Daily. Tech - Lumosity: Does it Work? Blog: Internet. Lumosity: Does it Work?
Tiffany Kaiser - May 2. PMA new Stanford study says yes. Many of you may be familiar with Lumosity (it even has its own commercial on TV now). It's a San Francisco- based company that provides an online brain training program, where subscribers play nearly 4. It launched in 2. What Readers Are Saying About Our Top Picks: Ivan stated: She is a Medical Doctor.She found the product, read all information, ordered for me and than suggested. HCF Happy, Calm & Focused is again our top amino acid brain supplement pick for the 4th year in a row. Although not a real shocker for all you overly informed. Where is number 9, I count only 10 way to improve intelligence and unfortunately not all are based on double blinded placebo controlled studies. Synesthesia, Books, Lectures, and the Brain. They do pretty much, like. The commercial says the Lumosity games are based on neuroscience, but the million- dollar question is, does it actually work? Shelli Kesler, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, seems to think it does. Kesler recently led a Stanford study that aimed to measure how well Lumosity's brain training transferred into the real world. She used a small sample of 4. Past studies have shown that cancer patients who've undergone chemotherapy can experience cognitive impairment for years afterward. The experimental group in the Stanford study played Lumosity games four times a week for 1. While this shows promising results, it's important to note that the study is a bit flawed, considering the fact that it depended on self- reporting for a couple of measures. Psychologist Susan Jaeggi (an assistant professor at Maryland Neuroimaging Center) will tell you it does work after her 2. However, a Georgia Tech study found that they had no effect on its participants. Also, a 2. 00. 9 study by researchers at the the University of Rennes, Brittany, found that the video game . Personally, I love Lumosity. I make it a point to jump on the site once a day (when I can) and play the 3- 4 games Lumosity has chosen for me for that particular day. Once I've played those games, Lumosity calculates my BPI (brain performance index) and tells me to come back tomorrow. I can't play anymore for the day because I signed up as a free subscriber. If you pay, you unlock full access to more gameplay and user statistics. Even if I am using the free version (and that may mean I'm not getting the optimal amount of training needed for real cognitive improvements), I really look forward to my daily Lumosity training. It's become a lottery of sorts, where I wonder which games I'll be able to play that day and whether or not they'll be any of my favorites. Lumosity tends to send the same games to me over and over (they're usually spread out over different days of the week while gradually introducing new games here and there). I get it, repetition will make you better and raise your BPI, but I can never tell if I'm actually experiencing any cognitive improvements in the real world or if I'm just familiar with the games, so I know what to expect when playing them. What's your take, Daily. Tech readers? Do any Lumosity (or any other online brain training game) players out there feel they've started remembering where their car keys are more often after playing for an x amount of time? Oh, and for those who are curious as to how much the paid version of Lumosity costs, it's $1. Or you can pay $6. Sources: Medical Daily, Pando Daily, Fox News. How to Be Smarter, Increase Your IQ & Become Limitless***“Today, the greatest single source of wealth is between your ears. Today, wealth is contained in brainpower, not brutepower.” - Brian Tracy. Reading time: 1. 0- 1. Do you ever wish you could be just a bit smarter? That you could think a bit faster, be wittier, and solve complex problems with ease? Me too. In fact, it happens often. Why? Because even though I’ve always been fairly smart, I didn’t hit the intellectual genetic jackpot. Getting good grades and holding my own in intellectual conversations was never particularly hard, but there’s always been a few people a step ahead of me. And to be honest, I was a bit jealous. I wish I was born with their mental superpowers. Deep down, I thought if I could somehow increase my brainpower, then I could really achieve anything I want. But I’ve always figured there wasn’t too much I could do about it. Some people are super smart, some people aren’t quite so lucky. The level of intelligence we are born with is only a starting point, and regardless of our genetic make- up, it is absolutely possible to get smarter, increase our IQ, and maybe even become. I very rarely watch movies, but this one intrigued me. I popped it on, laid on the couch and? This lets you access all of it.” ~Limitless. As I watched that movie, something switched on inside me. I couldn’t stop thinking “Is it somehow possible to supercharge our mental powers, become smarter, and start achieving more than we’ve ever dreamed?”I decided right there & then that I had to find a way to make this happen in real- life. So I got busy. Over the ensuing months, I spent countless hours researching, learning, and experimenting, with the goal of making myself smarter & putting my own life in the fast- lane.***Discovering Neuroscience“There’s a revolution going on. There used to be two systems of knowledge: hard science- chemistry, physics, biophysics- on the hand, and, on the other, a system of knowledge that included ethology, psychology, and psychiatry. And now it’s as if a lightning bolt had connected the two. It’s all one system: neuroscience.”~Candace Pert, Neurochemist at the American National Institute of Mental Health. I had never studied, or even thought about, the field of neuroscience. I knew I had stumbled into something that would forever change my life. I knew things were about to get real interesting. The Future Has Arrived. David Krech, Ph. D, Psychologist at the University of California- Berkeley, said: “I foresee the day when we shall have the means, and therefore, inevitably, the temptation, to manipulate the behaviour and intellectual functioning of all people through environmental and biochemical manipulation of the brain.”This day has arrived my friends. I haven’t fully cracked the code yet, but I can tell you with 1. I’m smarter than I’ve ever been (as you will see below). I’m sharper, my thoughts are clearer, I can get anything done quicker, and a lot of cool things are starting to happen in my life. There are times when I really do feel like Bradley Cooper. Or 5. 0. Limitless. This is no joke, and I’m not here to brag. My goal is to share my discoveries with you, so you too can start unlocking your brain’s full power, and live life in the fast- lane. Now I’m about to take you on a journey through the 1. I’ve discovered so far to enhance mental performance (in no particular order). You’re about to enter a whole new world of possibilities. It’s highly trainable, and it adapts & evolves based on the stimuli we give it. This is basically what neuroplasticity is all about. And just like anyone has the power to reshape his/her body and increase their athletic performance through physical training, cognitive training allows anyone to significantly increase mental performance over time by forming new neurons & creating new neural pathways. I started training with Lumosity 5 months ago (before this blog was even born), but I didn’t really take it seriously at first. But when I saw Limitless, I got pumped & motivated so I stared training everyday, for 1. Lumosity is a series of games was designed by leading neuroscientists to challenge certain parts of the brain, and it’s backed by science from Stanford, Cal- Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. And it got me thinking. I got serious about it. And then things really picked up. Lumosity’s website is well- designed and lets us compare our performance with the other members our age group within the 1. It uses a measure called Brain Performance Index (BPI) which is Lumosity’s equivalent of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ). A BPI of 1. 00. 0 represents the average of all Lumosity “brain athletes” amongst our age group. When I first started training, I set myself the ambitious goal of reaching the 9. Something I did not anticipate at all. Intermittent Fasting made me smarter. At first, I wasn’t too sure. I could feel exceptional levels of mental clarity during my fasts, and then when I started smashing my best scores on Lumosity I knew something was happening. So I decided to look into it more deeply. And I found the answer. Fasting has been shown scientifically to increase production of something called Brain- Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), a protein in the brain that is instrumental to neurogenesis (development of new neurons) and the creation of synapses (connections between neurons). According to Micheal Eades, MD, BDNF is also “neuroprotective against stress and toxic insults to the brain” and, as bonus, “humans with greater levels of BDNF have lower levels of depression.” You can check out the full article Dr. Eades wrote for Tim Ferriss’ blog here. Basically what happens is that Intermittent Fasting creates a mild stress to the brain, which overcompensates by releasing more BDNF. As I said earlier, the human brain is highly reactive to the kind of stimuli we give it. What this translates in. Shit got real. To increase your production of BDNF through IF, I believe that even once a week would be beneficial. As leading neuroscientist Mark P. Mattson tells, ”in normal health subjects, moderate fasting — maybe one day a week or cutting back on calories a couple of days a week — will have health benefits for most anybody.”If you were tempted to give IF a shot after reading my first article but weren’t so sure, maybe now is a good time to start? Believe me, it’s not nearly as challenging as you think. Exercise To Be Smarter“I want to cement the idea that exercise has a profound impact on cognitive abilities and mental health.”John Ratey MD, Harvard Psychiastrist. Now that you’re familiar with BDNF, here’s another way to increase your brain’s production of this awesome protein: good ol’ exercise! Indeed, in studies on both humans, and mice, BDNF levels have been shown to increase significantly in people who exercise. And it gets even better. As you know, exercise increases the secretions of feel- good hormone endorphins (which literally means “endogenous morphin”- morphin produced from within), and an increase in endorphins has been shown by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Andrew Schally to improve rats’ ability to take on challenging tasks such as maze- running. In his book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, John Ratey MD tells the fascinating story Naperville Central High School in Chicago, where everyday, the first class of the day is Physical Education. This was started as an experiment in the 1. These students were among 2. TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematic and Science Study) test, and the Napierville ranked #6 in the world in math and #1 in Science, in front of a hoist of top schools from China, Japan, and Singapore, and far ahead of any other US school. In 2. 01. 0, Naperville Central’s junior class had a record 1. ACT scores. Now why more schools don’t implement daily Physical Education is beyond me, but that’s another discussion for another day. But what this means for us is simple: we already know exercise is beneficial in countless ways, and now we know it makes us smarter. So time to get off our ass and start exercising everdyday. Generally, I do a 1. I do another more intense 1 hour workout in the afternoon. At the very least, you should follow the advice Matthew Mc. Caughney offered shortly after being named World’s Sexiest Man in 2. Whether it’s going for a run, dancing or loving, my rule is break one sweat a day.”Make it fun. Feel good, get fit, and get smart. This awesome photo was shot by Chase Jarvis. Challenging Skills- Acquisition. Whenever we learn a new challenging skill, we force our brain to evolve and create new neural pathways. There are 2 main- types of Challenging skills that help make us smarter: 1)Motor skills. At Napierville Central High School, their Physical Education classes don’t simply consist of going jogging. They purposely take on challenging activities such as line dancing, to stimulate the student’s brain while giving their body a workout. Tim Ferriss is a notorious adept of learning new motor skills, like tango dancing, surfing, and Yabasume, a crazy Japanese sport consisting of horseback archery. I train in Brazilian jiu- jitsu, a highly technical martial art that uses leverage to allow weaker individual to defeat strongers foes. It’s a ton of fun and an amazing workout, but there’s honestly times when my brain hurts from trying to grasp the complex techniques. I still forget the steps to new moves all the time, but I try to console myself thinking that at least I’m getting good brain workout. I’ve been using some of Ferriss’ techniques from the above video to improve my learning & retention rate (such as mental rehearsal/visualization right before bed) but it is one the most challenging activities I do on a regular basis. Language Acquisition. In a recent blog post, Ferriss wrote “language learning deserves special mention here.
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