Most people spend 12 to 16 years in school pushing their brain to achieve its maximum potential. Schools and colleges make sure a person receives a well rounded education and develops all of their cognitive skills. As soon as a person graduates from school, they immediately become focused on just the skills needed for their career and slowly let their other cognitive skills decay.  With people changing jobs more frequently than ever before, it is important to maintain and even improve all of their cognitive abilities.

By frequently utilizing cognitive game sites like Myfitbrain, a person can stop the decline in their cognitive abilities that they do not use on a daily basis.  Our brains reach their peak efficiencies between the ages of 25 to 27.  This is when our brain finishes maturing and myelination completes.  Myelination allows the nerve impulse to travel down the nerves as fast as possible.  From this point on in a person’s life, aging related activities begin to slow down how fast nerve impulses flow and how fast our brain can react.  Our ability to absorb new information is limitless, but the amount of time it takes to absorb new information slows gradually.

A person’s ability to retrieve that information also begins to slow down.  As we go through life we learn tricks to make that information retrieval as efficient as possible.  By utilizing these tricks, older people can often outperform younger people who have faster minds, but do not have the built up years of experience.

The neuroplasticity of the brain allows for the brain to continually change as we get older.  By exercising, eating right, minimizing stress, and getting a good night sleep we prepare our minds for the information that it will receive on a daily basis.  All of the daily input we receive changes the mind little by little.  Our minds have the ability to continuously improve in many areas if we challenge it.  Many people do not challenge their minds and stare at the TV or spends hours daily on Facebook or Twitter.  By spending 30 – 60 minutes per day on brain games like those found on Myfitbrain, a person can improve their cognitive abilities and slow down or reverse the decay.

Doesn’t the most important organ in your body deserve a little bit of focused brain exercise on a regular basis?

Studies show that brain-teasing computer games may ward off Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and increase cognitive brain function. Could they eventually become a mainstay of corporate wellness programs?

For executives with their eyes on the bottom line, the thought of employees playing online video games at their desks may sound like a complete waste of time.

But studies have shown that certain games can actually improve brain power and even delay the onset of Alzheimer’s and dementia. Some argue that cognitive brain exercises may be so helpful that employers should include them as part of their corporate-wellness programs.

A recent study of 1,300 people by the Mayo Clinic found that playing computer games, reading books or doing crafts during later years led to a 30 percent to 50 percent decrease in memory loss, compared to those who did not participate in such activities.

“Aging does not need to be a passive process. By simply engaging in cognitive exercise, you can protect against future memory loss,” says study author Dr. Yonas Geda, a neuropsychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

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If you are over 25, your brain is atrophying unless you are pushing it to its max.  Read this article to see several ways to keep your brain optimized.

We spend hours at the gym, eat right and go for our annual physicals and eye exams. But the most important organ in our bodies is often the most neglected, says cognitive fitness expert Rebecca Shafir.

Keeping the brain fit, she says, is critical for people’s long-term health.

“You have to use it or loose it,” Shafir, author of “The Zen of Listening,” says of the brain. “As brains age, there is atrophy just like muscles and it slows as it becomes more dormant.”

Shafir, a speech and language pathologist and neurotherapist at Harborside Counseling Services in Newburyport, provides brain fitness training for baby boomers over 50 and seniors who want to preserve and advance their cognitive skills. She also works with adolescents and adults with attention deficit disorder, head injury and stroke.

While physical activity is a good thing, Shafir says, brain exercises are important as well. By practicing a few simple exercises each day, she says people can stave off some of the effects of brain aging, improve their memory and be able to recall items more quickly and precisely.

Video games have been blamed for everything from causing aggression to giving you square eyes and a soft brain.

But what if video games are good for you?

Physio and occupational therapists started using simple video games in the late 1980s to treat people with a whole range of conditions from physical, learning or emotional disorders to cognitive problems following stroke and brain injury.

Today, a growing area of brain research suggests modern fast-paced action video games — in particular first-person shooter games — may sharpen your vision, improve your attention and working memory, and develop your fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

What’s more, these skills aren’t just virtual: they can help you do better in real-life situations, like driving your car or juggling more than one task at a time.

So what is it about blasting away your virtual enemies that’s so good for your head?

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Socrates believed that “the unexamined life was not worth living.”  It disturbed him that people were too busy “living” to take the time “to wonder why they were living…  [or even] who was doing the living.”  He believed that “if we are to become human in the fullest sense, achieving our distinctive potential and genuine happiness then we must live an examined life” (Chaffee 61).  His challenge to people was to have them reflect on their lives and have them “examine who they are, and who they want to become” (Chaffee 50).  But what if we examine our lives and don’t like what we find; can we change it?  Some would say no, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”; but neuroscience would argue that this clichéd statement was mistaken.  In fact, as Dr. Gary Marcus explains in his book The Birth of the Mind, nature bestows upon us at birth a complex brain—one that is flexible, mutable, and wired for learning.  This flexibility is known as neuroplasticity (12).  The research will show that this mutability or ability to change stays with us our entire lives, and this is why we humans can learn new tricks well into old age.

However, there are opposing views in science, known as biological and environmental determinism, that believe people are slaves to their brains wiring and incapable of change.
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In a study published in The Journals of Gerontology (Medical Sciences), researchers found that a brain fitness program measured initially for its impact on cognitive abilities in older adults also had a significant beneficial impact on symptoms of depression.

The findings are part of an ongoing study of older Americans funded by the National Institutes of Health and known as the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) study. With 2,832 participants, the ACTIVE study is the largest community-based multi-site randomized controlled trial ever conducted that focuses on maintaining or improving cognitive abilities of older people.
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One of the most distressing aspects of aging is noticing your own cognitive decline. This is especially true for women. Whether you momentarily forget a grandchild or a colleague’s name, or can’t remember where you put the car key — or worse, the car — these “senior moments” are distinct signs of an aging brain. Cognitive decline can also include an impairment in judgment or executive functioning: the ability to make the right choices in life. When judgment is affected, people begin to make bad decisions that can affect their marriage, their relationships with their children, their careers, or even their health.

Even though the symptoms of cognitive decline are associated with old age, we now know that the changes in the brain that affect memory, attention, processing speed, and decision making begin much earlier. Many women will recognize some attention deficit or memory loss as early as 30 years old. It’s all linked to declining hormone levels which begin during the earliest stages of menopause and perimenopause.

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