Mind games that can sharp­en the brain (Mia­mi Her­ald):

“A great resource for find­ing “mind games,” or what’s pop­u­lar­ly know as “brain train­ing,” is the web­site of Sharp­Brains, a com­pa­ny that tracks health and well­ness appli­ca­tions of brain sci­ence. Its founder and CEO, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, writes in his blog that, “Any­thing we do involv­ing nov­el­ty, vari­ety and chal­lenge stim­u­lates the brain and can con­tribute to build­ing capac­i­ty and brain reserve.”

Fer­nan­dez advis­es choos­ing a game “that exer­cis­es a core brain-based capac­i­ty … that is rel­e­vant to real-life out­comes.” For exam­ple, in his list of the “ Top 50 Brain Teasers and Games” that his read­ers have enjoyed the most Read the rest of this entry »

Mind Games? Gyms For The Brain Avail­able Online (Investor’s Busi­ness Dai­ly):

• “If your New Year’s res­o­lu­tion is exer­cise — exer­cise your brain, that is — then cyber­space might be just the place for you… Read the rest of this entry »

We just select­ed and cat­e­go­rized the Top 50 Brain Teasers and Games that Sharp­Brains read­ers have been enjoy­ing the most.

Here are a few sam­ples…

Fun exper­i­ments on how our brains work

1. You think you know the col­ors? Try the Stroop Test

3. Take the Sens­es Chal­lenge (Inter­ac­tive)

Atten­tion and memory

7. Count the Fs in this sen­tence

9. Proud of your visu­al mem­ory? Give a try at “Picas­so” (Inter­ac­tive)

10. Is your atten­tion bet­ter than a chimp’s? (Inter­ac­tive)

–> For more, vis­it these  Top 50 Brain Teasers and Games and test your per­cep­tu­al and cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties…

Are you famil­iar with men­tal rota­tion? It refers to mov­ing things around in your head. It is one of the numer­ous visu­ospa­tial skills that we all have.

Let’s take an exam­ple. Can you pic­ture in your head an arrow point­ing to the right? Now, turn this arrow so it points to the left. Done? You have just per­formed a men­tal rota­tion. Although it is rare to con­scious­ly imag­ine objects mov­ing, peo­ple auto­mat­i­cal­ly use this abil­ity when they read maps, use tools, play chess, arrange fur­ni­ture, dri­ve in traf­fic, etc.

Men­tal rota­tion relies most­ly on the pari­etal areas of your brain (yel­low sec­tion in the brain image above).

Here is a brain exer­cise to stim­u­late your men­tal rota­tion skills.

• The top shape is your mod­el.
• Among the 3 shapes below the mod­el, only one match­es the mod­el. To fig­ure out which one does you will prob­a­bly have to move the shapes around in your head.
• Move the shapes from left to right or right to left but DO NOT FLIP them around.

First set

Sec­ond set

Third Set

To see the cor­rect answers click here: Read the rest of this entry »

Quick note: Yahoo! has cre­at­ed an expand­ed sec­tion with opti­cal illu­sions and brain teasers, and we were glad to con­tribute to it. You can enjoy it Here.

Once you are done, you can find many more brain teasers here.