They suggest mental exercises such as playing logic or math games, doing your own taxes, figuring out calculations yourself before breaking out the calculator and studying a new language.
In addition to mental exercises to challenge your mind, the "brain wellness program" includes; consistent social interaction, physical exercise, a low-fat diet, stress management and meditation.
The article mentions three specific tools to use in your brain exercise program including - "Brain Age" a Nintendo DS game, "Happy Neuron" a website associated with the authors of "Dental Floss for the Mind" and "Sudoku" games.
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Brain Age
, is a Nintendo DS game, that you can pick up from Amazon for $18.95.Brain Age is fun, and has enough variety to keep you interested enough to come back for daily exercise. It would be a great game to have while you are waiting somewhere and want something worthwhile to occupy your time. This is a game for students, parents and grandparents to play.
You'll need a Nintendo DS to play "Brain Age". Target offers the Nintendo DS Lite - Onyx Black for the list price of $129.99. They a little hard to come by right now because of the Christmas rush (people are asking around $176.00 for them on Amazon currently) but I'm sure they'll be back on store shelves and online pretty quick since Nintendo doesn't want to lose out on would-be buyers.
The Ninteno DS Lite looks pretty cool -
The Ninteno DS Lite looks pretty cool -
The DS Lite is compact, lightweight and comes in pink, white or black. The basic $129 DS Lite package does not include any games. It comes with an extra stylus (there's one stored in a slot on the game as well), and an ac adapter. Nintendo says the battery life will range from 5 to 19 hours depending on the application and screen brightness setting.
The DS Lite has voice and handwriting recognition capability, as well as wireless connectivity for communicating with other DS Lite players over short distances.
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Happy Neuron has links to various articles on the benefits of exercising our brains as well as tips for brain workouts. There are some free trial games but they charge 10 dollars a month or 100 dollars for a year's membership - allowing you access to all the games. According to the Happy Neuron website,
"Happy Neuron’s entertaining and challenging games are fun AND scientifically developed to keep our brains fit. Based on personal progress, Happy Neuron will also provide you new challenges."
Happy Neuron features the book Dental Floss for the Mind
written by Dr. Michel Noir a cognitive psychologist, and Dr. Bernard Croisile who is a neurologist and neuropsychologist.The Happy Neuron website provides the following information on the authors -
"Dr. Noir is a cognitive psychologist with a creative background, including having authored 15 books on subjects ranging from art to mysteries to cognitive exercises. He previously had a distinguished career in government. He received his Graduate Diploma, Advanced Graduate Diploma, and Master’s in Public Law from Paris Law Faculty. He later received an Advanced Graduate Diploma in Political Science and a Ph.D in Educational Sciences from Lyon II University.
Dr. Croisile, who is both an MD and Ph.D., is a respected neurologist and neuropsychologist with an international reputation for his research on aging and cognition. He was the recipient of the Alzheimer's Disease Parke-David Award in 1998 and has written several hundred peer-reviewed articles for scientific publications, papers, and book chapters on aging and cognition, and spoken at hundreds of professional conferences on the prevention of dementia and age-related cognitive decline."
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"Sudoku" is a logic game using grids where you have to use the digits 1 through 9 in each row and column (these logic puzzles can be made using pictures or colors as well). It's fun - you can read about at Sudoku at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and find Sudoku games at Web Sudoku - Billions of Free Sudoku Puzzles to Play Online.
This game is sometimes attributed to Leonhard Euler for his work using Latin Squares.
