From birth your brain has a remarkable ability. It interacts with your physical environment and is continually changed by the experiences you have. Consider it likely that on average in your lifetime, you will have taken 32 holidays, made 1300 friends and acquaintances, and will have read 1800 books, as well as having seen hundreds of films.

 

The splendid and striking arrays you have stored in your head are not just a collection of facts and figures, but rather the experiences which make up your life. The gathering up is all done through an apparently seamless process. The cells of your brain not only respond to your environment, they record it. They give you memory. Your memory inscribes every detail of your life and shapes your identity. Your memory is you.

Whether of not we elect to change our memories, age does this for us. From the age of 20 years our brain starts to shrink, losing about 2% of its volume in each successive decade. By 27 your memory starts to fade. By age 40 about 10,000 brain cells per day are dying. By middle age, memory is well into its decline.

For the lucky ones these mild memory changes won’t be detrimental, and in fact certain areas, such as pattern recognition, get better with age. But for some of us, memory loss will be a devastating and painful unraveling in which our very self ebbs away.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurological condition in which the nerve cells in the brain die. As the disease advances, cognitive abilities, including the ability to make decisions and perform everyday tasks, are eroded, with personality changes and difficult behaviours emerging. Not only memory, but all of general cognition suffers from this process, so that attention, perception, computation, analysis, and language are ravaged. The personal and family devastation that results is terrible.

It has been accepted as inevitable that 10,000,000 (ten million) of the “boomers” will develop Alzheimer’s Disease.  When even the minor memory lapses occur that every one of us experiences, or things we knew last month are not so easily retreivable, we secretly suspect that we may be on a dangerous path.

Do something about it. Research tells us we may be able to take preventative action.

Protect Yourself

There is nothing that can guarantee that Alzheimer's Disease will not rear its ugly head. It make sense though, to be proactive to reduce the probablity of its appearance.

Fortunately, science now tells us that doing targeted brain activity can produce neuro-protection to such a degree, that the likelihood of Alzheimer Disease can be reduced by 63% and dementia, another brain malady, by 50%.

Now is the time to build up your brain reserves. It is never too late. Substantial research has proven that we enjoy a lifelong ability to grow new neurons, that the rate of development can be influenced by cognitive activities, and that intense mental challenges provide extra resistance to ageing. Yes, your mind can grow sharper and stronger as your brain grows older. And yes, computer based training programs are proving to be the way to go about it.

Yet you can do much more for yourself than protect. Don’t let it be a matter of just staying at your current level, satisfied with just standing pat. Whatever your age, you can actually build new neurons, increase your competence and confidence, increase your working memory, IQ, fluid intelligence, focus and problem solving ability. While Brain Magic working memory training targets a very specific brain function, this function proves key to every conscious mental process, whether we are reading, writing, speaking, listening, solving problems, playing an instrument, or just plain thinking.

The Brain Magic journey is an exciting one. It guides you on your home computer through a graduated and enjoyable series of levels which consult you and adapt to you throughout the process. Along the way, the format changes in style and structure, and as your abilities grow, that growth leads to competence and up you go. The degree of gain is dose dependent. So enjoy the training and for those of you taking monthly, quarterly or yearly memberships, remember, the more you train, the more you gain.

Brain Plasticity: you CAN teach an Old Dog new Tricks

http://www.noprobo.com/posts/brain-plasticity-you-can-teach-an-old-dog-new-tricks

Use your brain, halve your risk of dementia

http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2006/jan/Dementia_brain_reserve.html

Horizon BBC How Does Your Memory Work?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/tx/memory/

Cognitive training may improve daily functioning in elderly people

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/334/7583/13-b

The Impact of Speed of Processing Training on Cognitive and Everyday Functions

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17565162

 

Preserving Cognition Through an Integrated CognitiveStimulation and Training Program

http://aja.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/24/3/234?

 

Mental Exercise Helps Maintain Some Seniors' Thinking Skills

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/printerfriendlynews.php?newsid=59499

 

Memory enhancement in healthy older adults using a brain plasticity-based training program: A randomized, controlled study

http://www.pnas.org/content/103/33/12523.abstract?sid=24bc6e06-13eb-4013-81c1-7eb2200e207b

Recent advances in research on successful or healthy aging

http://www.springerlink.com/content/f86506uv043r7026/

Exercise Stimulates The Formation Of New Brain Cells

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070628162055.htm

 

 

The wisdom paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/reviews/180/the-wisdom-paradox