Can Playing Brain Games Really Keep Your Mind Fit? Brain Experts Set the Record Straight

Can Playing Brain Games Really Keep Your Mind Fit? Brain Experts Set the Record Straight
Can Playing Brain Games Really Keep Your Mind Fit? Brain Experts Set the Record Straight

Unravel the mystery behind brain games and their impact on mental fitness. Hear directly from brain experts who debunk myths and set the record straight. Discover if these games truly hold the key to keeping your mind sharp and agile.

Experts agree: We all need a brain fitness regimen

While improving physical fitness helps your brain, so does improving mental fitness

  • Brain health should be on everybody’s radar
  • If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it
  • Stay mentally fit is important for long-term cognitive health
  • The difficulty is figuring out exactly how best to do it

As you age, your cognitive skills tend to decline

Natural signs of mental aging can often include weaker memory or hand-eye coordination compared to when you were younger

  • Almost every aspect of your ability to remember, tend to things, and process information quickly declines
  • Not everybody’s brain changes at the same rate, so there is wide variability in mental fitness among older adults
  • To provide cognitive activity, we’ve turned to brain games, ranging from apps to physical board games and puzzles
  • The real question, though, is whether playing these games are just making us better at the specific game or helping us improve real-world tasks that involve memory, attention, and other aspects of higher cognition

Brain games are most beneficial for older adults due to their declining cognitive function

The brain functions that you practice during these games can help improve response time and sharpness of your brain

  • They don’t need to be trendy, online, or cost a lot of money
  • Look for games that provide a challenge and have research to back them
  • One reason brain games don’t always prove effective in studies is many don’t challenge the brain enough
  • If you want to be proactive about brain health, the most consistent advice is to learn a new thing every day

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