Speed Match
The brain works in much the same way as a muscle, and like any muscle it can be developed and made stronger through exercise. Studies by neuroscientists have shown that the brain can be trained throughout a lifetime. Even people who have suffered neurological damage can be rehabilitated to re-learn old cognitive skills because the brain develops new neural pathways.
Keeping an active brain by constantly challenging it in new ways is the best way to improve cognitive abilities. Exercising your brain happens during your day to day activities meeting new people and remembering their names, learning a craft that requires concentration, reading a book with new words in it and a plot you have to keep track of are just some examples. There is also another way to train your brain with online exercises that can help improve things like the ability to solve problems and general intelligence. Yes, brain training can make you smarter and who wouldnt want a way to get ahead in this competitive job market?
Lumosity Speed Match Brain Training Game
Lumosity brain training is an online game-based brain training tool designed by neuroscientists and combine cognitive with neuropsychological tasks which challenge the users congitive abilities. Because just repeating the same tasks over and over again is not sufficient to help the brain to develop new neural pathways, Lumosity games are adaptive and change as the user progresses through them so that the brain is exposed to new experiences. The games change slightly and become more difficult and in this way, the brain is gradually exposed to more challenging tasks. As the user moves through the program, more games are opened up based upon their ability. This is much the same way that a personal trainer in a gym would change up exercises as fitness levels abd abilities improve.
In addition to the games, Lumosity gives great advice on how to incorporate brain training into your life. They suggest starting slowly by training 3 times a week and building up so that it becomes a healthy habit. If you need a little poke to get you moving, they have the option of training reminder emails so you will not forget! The program also tracks your mood and sleep trends by asking how you feel and how much sleep you got at the start of each days training.
You can choose from the selection of specific cognitive abilities within each category that you want to improve, for example in the memory category among the options you can choose from there are tests for remembering patterns and locations or associating names with faces. In the attention category some of the options are ignoring distractions and dividing your attention between multiple tasks and demands. Within speed the choices are reacting quickly and decision-making in time-sensitive situations. Flexibility options include rapidly selecting words from your mental vocabulary and switching between tasks efficiently. Problem Solving gives you the options to use logical reasoning and calculating figures in your head amongst others. Within each category you can choose just some or all of the options. Once you get going with the tests, you can see how you fare in each category within your own age group and other age groups, which if youre a little competitive, can be just the thing to spur you on.
Lumosity also has brain tests which are based upon scientific experiments and measure problem Solving, speed, memory, attention and flexibility. Early on in the program, you get to take the test to set a benchmark and then after 10 weeks of 3-5 workouts a week, you get to take the test again. The test takes between 15 and 30 to execute and the data is then analysed by neuroscientists to help them improve Lumosity, and the participant gets to compare their score against previous tests.
The Lumositys Speed Match game will actually challenge your brain to think more accurately and more quickly. So what are you waiting for? Test your speed today.
Source: Telegraph.co.uk
