Tag Archives: Fit Brains

The Wonder Juice Machine

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The Wonder-Juice Machine is a brain game of Executive Functions (Logic) that strengthens your deductive and visual skills. Use your skills of reasoning to direct a variety of colorful fruit and vegetables through a tricky, juice-making contraption, in order to create healthy “Wonder Juice” smoothies for your customers. The puzzles get more challenging as the game progresses, so be sure to put on your thinking cap!

Features:

  • Game helps to strengthen Logic and Reasoning skills in a fun way
  • Healthy theme includes hundreds of nutrition tips and healthy smoothie recipes
  • Hours of challenging puzzles for all levels of players, from easy to hard

The Wonder Juice Machine is a game of Logic. Click here to play The Wonder Juice Machine!
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Brain Games: Street of Dreams

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Street of DreamsStreet of Dreams blends attention and memory exercises into an increasingly-challenging, dream home building brain game. You are an up-and-coming architect, looking to become a world-renowned Dream Home Builder. You purchase land and construct homes, seeking to create a valuable “Street of Dreams”. Building and selling premium homes earns you cash to build your very own Ultimate Dream Home.

Features:

  • Engaging word association game that requires strong contrentration
  • Object of the game is to build a beautiful dream home
  • Hundreds of hours of brain stimulating gameplay

Street of Dreams is a concentration game. Click here to play Street of Dreams!

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Brain Tips For Those Winter Months

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snowflakes.jpgIt is important to point out that I am not a fan of the winter season. In fact, I dread it and would rather be on a beach somewhere! However, regardless of my personal stuff, it is important to keep our brains active and engaged in the brain health lifestyle regardless of the season.
For some, the winter season does not represent a change in the options available to follow the brain health lifestyle. If you live in a part of the world where the sun continues to shine throughout the year keep your brain health lifestyle active over the 12 months. For those of us who actually see snow our options to venture outside may be limited at times.
Winter can be a time of increased stress and simultaneously a time for creativity and increased family time. Consider the following ideas for brain health this winter:

  1. Save your pennies and get a family membership to a gym or exercise club. Set up the family schedule for exercising together and use the gym as the snow may keep you inside at times.
  2. Break out the skis and get some exercise from this sport. Cross country skiing is also a great physical exercise.
  3. Try to walk in the snow if it is not dangerous.
  4. Break out the board games and have a family game night. This includes some family fun with Fit Brains brain games.
  5. Try to have winter as a time for getting your brain health diet started. Have a family member pick a night to help cook a brain health dinner.
  6. Have some friends and family over once a week.
  7. Start a family book club in which each family member will read one or two books during the three months of winter.
  8. Try to reduce driving in dangerous conditions during the winter as this will reduce your stress.
  9. When the sun does surface, get outside as you will benefit from the Vitamin D.
  10. Take a day or two and get the family together to make a snowman or go sled riding (wear a helmet).

While the winter can limit our opportunities for brain health, it also offers us a time to be creative and to increase family experiences.

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

Activity and Breast Cancer Survival

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pinkribbon.jpgWhile it might seem odd to write about breast cancer on a site dedicated to brain health, there are two compelling reasons to do so: First, many of us have a loved one who has been diagnosed with breast cancer and second, activity is one of the major components of the brain health lifestyle.
A recent study conducted at the Yale School of Medicine indicates women who stay active after being diagnosed with breast cancer have a better chance of surviving the disease. This includes those who take up exercise for the first time after diagnosis and even if the women just do a little exercise. This study reinforces many other studies that link exercise to reduction in risk of breast cancer.
Women who got the equivalent of two to three hours of brisk walking each week in the year before they were diagnosed with breast cancer were 31 percent less likely to die of the disease than women who were sedentary before the diagnosis. Further, two years after diagnosis, women who did any recreational activities at all had nearly 65% lower risk of dying then women who were inactive at that point. Women who got at least two hours of brisk walking in weekly reduced their risk of death by 67%. Perhaps most glaring is the study’s finding that women who decreased their physical activity after diagnosis were actually four times more likely to die of breast cancer than those who remained sedentary.

In all, exercise is an important lifestyle behavior for women undergoing breast cancer treatment.

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

Do Computerized Brain Regimens Really Help?

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This is a typical question raised by the market as the business of computerized brain fitness software grows. It is clear that the human brain is capable of being shaped with greatest growth seen perhaps in the latter rather than younger years. There are a variety of products to choose from and the consumer is correct to have questions about the what and why regarding these software training games.

Research has been published supporting both the short term and long term benefits (five years) of using computerized brain fitness software to improve cognitive skills. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed study participants improved their fluid intelligence after consistent training. Researchers explained the utility of such training due to its complexity and transfer of skill acquisition to multiple cognitive domains, not just to the skill being trained. This is one way computerized training is explained to be better than crossword puzzles that may simply train a procedure.

To the extent that brain fitness software provides novel and complex stimuli (e.g. brain games), is fun, and is practical with application to everyday mental challenges I believe it will survive and thrive. If the software training programs are mundane, non personal and not fun the consumer will likely not remain engaged. The latter is a necessary factor for success of the computerized training.

Consumers would be wise to review the science behind the computerized training, select products that they will use, products that provide training in real world cognitive challenges, and that are fun.

Golden Era for Brain Health

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What a great time to be alive if you are interested in your own brain and how to promote its health! With the daily reports of a new finding on how to promote brain health, the development of new companies with products for brain fitness (e.g. brain games), and with the boomers generating a booming interest in this part of their being, we really are in the “golden era of brain health.”

I am so very fortunate to have been involved with brain health more than a decade ago and to witness what I described then as the emerging “Brain Wave” that was coming. It is here and we will all be better for the fact that the human brain has found its way onto the radar screen of health.

A national and world wide discussion of the human brain with a focus on proactive lifestyle towards promotion of brain health is a great and needed thing. Dementia is a real problem and a growing concern. We have the ability to be proactive and to focus on an optimistic and positive path forward as we try to implement research-based behaviors to brain reserve. By building our own brain reserve across our lifespan we probably increase our chances of delaying the onset of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

The next step to this growing brain wave is for the governmental bodies to pass legislation that incorporates national emphasis on the brain similar to what we have done for the heart; for health care payers to include incentives for leading a brain health lifestyle that might recognize lifelong learning, brain fitness, use of pedometers, diet, and meditation as critical ingredients to brain health, and for continued innovation in the business world to apply research to the market.

What a great day to be interested in promoting your own brain health!

Exercise Very Important For The Brain

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We have no cure or perfect prevention against progressive dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, research over the past decade or more has established consistent links between lifestyle and the ability to delay the onset of such dementias. I have proposed a “Brain Health Lifestyle” to include five major factors: (1) physical activity, (2) mental stimulation, (3) socialization, (4) nutrition, (5) and spirituality.

A recent interview on ABC News suggested that physical exercise may be the best means of preventing AD today, better than medications, intellectual activity, and supplements. Studies on mice bred to develop plaques in their brains consistent with AD were exposed to an exercise regimen or not. Those mice that exercised had 50 to 80 percent less plaque than the brains of mice that were passive. Other studies have demonstrated generation of new brain cells in animals that exercise and a relationship in humans between physical exercise and increased cognitive performance.

One important point is that our body does not operate in a fragmented manner. I describe the brain and body as a miraculous symphony. One system directly impacts another and both health and disease effects can be experienced as a result throughout the body. Exercise is one example of a behavior that has positive impact on multiple systems of the body including the brain. The same can be said for the other four brain health lifestyle behaviors noted above.

While I am not yet sure that any one behavior such as exercise is better than another in promoting brain health, I do champion regular exercise as a very important behavior with positive brain health effects. My view is to approach brain health from an integrated manner using the five part brain health lifestyle. This approach fits with the complex integrated reality of our bodies and brains.

Personalization with Mental Exercise

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The market has witnessed a surge in the brain fitness software industry. More companies are purporting to be the best at training your brain and helping to sharpen cognitive or thinking skills.

One primary concern for this industry is to create software that is both fun and personally relevant. In fact, a primary focus of FitBrains is to be the leader of fun and personal relevance within the industry of brain fitness software. I believe that brain games can be both fun and have real life and personal value to a consumer.

We are all confronted with life’s daily challenges, each of which places demands on our brain for solutions or action. It is within this arena that FitBrains has captured the personal value: creating brain games that actually tap into real world challenges for the consumer. How many times have you lost a pair of socks in the laundry, forgotten the name of someone you met, misplaced your car keys or perhaps the car itself in the parking garage? Life provides us with real world games and the opportunity for real world mental exercise.

FitBrains takes this reality and champions brain fitness for the fun and personally relevant. We believe your arousal level will increase and you will be more deeply engaged in our brain games. Why? The task is more valuable or meaningful to you as a person. Companies that simply develop memory games or language games without the value of personal relevance are simply tasks to be completed. Personalization sparks long term commitment by the consumer for a healthy brain.

Mood and Cognitive Functions

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Your brain operates electrically and chemically. Neurochemicals form the dynamic foundation for our thoughts and emotions. Many neurochemicals have been identified while many more have not. Neurochemicals important to mood include Serotonin, Neuropinephrine, Neuroadrenaline, and Dopamine. These neurochemicals remain in healthy balance for most of us, but for some there is imbalance and a mood disorder can result.

Effects of a mood disorder such as depression or mania include functional decline, interpersonal difficulty, and cognitive impairment. Depression is far more common than realized and represents a major chronic illness similar to high blood pressure. Depression not only affects the specific person, but it can also affect negatively those close to the patient and to potential colleagues. Depression and mania impairs thinking by reducing focus, attention, memory, and ability to execute plans. A depressed brain cannot process as deeply as necessary and this can result in rather significant cognitive impairment at times. Uncontrolled mania results in high distractibility, poor attention, and generally impaired cognitive functions across the board.

Treatments for mood disorder are effective and include use of antidepressants, mood stabilizers for mania, psychotherapy, and following a brain health lifestyle as espoused by Dr. Nussbaum (www.paulnussbaum.com). Use of software similar to that of FitBrains that helps to stimulate mental activity can also be of some use for a brain that may be sluggish. The most important thing is to first identify depression when it arises, take it seriously, and get some help.

Alzheimer’s Disease in the United States

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A leading cause of brain disease in the United States is Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Named after Dr. Alzheimer who published a paper in 1907 describing the cognitive and functional decline of a female patient, this disease now affects nearly 5 million people. It is estimated that those affected by AD will triple by 2050.

AD is the leading cause of progressive dementia. The disease typically erodes memory, spatial functions, language, personality and functional ability. The course of the disease approximates 10-12 years and those over the age of 85 are most at risk. Additional risk factors include female gender, family history of dementia, mood disorder, diabetes, and stroke. The cause is not known and there are no known cures or prevention.

Treatments exist to help reduce the impact of particular symptoms and early detection has advanced significantly. New treatments are being researched and these should be to market in the near future. Lifestyle for brain health has also generated new attention and interest. One aspect of a brain health lifestyle is mental stimulation, a primary function of FitBrains.

If your loved one is experiencing memory loss and there is some concern about this change it is advised that he or she receive a comprehensive dementia examination. This will help to discern if the memory and other cognitive changes fall outside the range of normal and if dementia is present. Early detection is important because existing treatments can be started.