In September of 2008, Haile Gebrselassie set a new world record for the marathon of 2 hours 3 minutes and 59 seconds; he improved on his own previous world best by 27 seconds. An amazing achievement. Between 1952 and 1954, James Peters of the United Kingdom set no less than four world best marathon times reducing his time by more than 3 minutes. But his best time of 2 hours 17 minutes and 40 seconds in 1954 would have left him trailing Gebrselassie by almost three miles. This doesn’t detract from Peters’ considerable achievements in distance running, but it does indicate how much more we know today about the ways and means of physical training and conditioning.

In much the same way, we’re now beginning to see serious attention given to brain training as a mechanism for reaching and maintaining optimal mental condition. As the data from academic research and field studies mounts, it becomes clear that brain training can provide a broad range of benefits – providing worthwhile results in everything from senior brain health to childhood education.
To read about the different types of brain training this article confronts, follow the link: Brain Training Benefits

Several studies have confirmed this bizarre proposition: If you’re taking a test of rote memorization, like words from a list, move your eyes from side to side for about 30 seconds before you start. Really.

Researchers have found, with relative consistency, that if you saccade from left to right and back several times before a test of simple recall, you’re likely to do better. Why? It may be that this quick activity helps facilitate interaction between the brain hemispheres. Since split-brain patients have more difficulty recalling words than people with normal brains, any activity that encourages communication between the hemispheres is likely to increase recall.

If improving communication between the brain’s hemispheres is at the root of this seemingly bizarre effect, then a team led by Keith Lyle reasoned that people who have poorer interactions between the hemispheres should benefit more than others. Who has less interactions between hemispheres? People who are strongly right-handed. Handedness is actually not binary: Many people eat with the left hand, for example, but do everything else right-handed.
Read the rest of this article at: Eye-Exercise

Young adults with a genetic variant that increases their chance of developing Alzheimer’s later in life also have increased activity in the section of their brain devoted to memory, a new study has found. Researchers say the results suggest that the memory portion of the brain, the hippocampus, may eventually get worn out from a lifetime of overuse.

Researchers conducted fMRI brain scans of 36 volunteers, half of whom had at least one copy of the gene, known as APOE4. “We were surprised to see that even when the volunteers carrying APOE4 weren’t being asked to do anything, you could see the memory part of the brain working harder than it was in the other volunteers,” [study coauthor Christian] Beckmann said…. “Not all APOE4 carriers go on to develop Alzheimer’s, but it would make sense if in some people, the memory part of the brain effectively becomes exhausted from overwork and this contributes to the disease” [Reuters].

Read the rest of this article by clicking the following link: Brain Memory Center

Standing chest-deep in the hotel pool, Ron White felt foolish. Were the people on lounge chairs near the deep end watching him? Well, screw it. If he cared what a few strangers thought and let it get in the way of his training, how would he possibly bring home the national title for competitive memory?

White, an all-American-looking 35-year-old with strawberry-blond hair, blue eyes and dimples, had traveled to Australia to deliver a speech on memory, and, as usual, he dedicated his free time to becoming the No. 1 memorizer in the United States. He put on his mask and snorkel, breathed in and out a few times and grabbed the deck of plastic playing cards from the side of the pool. He started his stopwatch and submerged himself. If he could memorize the order of this deck in close to two minutes underwater, he had it made. Trying to keep his breathing steady without letting it distract him, he flipped through the cards. Each one evoked an image in his mind: The King of Hearts was his mother, the Jack of Hearts was Madonna singing, the Five of Spades was a friend named Sally whispering into a flip chart.

Review the rest of this article by visiting the following link: Mind Games