Saturday 9 June 2012

Brain Training - does it work?

Welcome to my blog!  This post is going to review my favourite Brain Training system - Lumosity.  Does it work?  I think so!

Lumosity provides brain training in 5 key areas - Speed, Memory, Attention, Flexibility and Problem Solving.  You can choose which areas to develop, and it should be fairly obvious after a few games where you have a weak spot!  For instance, see my Brain Profile below:



Emma was not surprised to see that Memory was significantly weaker in my profile (I am still impressed how she can always remember the location of wherever I put my shoes / keys / passport etc!).

This is interesting enough, however the page I always find myself viewing (not that I'm competitive or anything!) is the 'how you compare' feature:


As you can see, Lumosity will rank you against others in your age group.  This is based on your top 5 scores in each game for each category.

Whilst you will obviously improve with practice, it is actually recommended that you do NOT spend too long training your brain each day.  You will get much more benefit out of 10 separate half hour sessions than a single 5 hour session!

The scoring feature above is based on your 'daily session' which takes approx 10 mins or so to complete.  You are shown a graph for how you've improved:


The website will show you the science behind the training, and whilst some may be sceptical, I am pretty convinced that I now have a better brain for:

 - arithmetic
 - remembering names
 - peripheral vision

and other areas.   Besides, and - perhaps more importantly - its fun!  

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