Mind training and meditation is now being used by some parts of the military. The mind body connection is now being recognized by military leaders to teach soldiers how to build confidence, set goals and channel their energy to a higher focus. The benefits of such training include better aim on the shooting range, higher test scores, enhanced ability to handle combat stress and to adjust back to civilian life. In fact nearly 70% of a small sample of soldiers who completed the training reported they felt better able to handle stressful situations and 66% had improved self control.

Neural energies is a term I use to describe the brain’s ability to modify or control internal workings of the body and external experiences. The mind training is but a first step to more advanced neural energy utilization that we will witness in the near future.

Fuel for Life is unique nutrition-focused brain game designed to strengthen your logic skills, including: organization, routine, mental flexibility & working memory. The game also designed to inspire motivation towards a healthier lifestyle. Combining life-relevant information with an endearing Life Goal scrapbook theme, the game uniquely blends brain fitness, nutritional awareness and fun!

Play Fuel for Life Now!

Stress is an outcome of a diverse and complex interface physiology and psychology that results in increased cortisol, anxiety, depression, cognitive dysfunction, and adverse bodily functions.

Research indicates a relationship between increased cortisol, increased depression, and increased risk of heart disease. Factors that promote stress and lead to this reaction need to be recognized, confronted, and changed. How does one reduce stress?

This is the million dollar question, but the answer does not need to be complicated. One simple remedy for stress reduction is to increase the amount of fun in your life. While this sounds great and even easy, Americans and others may actually find this difficult. Humans tend to fill up all the minutes in their day with tasks and forget to secure free time and fun time in their life.

Games are a good example of fun and stress reduction. Fitbrains.com provides online brain games for mental exercise and to promote cognitive functioning. These brain games are also fun and personal. Consumers indicate that two primary reasons they play online games (like the ones at Fitbrains.com) are for stress reduction and mental stimulation.

If you are experiencing stress in your life and need to try something new to help generate some fun in your life, I suggest you take a few moments and play a brain game or two at Fitbrains.com.

Have some Fun!

Fit brains has been nominated for the 2009 PopVox Awards in 3 categories. Help us win by voting for us:

Best Start Up
http://popvox-misc2.strutta.com/entries#3581

Best Design (Website)
http://popvox-marketing3.strutta.com/entries/3583#3583

Best Games
http://popvox-game2.strutta.com/entries/3584#3584

Voting ends April 30th

Recently, Fitbrains was reviewed by Discovery Magazine

Fitbrains:Comprehensive brain fitness site featuring 10 games plus a word challenge for team play. Tests fall into five cognitive categories: memory, language, concentration, logic/reasoning, and visuospatial skills. Sports a blog and a list of scientific advisers. Boasts “Guilt Free Fun!”

What’s unique: Complex, richly illustrated and thought-out games with different levels and basic story lines. For example, in “Hidden Masterpiece” you are a painting-repair specialist who sells reconstructed works of art at auction, testing visuospatial ability and concentration.

Downsides: After a seven-day free trial expires, the site is $9.95 a month or $79.95 a year. Some games may actually be too complex and time-consuming. In “Busy Bistro” you scan ingredients and cooking instructions, then try to remember the items by filling out a virtual grocery list. That’s just for starters: One round takes almost five minutes, and there are five more courses to follow.

Bonus: Get real recipes from “Busy Bistro,” like Crab and Swiss Melts.

Summed up: Very dynamic. Feels as if you are playing a console-based game at times. You can subscribe to track your progress and meet other Fit Brainers. Suitable for the committed brain athlete.

Rating: 4.5 lobes

The world economic situation is fertile ground for anxiety, some realistic and other perpetuated from misinformation and personal agendas. According to the National Sleep Foundation, One-third of Americans are losing sleep over the state of the U.S. economy and other personal financial concerns. The poll suggests that inadequate sleep is associated with unhealthy lifestyles and negatively impacts health and safety.

The Brain Fitness Blog has reported on this in the past and we believe it is important to take some time to consider the following as methods for coping with these uncertain times:

• 1. Information and knowledge will help to reduce anxiety, even when the information is not positive. Most of us experience anxiety or unease when we are confronted with uncertainty. As such, it is a good idea to spend some time researching the economic issues (stock market, credit, employment, etc) from a variety of viewpoints. You may have noticed that reading and predicting the economy is not a science, but for those in the stock market, there are predictable patterns based on many years of past behavior. This should provide some certainty even though the present represents a turbulent time.
• 2. Meet with your financial planner to review all investments and liabilities. He or she will help you reduce your risk and loss while planning appropriately for the near and long term future.
• 3. Have a family meeting to discuss the issues and to provide a forum to express fears and hopes. Make a family plan that adapts spending and saving to the current market demands.
• 4. Place a focus on your emotional condition and make an extra effort to exercise and eat healthy. This will enable your body to handle the stress better.
• 5. This is a great time to use relaxation procedures such as breathing and progressive muscle relaxation. Meditation is also a good daily activity.
• 6. Have faith in our human innovative and adaptive nature and believe that we will survive this period of uncertainty.
• 7. Reach out to others who may be in a particularly difficult situation and offer them your time and friendship.

Fit Brains brain games.

Memory Mountain Themepark is a brain game designed to strengthen Short-term, Long-term and Visual Memory. You have recently purchased your very own amusement park. You must effectively remember names, faces and personal traits in order to successfully hire a team of skilled workers to operate the rides and help build the park into a world-renowned Flagship Themepark.

Features:

• Improves your memory of names, faces and personal traits
• Strengthens Short-term, Long-term and Visual Memory
• Remember names, faces and personal traits in order to successfully hire a team of skilled workers to operate and help build the park into a world-renowned Flagship Themepark.

Memory Mountain Themepark is a memory game. Click here to play Memory Mountain Themepark

Most everyone remembers the wonderful drama Wizard of Oz in which two of the characters, the Tin Man was searching for his heart and the Scarecrow for his brain. It is interesting to consider how cultures from the beginning of civilization have perceived the human body.

Egyptians buried their royalty after removing every organ from the body but the heart. Shakespeare and others have published classic writings on the heart and the emotions associated with this organ. Indeed, our social language has concluded that the heart is the epicenter of human existence and that our fundamental and deep emotions are housed and expressed there.

Stepping back from a deliberate and conscious consideration of this belief is a cold reality that the heart is a pump that perfuses blood throughout our system. The cold truth is that the heart never deserved to be considered the epicenter of anything! We do not feel, move, or think with the heart anymore than we do with the lungs or pancreas. Amazingly, our culture is so smitten with the heart that we even express ourselves in nonsensical ways such as “I love you with all my heart,” “you broke my heart,” the Steelers played their hearts out,” “the Heartbeat of America.” We even have a holiday dedicated to the heart called Valentines’ Day in which you will observe some (typically men) walking around with red boxes shaped like a heart!

While this is a bit fun we should pause and consider a serious fact that the human brain is the system that provides our emotional, motor, and cognitive abilities. Indeed, our brain is our epicenter and it defines our existence and interaction with the world around us. True the heart is critical for pumping the blood to the brain, but love, grief, laughter, fear, hope, mobility, memory, imagination, creativity, language and so much more are outcomes of the miracle that is our brain.

A basic understanding of this fact helps us to appreciate how wrong our thinking has been since the beginning of time. Fortunately, some of this foolish thinking has actually led to sound and effective policy regarding cardiac health (did you ever notice little red hearts next to foods in your grocery stores or on the menu?). We simply need to take an objective understanding of the facts on the human brain and how important it is to our very existence and begin to apply practice and policy that promotes the health and expansion of the human brain.

Maybe the brain will get its own holiday!!

Hidden Gem Bingo is a colorful, Concentration-based brain game that takes the classic game of Bingo to the next level with challenging new layers designed to improve your focus and attention. Create a variety of “Bingo Words” by matching letters and colors on increasingly complex boards full of gems, bonus patterns, hidden jackpots, and more!

Features:

• Inspired by the widely popular game BINGO, packed with fun Bonuses and other incentives.
• Targets all areas of Concentration, increasing in challenge and complexity as the game progresses.
• Uses strategic gameplay, layered Game Boards and a wide variety of BINGO Words for increased replayability.

Hidden Gem Bingo a concentration game. Click here to play Hidden Gem Bingo!

As most of us get into middle age we might take special notice of our body’s ability to keep a few extra pounds around the waist. Most of us understand the importance of eating healthy and the disease risk associated with extra weight around the belly.

We know that a healthy diet and regular exercise are very important for maintaining a healthy weight and avoiding obesity. However, genetics also plays a role in which an important neurochemical, Dopamine, may play a critical role. Dopamine is the primary neurochemical that regulates our pleasure sensation.

Eating temporarily boosts dopamine levels, but obesity may be associated with fewer Dopamine receptors which lead to less sensation of pleasure with eating. Research now suggests that the brain regions important to Dopamine expression when eating treats such as a milkshake does not get activated in those who are obese.

Interestingly, Dopamine has been studied as a primary mechanism for addiction and impulsive behavior including eating. Attempts are underway to try and understand how Dopamine might be triggered even in obesity to reduce impulsive eating so as to reduce gaining more weight. To read more about Dopamine, click here