In this day
and age of mental shortcuts and gadgets that do everything for us it is
important to keep the brain fit. Studies have shown that regular mental
exercise greatly reduces the risk of age related brain deterioration such as
Alzheimer's disease and because of this a large market has surfaced to offer
"brain training". Brain Age on the Nintendo DS was one of the early
modern brain exercising video games but things have come a long way since then.
Lumosity is a new web oriented series of brain training games that target
specific areas of cognitive tasks.
Lumosity has
taken scientifically tried and true exercises and has developed them into
genuinely fun games. One plays 5 games a day which comes out to 15 minutes a
day, 3 to 5 times a week. Just this short amount of time dedicated to keeping
your brain sharp will have definite results. You get better and better at the
games and they get harder and harder. New games are always being developed which is good because after a while I found I could master some of the games. Having new ones to try keeps you on your toes and encourages the brain to work better. My favorite game so far is
the penguin maze game which pits you against a computer operated penguin to
reach the end of the maze first, each time the maze getting longer and the
other penguin getting faster.
Mental
arithmetic has always been a challenge for me but I can wholeheartedly say that
since playing the Lumosity games for a few months now I can much more easily
calculate tips and everyday mental math.
Lumosity
shows you how your brain compares with others of your age group and what areas
you excel in and those you need to exercise more. A very detailed personalized program is developed for you with lots of eye pleasing graphs and easy to
read results. This sleek design definitely makes it fun to keep coming back and
I personally never struggled to keep it up every week.
Lumosity is
available on computers, tablets, and smart phones so it is easy to access
wherever you are. Certain games are available for free but for full access to
all the games and training programs (which I recommend) is priced
at $14.95 a month or $6.95 a month if you do a whole year. Family packages and
lifetime memberships are also available. Try the free games first then decide
for yourself.
Pros :
- Loaded with fun interactive brain training games
- Personalized and sleek design
- Keeps your mind sharp
- Fairly priced
- Better and more fun than similar products
- Multiplatform so you can train anywhere!
- You can skip games that you might find boring.
- Sometimes the games have failed to start with certain browsers and this impairs your score for that session. It can be irritating to have to restart the game to correct this.
- Some of the games are tedious.
Check it out at www.lumosity.com