Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

mental muscles

A few brain teasers to flex those cognitive muscles over the weekend

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Look around you, wher­ev­er you are, and find three green things that may fit in your pock­ets, and three red objects that are clear­ly too big to fit.

Done?

OK, now you have six objects.

Go ahead and say their names in alpha­bet­i­cal order. 

Done?

Now name them in reverse alpha­bet­i­cal order.

Done?

Now count the total num­ber of syl­la­bles in those six words.

Not easy, right? 

All these men­tal oper­a­tions engage your work­ing mem­o­ry — think of work­ing mem­o­ry as your tem­po­rary men­tal work­space where you can hold and inte­grate sev­er­al units of infor­ma­tion at once.

Feel free to prac­tice in dif­fer­ent loca­tions … you can take these brain teasers with you, any­where you go 🙂

To explore more fun brain teaser games and puzzles:

Five quick brain teasers to flex those Attention and Working Memory mental muscles

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Look­ing for some fun cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion to kick­start the week?

Below you’ll find a few brain teasers to chal­lenge your atten­tion and your work­ing mem­ory–the abil­ity to keep infor­ma­tion in your mind while manip­u­lat­ing mul­ti­ple units of infor­ma­tion at the same time.

Giv­en them a try … they are not as easy as they may sound 🙂 [Read more…] about Five quick brain teasers to flex those Atten­tion and Work­ing Mem­o­ry men­tal muscles

Trend: More healthcare and research facilities offer multipronged brain fitness programs

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BrainFitnessJigsaw_webCan an exer­cise rou­tine real­ly help keep your men­tal “mus­cles” in good shape? (Har­vard Health Letter):

“Fear of los­ing your mem­o­ry and think­ing skills is one of the great­est con­cerns of get­ting old­er. Maybe that’s behind the increas­ing num­ber of clin­ics offer­ing brain fit­ness pro­grams. “Brain train­ing” isn’t a typ­i­cal exer­cise pro­gram; it incor­po­rates a num­ber of activ­i­ties and lifestyle changes to help boost brain func­tion. “It makes very good sense to pro­mote cog­ni­tive health using a vari­ety of approach­es. I embrace it even as we await more data,” says Dr. Kirk Daffn­er, a neu­rol­o­gist and med­ical edi­tor of the Har­vard Spe­cial Health Report Improv­ing Memory…Hospitals and research facil­i­ties offer brain fit­ness pro­grams, and so do pri­vate prac­tices. “Ide­al­ly you want peo­ple who have done this for a long time and who offer a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach, with a neu­rol­o­gist, psy­chol­o­gist, social work­er, phys­i­cal ther­a­pist, and dietit­ian,” says Dr. Pascual-Leone.”

To learn more: