Train Your Brain – The Importance of Brain Exercise

“Training your brain is just as important as keeping physically fit.”

In today’s internet era, many people spend much of their time playing games or browsing the web or the social media without any special reason. We certainly like and should take a break and play some games from time to time, in order to relax, which is not so bad. However, the issue occurs when playing games for a long time, which can negatively influence our mind and health. 

We could actually take advantage of the internet and some games and use them to positively influence our brain in order for it to work properly or even better than it did. There’re games, which I call ‘brain games’. They’re very useful for us, since we can improve our reading skills (and speed), focus, memory, agility, logic, vocabulary, and brain activity in general. 

These games vary from the traditional ones, which we can play alone or with our friends ‘offline’ such as chess, scrabble, crosswords, sudoku, jigsaw puzzles, etc. to more ‘technology-advanced’ ones such as different websites or apps. Speaking of which, my favourite ones are Lumosity, Elevate and Peak, which I highly recommend, because they’re professionally done and all the games are made by neuroscientists. We can also keep track of our progress and see how much we’ve improved, which can give us motivation to continue playing these games. 

Another advantage is that they’re very efficient and don’t require us a lot of time (just 5-10 min a day). I usually play them in the morning, but you can do that at any time of the day (e.g. when there’re commercials on TV while you’re watching your favourite TV show). Even though some games might seem easy or childish on the first sight, they can be pretty hard and complex. Ever since I started playing these games, they’ve helped me a lot. My reading has improved, my focus as well, I learnt new vocabulary, I’m now able to read faster and memorize and select important things, which is very helpful with studying and everyday activities. 

Brain exercise can benefit people of all ages. They’re not only for busy business people – they’re very useful for students, children, and older people, too. Studies show that with just a couple of minutes per day, we can significantly improve the cognitive functions we use every day and people who do mental activities, such as memory tests or problem solving, tend to have healthier mental capacity than those who don’t. It’s just important to find what you like and be consistent with it. You’ll see the change very soon. 

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