When the great Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus said that “the only thing constant in this world is change “, it reverberated through the ages and is remembered even today. It is because we can see that there is so much truth in this age-old adage and the human brain seems to be echoing this as well because it is constantly changing, too.
Not many people nowadays are aware that the activity of our brain cells is directly synchronized with our age, hence, it is anticipated that it is most active and dynamic during our younger years considering the fact that it is in its developing stage and is actually learning how to learn. This explains the reason why babies can develop their ability to speak just by listening and observing the verbal gestures of their parents and all the people surrounding them. The brain is eager to learn, and that yearning to acquire knowledge and skills is what makes it docile. Sharp and keen.
However, an alarming news came lately. A recent study shows that there is a steady decline in the IQ levels of people today. The collective intelligence of the human race is actually dropping by at least 1 IQ point, and this trend has been observed for the last 3 decades already. According to a study conducted by the University of Montreal, this can be attributed to the modern lifestyle that we have. Almost every aspect of our modern life, from the moment we get up in the morning, our work, the technology that we have and down to our eating habits, all make substantial contribution to slow destruction of our brains and a result it brings down our IQ levels.
It is such a relief to know that there is indeed a way to reverse the brain cell damaging effects of our day to day life. If some of our technological advances are among the culprits believed to cause some damaging effects on our brain cells and render our IQ levels to drop, then it is just and right that we also utilize technology to somehow rectify this problem we have. If you are not aware yet, there are innumerable apps out there that are primarily designed to counteract this. These apps are said to provide the significant antidote to this looming problem facing our society, known as the brain training apps.
Are They Effective?
Dozens of brain training apps may be available today, however, only a small fraction of these apps have been evaluated for efficiency. Regrettably, the majority of the apps available for download to your mobile devices and desktop computers can’t make a deliberate claim to be highly effective in promoting brain activity because there is no strong study to back them up.
So what is brain training?
This pertains to the teaching programs that are wholly based on learning principles and scientific reading which is the result of the extensive planned research and studies conducted by a team of multidisciplinary professionals. The main objective of such studies is to be able to get to the root causes of difficulties and challenges that a person may have in learning. In addition to this, these studies are also leaning towards developing the underlying mental skills believed to be responsible for an individual’s effective learning. This may involve any of the following:
Sound Therapy
This part may involve the TLP or The Listening Program. It is a form of sound therapy which makes use of musical tones and sound vibrations as a method to stimulate the brain cells. This type of sound therapy will help retrain your auditory pathways so that the subject will gain an improved attention, sensory integration, learning, and communication.
Visual-Spatial Activities
The kind of activities that are involved here have something to do with the visual-spatial skills of a person. It aims to touch on the visualization, visual memory, spatial orientation, mental rotation, multi-perspective coordination, visual tracking, among other skills. These activities are highly recommended to children who are observed to be having difficulties or are challenged with their academic subjects, particularly science and math.
Brain Teaser Games
These can involve interesting exercises like quizzes, numerical exercises or grouping similar objects. Such games offer great stimulation to the brain, most especially to that of a young child, helping it to respond faster and better. Much like how our body muscles would respond to the physical exercises we do, activities that we qualify as brain teaser games are expected to give your brain the exercise that it needs. Hence, helping to improve a person’s memory power and enhances faster processing.
When all these aspects are integrated into an intelligently designed brain training app, it is expected to yield amazing results. They are actually most beneficial to young minds. However, when it comes to being effective, as earlier mentioned you may need to scrutinize an app if there it comes with a relevant scientific study to support any claim that it is helpful for enhancing brain activity and thus help minimize or reverse the natural brain-cell degeneration.
We can safely say that we are living in the advent of brain training apps, an innovation in brain fitness which is somehow comparable to the physical fitness revolution of the 1970s. But we must admit that there is still a great deal to learn when it comes to reversing or minimizing brain cell damage or deterioration.
Consumers nowadays should know and learn the importance of how they should demand brain fitness exercises in which the claimed effectiveness is supported by strong, solid evidence. Additionally, we should come up with a set of implementing guidelines for every provider in this business that will compel them to engage first in studies and research prior to launching any kind of brain training app from their end.
With the current trend now seen in the current growth in the number of developers creating brain training apps, we can anticipate that in the near future we will be able to come up with a continuous monitoring program and improvement of our brain’s health and well-being and all with the help of the ubiquitous mobile devices which we use and carry wherever we go.
