cofounders, for The Tech Muse­um Awards — Tech­nol­o­gy Ben­e­fit­ing Human­i­ty, in the Health category.

I. Anony­mous Feed­back from an online sur­vey of our online store cus­tomers

  • 58% respon­dents are Very Sat­is­fied, and 42% Sat­is­fied, with the prod­ucts and ser­vices they chose. I promise that there were more options (Dis­sat­is­fied, Very Dissatisfied)
  • “As a trad­er, I real­ly need to sus­tain atten­tion for long peri­ods. Your pro­gram (here) has been eye-open­ing and very helpful.”
  • “I LOVE the pro­gram! It is fun, chal­lenges me and gives me hope for improv­ing in the areas where I have lim­i­ta­tions. Staff sup­port & edu­ca­tion­al infor­ma­tion has been great. It is very impor­tant to be able to talk to some­one about the ques­tions or process prob­lems that we experience…your mem­ber on-line site gives us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get answers & need­ed sup­port. Thanks for all you are doing. My hus­band and I love get­ting feed­back about our progress…it is a very pos­i­tive experience!”
  • “Keep devel­op­ing pro­grams so when we fin­ish doing the Mind­Fit (here) pro­gram there will be anoth­er one to build upon the first! I am impressed at how well your pro­grams are indi­vid­u­al­ized. Good Job to all involved!”
  • “Good, I enjoy the games (here) and I can tell a dif­fer­ence in my mem­o­ry and over­all awareness.”

II. Feed­back about our Stress Man­age­ment for Peak Per­for­mance work­shop (here)

MindFit Corporate and Freeze-Framer for Memory and Brain Fitness

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Cog­ni­tive train­ing and stress man­age­ment, Mind­Fit and Freeze-Framer (or emWave): two com­ple­men­tary sides of Brain Fitness.

Research shows that adults can and should take care of their brains, both for short-term and long-term ben­e­fits. Through brain exer­cise we can improve our over­all cog­ni­tive func­tion right now—making quick deci­sions, stay­ing calm and focused under pres­sure, and mul­ti­task­ing effec­tive­ly. Over time, we may not reduce our brain age, but we can build up a cog­ni­tive reserve to buffer against age-relat­ed cog­ni­tive decline or oth­er pro­gres­sive dis­eases. Short term and long term, we all want to lead pro­duc­tive, suc­cess­ful lives.

Any good brain fit­ness pro­gram must pro­vide you a vari­ety of new chal­lenges over time. While recre­ation­al activ­i­ties like bridge, sudoku, and cross­word puz­zles can work our brain, only a com­pre­hen­sive tool based in sci­en­tif­ic research, like Mind­Fit, can work your men­tal mus­cles sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly through a com­plete­ly indi­vid­u­al­ized train­ing reg­i­men for [Read more…] about Mind­Fit Cor­po­rate and Freeze-Framer for Mem­o­ry and Brain Fitness

Baby Boomers, Healthy Aging and Job Performance

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There has been an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion about the issues relat­ed to the aging of the legal pro­fes­sion. Stephanie intro­duced us to the arti­cle “the Gray­ing Bar: let’s not for­get the ethics” by David Giacalone.

In short: sta­tis­tics about the increas­ing ratio of lawyers over 70 in active prac­tice, on the one hand, and the gen­er­al inci­dence of Alzheimer’s and oth­er demen­tias, on the oth­er, lead David to point out an increas­ing like­li­hood that some lawyers may be prac­tic­ing in less than ide­al con­di­tions for their clients, beyond a rea­son­able “brain age”. The ques­tion then becomes: who and how can solve this prob­lem, which is only going to grow giv­en demo­graph­ic trends?.

We are not legal experts, but would like to inform the debate by offer­ing 10 con­sid­er­a­tions on healthy aging and job per­for­mance from a neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal point of view, that apply to all occupations:

1- We should talk more about change than about decline, as Sharon Beg­ley wrote recent­ly in her great arti­cle on The Upside of Aging — WSJ.com (sub­scrip­tion required).

We dis­cussed some of these effects with Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, who wrote his great book The Wis­dom Para­dox pre­cise­ly on this point, at The Exec­u­tive Brain and How our Minds Can Grow Stronger.

2- Some skills improve as we age: In our “Exer­cis­ing Our Brains” Class­es, we typ­i­cal­ly explain how some areas typ­i­cal­ly improve as we age, such as self-reg­u­la­tion, emo­tion­al func­tion­ing and Wis­dom (which means mov­ing from Prob­lem solv­ing to Pat­tern recog­ni­tion). As a lawyer accu­mu­lates more cas­es under his/ her belt, he or she devel­ops an auto­mat­ic “intu­ition” for solu­tions and strate­gies. As long as the envi­ron­ment does­n’t change too rapid­ly, this grow­ing wis­dom is very valuable.

3- …where­as, yes, oth­ers typ­i­cal­ly decline: [Read more…] about Baby Boomers, Healthy Aging and Job Performance