America’s first baby boomer, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, recently signed up for the Social Security benefits that she will start to collect in January. The new phase of life that she and her generation are entering is creating demand for new industries that affect everyone, one of which involves “brain fitness.”
Brain fitness is exactly what it sounds like — a workout program for your mind beyond simple activities like crossword puzzles or sudoku. The brain buffing scene doesn’t seem to feature a character like fitness legend Jack LaLanne just yet, but many companies, particularly in the tech sector, vie for the title. MindFit, Happy Neuron and Lumosity all offer programs designed to “pump up” brain power.
Yet with so many anti-aging products flooding the market these days, some might question whether brain fitness is a true concept or just another snake-oil marketing plan. While some programs on the market are more entertainment than science, like Nintendo’s “Brain Age,” scientific studies show that when properly targeted,computer programs can have a dramatic impact on brain health.
Short-term studies show that after four to six weeks of using structured brain workout programs like MindFit or Posit Science‘s Brain Fitness Program 2.0, users see marked improvement in areas like auditory processing or short-term memory, according to Alvaro Fernandez, CEO and cofounder of San Francisco-based SharpBrains. This could be helpful in the long term because results published in the Journal of the American Medical Association show that benefits from well-designed cognitive training programs can last for five years even after the training is finished.
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