Although historians trace the origin of New Year’s resolutions to the ancient Babylonians, the most apt historical symbol for the tradition is probably the Roman god Janus, his two faces looking back over past events and forward to the future. Where have we come from and where would we like to go. With an exciting new leap forward in the capabilities of brain training programs over the past year, this is the perfect time to make brain exercise our New Year’s resolution.

We can improve our brain health with aerobic exercise, weight loss, and by quitting smoking, all good New Year’s resolution candidates. But brain training gives us a very direct way to stimulate brain plasticity, and improve our memory, concentration, and mental sharpness. A recent study even proved that we can increase our fluid intelligence by training our working-memory.

Although scientists had long since dismissed the idea that the adult brain could grow and change, research from the last few years overturns that theory with studies proving quite the opposite. The right conditions can cause the production of new neural nerve cells and the brain in fact proves to be remarkably adept at rewiring connections work more effectively with the right training. (The concept of brain plasticity is even being applied in new therapies for stroke victims, restoring motor capabilities that traditional therapies could not.)

The Advantages of Brain Fitness Training

Academics: Good brain training software may be one of the most effective and affordable test prep programs you can buy. Test prep typically helps you increase your test scores but won’t help you do better in school, whereas brain training can boost your attention and general problem-solving ability. And if you have a diagnosed learning dysfunction, it’s possible that a targeted brain exercise will help. Where possible, many learning specialists have begun to use brain training in preference to accommodations as a way to address a deficit directly rather than working around it.

Career: For many of us, the working day requires a good deal of focus and creative problem-solving. Our brains work best when we can dedicate time and attention to the task at hand, but the stresses and demands of the workplace often conspire to make this almost impossible. The right brain training program can help us increase our attention span and train our cognitive skills. By training our brain we can reduce work stress and perform better (something that employers tend to notice and reward).

Mental Health And Well-Being: When we reach our forties, our brains begin to decline if we don’t do anything to prevent it. But a regular schedule of brain training helps reduce memory loss, and lowers our risk of developing Alzheimer’s symptoms and dementia. Not only that, but recent studies indicate that we can combat depression through stimulating neural growth, an important aspect of an effective brain training program.

Self-Improvement: Although we would expect brain training to help us think more clearly, it’s not as well known that brain training can improve our self-esteem and even our musical aptitude. But the brain commands all aspects of thinking and emotion, even those not directly related to quantitative thinking. For those on a journey toward improved mind, body, and spirit, brain training offers a new world of possibilities.

Sticking With Your New Resolution

Unfortunately, statistics indicate that most of us won’t stick to our New Year’s resolutions. Men tend to do much better if they quantify their goals. And women can increase their chances of success by going public and by engaging their friends in the challenge. Fortunately, since many people enjoy the challenge and rewards of brain training, it can be an easier activity to stay with than some. You can measure your progress through the results of the exercises, and in many cases you can share your scores on some form of blog or social network.

If you decide to make brain training one of your New Year’s resolutions, make sure to select a brain training product that is effective and right for you. Not all brain fitness products are equally effective. Some engage us with brain teasers or games that don’t require significant focus and attention and won’t induce significant if any neural growth. Others work but cost hundreds of dollars or require a big time commitment.

Check the scientific pedigree of the training program. Does the vendor specify what the training will accomplish and what measurable gains to expect in memory or processing ability? Does the product come with a training schedule, telling you how much time to devote to the exercises and over what period?

Brain training could be the best New Year’s resolution you’ll ever make. With the right level of commitment it can bring about a big jump in mental ability and set us on the road to long-term brain health.

My experience with brain fitness software has revealed a very interesting and at first surprising connection to my level of happiness and sense of well-being. I’ve also heard this commented on regularly by other brain exercisers. The connection seems to work in two directions: If I’m feeling good, I do better at the brain exercise; and when I do the brain exercise, it makes me feel happier.

Recent scientific research would seem to shed light on both aspects of this phenomenon. Beginning with research performed by Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin in 2005, scientists have consistently found that the brains of those who meditate (such as Tibetan monks in Davidson’s study) function differently than normal brains. The firing of neurons is better coordinated and more intense.

On a much more limited, short term scale, this reflects my experience when I am feeling tranquil and at peace during brain training. I can improve my attention further if I close my eyes and breathe deeply between training blocks. The end result is better attention to the exercise and a greater ability to complete the training successfully. On days when I’m feeling stressed or low, my brain can’t stay focused and retaining items in working-memory is a struggle.

Another telling aspect of the research findings is that the more we practice these skills of mindful meditation, the more our brain responds.

Equally encouraging, new exploration of the mechanics of depression indicates that we can help our mood and mental health by stimulating brain growth. Researchers have found that new brain cell growth is essential for the working of antidepressants. The team from UT Southwestern Medical Center demonstrated that antidepressants stopped producing benefits without new nerve cell growth in the brain region called the dentate gyrus. And German researchers have found that stress inhibits new neural cell growth, thereby contributing to depression.

Which brings us back to brain exercise. Two activities are known to stimulate new nerve cell growth in the dentate gyrus: aerobic exercise and working-memory activation. While we’ve known for decades that aerobic exercise benefits us for many reasons, the finding that brain exercise can not only help keep us sharp but can also help keep us chipper is a welcome discovery.

However, not all brain fitness products will be equally effective in stimulating the growth of new nerve cells. Some programs engage us with brain teasers or games that don’t require significant focus and attention and won’t induce significant if any neural growth. Others may produce ideal conditions for new neural growth but cost hundreds of dollars or require a big time commitment.

If you’re looking for a brain training program, you should see what the vendor says about the training method. Is it based on hard science with proven results? Are the improvements you should expect well defined? Avoid products that make only vague or general references to these things, and those that don’t provide a schedule for the product’s use.

As with any form of exercise, brain exercise rewards in equal measure to our investment. We can’t expect to stay physically fit without breaking a sweat – so, too, a truly effective brain training program requires our attention and effort. The rewards to our mental health and happiness, however, can repay every ounce of that investment.

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.

These studies, for instance, came out in just the past few months:

Daily Brain Training Boosts Test Scores

Scottish educators had 600 children in 32 schools use a brain game for twenty minutes per day over a ten week period. Compared to children who hadn’t been using the brain game, the students improved their scores on a post test by more than 50%.

Brain Fitness Program Helps Prevent Memory Decline

In endorsing brain training as a way to help prevent the onset of Alzheimer symptoms, the Alzheimer’s Association of Australia cited randomized, controlled trials showing cognitive gains in mental sharpness, memory and concentration.

Demanding Memory Training Increases Intelligence

University researchers from Michigan and Bern, Switzerland recorded increases in fluid intelligence of more than 40% with just 19 days of intensive working memory training.

The Benefits of Brain Training

Sadly, once we’re out of school and established in a career, most of us don’t stretch our brains the way we used to. And this means we’re facing a long slow decline in mental function. That’s the bad news. The good news is that scientists have proven that with the right kind of exercise we can stimulate new cell growth and positive change in the brain at any stage in life, stemming or even reversing this decline. If we want to keep the brain growing, it’s not enough to turn our mind to familiar tasks. New cell growth and new brain maps require focused attention and fairly intensive mental exercises. But the benefits are well worth it.

Education & Testing

Far from being superfluous, brain training for children can increase the effectiveness of a standard educational environment. The children not only score better on tests, they learn better, too. And when it comes to SATs, ACTs, GREs, MCATs, etc. brain training should be right there alongside standard test prep as a way to help maximize scores.

While it’s become an accepted practice to help children with learning dysfunctions by providing workarounds or accommodations for a child’s particular weakness, some pioneering learning specialists (such as Barbara Arrowsmith Young, founder of the Arrowsmith School in Canada) have begun to tackle the dysfunctions head on with brain training. By targeting and strengthening the particular brain function that is underdeveloped, it is possible to reduce or eliminate the dysfunction altogether.

Career Success & Self-Improvement

It is unfortunate and ironic that the modern workplace produces a work environment that is detrimental to brain health and mental fitness. With conference calls, dozens of e-mails, endless meetings, instant messages, chronic multi-tasking, and shortening deadlines the office worker must forever divide his attention and deal with habitual stress – two prime candidates for preventing new neural growth and brain plasticity. Without some form of focused, mindful brain exercise, we’re in danger of reducing our cognitive ability when we most need it. By taking time out to engage in brain training that demands complete focus and builds working-memory, processing speed, and left-brain right-brain interaction we can become much happier in our day to day lives and much more effective in the workplace.

Brain training can also bring about changes in areas that we would not initially imagine it could. Users of brain fitness programs regularly report improved self-esteem, improved hand-eye coordination and increased self perception. But since the brain directs all aspects of thinking and feeling these findings are perhaps not at all surprising. By incorporating brain training into our schedule of self-improvement activities we can derive considerable value and satisfaction from this new self-improvement tool.

Life-Long Mental Health & Well-being

With so many people now living into their sixties, seventies, eighties and beyond, the threat and fear of Alzheimer’s and dementia has grown proportionately. In 2003, Joe Verghese, M.D. reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (volume=348, issue=25, 2003) that we can reduce our risk of developing Alzheimer’s symptoms by almost two-thirds if we engage in just one more brain exercise each week. His study also demonstrated a 47% reduction in the risk of dementia for those who get more regular brain exercise. The discovery of brain plasticity and neurogenesis overturns the myth of the long slow decline. If we begin brain training while we’re still relatively young we can avoid the kind of brain decay that has until now seemed symptomatic of aging. But it’s key to remember that it is never too late.

And as if these weren’t sufficient reasons to run out and invest in a good brain training tool, scientists have also linked new cell growth with the efficacy of antidepressants and reduction in the stress that can lead to depression. Brain training then also promises the ideal conditions to help counter and mitigate depression.