Workouts for your Brain

September 10, 2009 - 4:15 pm

If you’re feeling like you haven’t given your brain a good exercise in a while, then you’ve come to the right place. We don’t just want to help improve your computer’s memory… yours is pretty important too.

Our first tip is, if you have a Nintendo DS, grab yourself a copy of Brain Training. Yes, the idea of doing tasks such as mental arithmetic sounds dull, but you’d be surprised as to how addictive it is, and how much it actually gets your brain into gear.

Now, you’ve done a quick warm up, so it’s time to stretch those other parts of your noggin. You would not believe how difficult multi tasking is when it involves stopping a ball from falling off a plank, whilst making sure that arrows don’t hit a target, and stopping a square from growing too big… This game, Multitask, is definitely not for the faint hearted.

Just moments before failure

There are also games that can be played online or on paper to hone that thinking power of yours. Ever tried Sudoku? Sudoku, which is now a commuter’s favourite thanks to local and national newpapers, requires you to put the numbers 1-9 into nine squares, making sure that each number is not duplicated within a square, a row or a column. Simple? It depends. And once you’ve mastered it, you can get to work on your speed.

Sudoku is now a common site on trains and in waiting rooms

Another good old fashioned brain workout is the crossword. On any subject matter, from high literature to celebrity culture, the crossword tests your problem solving skills at the same time as stretching your vocabulary. Newspapers such as the Guardian and Mirror have online crosswords that you can tackle.

So, now that your brain has had a serious workout, why not put it to the test? There are lots of free IQ tests out there on the Internet (for instance IQTest.com), or if you’re up for a real challenge, why not try out for Mensa, the British High IQ Society? The possibilities are endless.