Brain Health & Brain Fitness Blog » logic game

Brain Games: Hidden Gem Bingo

Michael Cole — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:04:48 +0000

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!

Brain Health in our Home

Dr. Paul Nussbaum — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:13:14 +0000

Brain health can occur wherever brains exist! The home is a setting that is often neglected regarding brain health. Ask yourself the question….is my home a setting for brain health?

Turning to Dr. Nussbaum’s brain health lifestyle we know there are five factors or slices of the brain health pie. These include (1) socialization, (2) physical activity, (3) mental stimulation, (4) nutrition, and (5) spirituality. You can apply the activities within each of these brain health slices in your home and a brain health residence will be born.

Consider the following brain health for the home tips:

1. Increase the number of social events in your home. This includes meetings, parties, and simply having friends or family over. Remember brain health is a lifespan issue so all age groups need a little attention and love (Socialization).

2. Increase the number of meals that include fish (salmon, herring, sardines), unsalted nuts including walnuts, fruits and vegetables. Eat at least one meal a day when the family and friends sit down and spend quality time together. Eating with utensils also promotes healthier food consumption and less caloric intake (Nutrition).

3. Get the family on a regular exercise program that includes daily walks, some form of aerobic exercise, dance, gardening and even knitting. You want to promote physical activity and increased cardiovascular activity (Physical Activity).

4. Have everyone in the family engage in mental exercise on a daily basis. This should involve something that is novel and complex (not passive and rote). Play a family board game, complete a Fit Brains game online, write a short story, talk and debate world affairs and even take a trip as a family to a new area of your region (Mental Stimulation).

5. Make sure the family is getting plenty of sleep, take time to slow down and simply have time to be rather than to complete some task. Relaxation procedures, meditation, prayer and yoga can help slow the world down. Give yourself 30 minutes a day to do what you want. Remove some of the stress from your life (Spirituality).

These are some simple tips for turning your own home into a brain health residence!

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

Activity and Breast Cancer Survival

Dr. Paul Nussbaum — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:10:02 +0000

While 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.

How about Golf and Brain Health

Dr. Paul Nussbaum — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:09:08 +0000

Before all of you jump up and down celebrating another reason to miss work and play 18, let me remind you that this particular blog is speculative with some educated guess mixed in. Having said that, I am happy to for any grant funding to study the effects of playing golf on brain health!

I began to think about the health benefits of golf some time ago, but I grew more interested during a few rounds of the game with my son. As you know, I have proposed and studied five major domains to my brain health lifestyle: these include socialization, mental stimulation (brain fitness, brain games), physical activity, spirituality, and nutrition. Golf certainly includes four of the five components and may include all five.

Golf is a game that is social. In fact, one typically plays the game with another partner and sometimes three other partners. An even more brain healthy opportunity arises when one plays the game alone and is matched with strangers to play the round. This forces a “complex and novel” environment on you that promotes brain health.

Golf is a game that certainly involves physical activity, particularly if you walk and do not ride in a cart. As 25% of the blood from each heartbeat goes to the brain there can be tremendous blood perfusion to the brain during a game of golf. This simply considers the walking and not the swinging and body motion mechanics of the golf swing.

Golf involves mental stimulation in the forms of conversation and story telling with your partners, arithmetic calculations while keeping score which can involve three digits, keeping track of your shots which demands memory, and probably trying to keep track of your partner’s shots so there is no funny business going on. There is also planning, strategy and decision making, judgment, and estimation of distance and space skills involved.

Golf can be a spiritual experience to reduce stress, have fun, slow down, and enjoy nature. Golf courses tend to provide nice scenery and a pleasant surrounding. Golf provides you an opportunity to reflect and to set priorities.

Finally, Golf can include good nutrition if the proper foods and beverages are selected before, during, and after the game. Fruits, vegetables, and fish are always great items in a brain health diet.

I believe golf is a natural activity that provides many aspects of the brain health lifestyle I have discussed and written about. So long as one does not let a poor shot or poor score raise his or her stress level too much!

Hit the links, it might just be good for your brain!

Try the Fit Brains brain games.

Physical and Mental Exercise – Both Good for the Brain

Michael Cole — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 18:51:51 +0000

Two recent studies show further evidence that both physical and brain exercise (e.g. brain games) have a positive impact on the brain. In the first study, USA Today reports “children who play vigorously for 20 to 40 minutes a day may be better able to organize schoolwork, do class projects and learn mathematics”. In the second study, the BBC reports, “a Dundee school took part in the project to show how computer games can enhance and build on classroom learning”. These studies illustrate the need for education systems to include more physical and mental exercise in the curriculum.

In the last several years, similar studies have been published that indicate the same holds true for adults. With a global aging population, both physical and brain fitness are important and need to be apart of our daily life. As a society, we should all make an effort to keep our bodies and minds functioning at a high level. For more information on these articles, click on the links below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7064196.stm·

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-10-29-exercise-brains_N.htm

Dr. Paul Nussbaum, Fit Brains and Brain Health- Part 2

Dr. Paul Nussbaum — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:11:04 +0000

Here is part 2 to the inital brain health blog from Dr. Nussbaum

Your Brain Health

1. Brain health begins in the womb and needs to be promoted across your lifespan.

2. Engage in the novel and complex not the rote and passive.

3. Consider the following Brain Health Lifestyle to build up your brain reserve:

Five Domains of the Brain Health Lifestyle: Socialization

Do not isolate or segregate as you get older. People who isolate have a higher risk for dementia.
Join groups and social organizations in your community.
Maintain and build your friendship and family network.
Be forgiving.
Develop hobbies.
Do not retire.

Physical Activity

Walk between 7,000 and 12,000 steps daily. Walking several times a week reduces the risk of dementia.
Buy yourself a pedometer to remind yourself to walk and to keep track of your daily steps.
Dance as this is a behavior that reduces the risk of dementia.
Garden and Knitting reduce the risk of dementia.
Aerobic exercise will help the heart and thereby feed the brain with the necessary blood and oxygen. It also promotes cognitive functioning such as memory and is now believed to relate to positive structural changes in the brain.
Use both sides of your body more often: Become ambidextrous.

Mental Stimulation

Play Fit Brains brain games
Learn a second language.
Read and write (use your nondominant hand) on a daily basis: the more complex the better.
Learn sign language as it increases IQ and increased IQ reduces the risk of dementia.
Play board games as board game playing reduces the risk of dementia.
Travel reduces the risk of dementia because it involves a new and complex environment.
Play a musical instrument.
Listen to classic music as it helps to increase learning.
Problem solve.

Spirituality

Pray on a daily basis as it enhances your immune system.
Attend regularly a formal place of worship at it relates to better quality of life and longevity.
Learn to meditate in order to slow down. Animals exposed to environments that are too stimulating demonstrate slowed brain development.
Learn relaxation procedures with deep breathing and muscle relaxation.
Slow down and do not be afraid to say “no”.

Nutrition

Eat 80% of what you intend to eat at each meal. Reasonable caloric restriction can increase your longevity.
Eat with utensils and you will eat less and also eat healthier foods.
Increase your intake of Omega 3 fatty acids. This includes fatty fish such as salmon, sardines, and herring. Several ounces of salmon weekly reduce the risk of dementia. Walnuts and unsalted nuts are also good for you.
Increase your intake of antioxidants. This includes Vitamins C and E. Colored fruits (grapes, apples, cantaloupe, and berries) and vegetables are good for you. The FDA recommends five servings of fruit and vegetables a day.
Decrease your intake of processed foods and red meats. Lean meat such as chicken breast without skin is relatively okay.
Green leafy vegetables are good for you.
Eat one sit down meal with others a day. This activity provides many brain boosting effects at once (classic music, language, eating with utensils, slowing down, eating healthier foods).