In the recent Discovery Channel program How To Be More Creative, numerous top neurologists spoke again and again of the role of connections between the various regions of the brain, and how forming and reinforcing certain types of connections primes the brain for those elusive, wonderful “Aha!” moments.
The following apps all feature brain-training games and exercises like those shown in How To Be More Creative. But these types of games and exercises aren’t just good for building creativity: keeping the brain active is good for all of us. Repeated studies have shown that brain workouts not only help to build young minds, improve memory and the speed with which we process information, they can stave off degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia.
And besides all of that, they’re fun!
Mind Games Pro (4.5/5 stars, all ages, currently priced at $4.99)
Mind Games is a great collection of games based on principles of cognitive psychology to help you practice different mental skills. The perfect game to help you fight the effects of aging on your brain, or try to improve brain functioning at any age. This app includes all 17 of Mindware’s brain exercising games. All games include your score history, a global top scores list, and graph of your progress. The main app shows a summary of your best games and today’s scores on all games. Using some principles of standardized testing, your scores are also converted to a standardized scale so that you can see where you need work and excel.
Abstraction – Exercise your ability to quickly differentiate between words with a concrete vs. abstract meaning.
Attention Training Game – Exercise your brain’s attention. Based on the flanker attention task. Practice your ability to ignore competing information and processing speed.
Anticipation – Practice your ability to anticipate and respond rapidly.
Changing Directions – Practice your attention, concentration, processing speed, and mental flexibility.
Divided Attention I – Practice your ability to divide your attention and respond rapidly.
Face Memory – Memorize a group of faces and then see if you can recall them.
Math Star – Practice your basic arithmetic skills, speed, and attention to detail.
Memory Racer – Practice for your brain’s working memory and processing speed.
Memory Span – Practice your verbal and nonverbal working memory to increase the span of your immediate memory.
Mental Categories – Practice your processing speed and quick categorization skills.
Mental Flex – Practice your cognitive flexibility and ability to ignore competing information.
Serial Memory – Learn a series of 10 numbers and faces in as few trials as you can.
Spatial Memory – Memorize the locations of the tiles that flip over with increasing numbers of tiles.
Speed Trivia – Test and improve your knowledge of general trivia and information.
Vocabulary Star – Improve your vocabulary and spelling skills.
Visual Memory – Test and practice your visual memory skills.
Word Memory – Memorize 30 words and see if you can remember them.
Einstein Brain Trainer HD (4.5/5 stars, all ages, currently priced at $2.99)
Feed your brain with a personal coach!
If you want to stay young at heart, and sharp mentally, take a few minutes a day and train your brain with Einstein™ Brain Trainer!
Sly fox, studious student or brainy genius? How do you judge your „Brain Fitness“? Entertaining, yet with a scientific background “Einstein™ Brain Trainer” will help you to keep your brain active or – if needed will get it moving again! Perform the “Daily Test“ and measure your “Brain Fitness”, climb to ever higher scales and eventually become a “Royal Brain”. Practice regularly and you will surely notice an increase in your “Brain Fitness”. Remember, daily commitment and continuity are key to keeping your brain active!
Get your grey matter moving: Brain training for the whole family to enjoy at home or to play with your friends. Albert Einstein will guide you through this game with 30 excellent brain exercises. The famous Albert Einstein will accompany you with advice and assistance and explain which parts of your brain will be activated throughout the course of the training.
Albert Einstein and his cute little assistant Robo will support you in any aspect of the game. They will be at your side whenever you need them, explaining the different exercises and illustrating the scientific background of each exercise. They will motivate you to keep moving and to care about your mental fitness.
Dr. med. Thomas Knoll, Neurologist from Munich/Germany says: “Many of my patients complain about forgetfulness in everyday life. I recommend – in addition to a balanced work-life with relaxation time, body exercises and social activities – a brain training program, such as the Einstein™ Brain Trainer HD. I like the Einstein™ Brain Trainer HD very much because it contains 30 excellent and varied exercises for the stimulation of the brain. Together with extensive statistics and functionality, it motivates my patients to consistently stimulate their brain power.”
Besides the individual training you can practice together with family and friends on your Android phone/tablet in the so called Hot-Seat mode – one after the other everyone takes his/her turn and enjoys the social dynamics of playing games.
On your Android phone/tablet you can create a profile for each member of your family so that everyone can train his brain individually. As each exercise features an adaptive difficulty level, everyone will be assisted to his needs. Let´s begin measuring your brain fitness and exercise it from day to day.
Many more features like extensive rankings and statistics, leaderboards and a trophy room are waiting for you as part of this truly unique brain training game. Enjoy!
This App is localized into English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Polish and Dutch.
A truly unique brain training game is waiting for you. Enjoy!
Reading Trainer (5/5 stars, all ages, currently priced at $3.99)
Reading Trainer improves your reading speed and retention rate with 12 challenging and fun exercises. The popular speed reading app is finally available on Kindle Fire!
– Significant increases in your reading speed
– Eye-exercises and improvements in your mental capacity
This speed reading app provides everything you need to read texts of all types faster, more effectively and most of all, with better retention.
The PowerReader allows you to get your daily work done while practicing important reading skills.
Learning reading techniques has never been this much fun!
Double your reading speed in just a few days.
Trial users have used this software to increase their reading speed by an average of 143% in 10 days.
Do you currently need 30 minutes to read the daily paper? Soon you will read two papers and, in addition, another chapter in an interesting non-fiction book – within the same time period.
This innovative app provides the ideal platform to achieve measurable results with a minimum of effort.
But that’s not all: You will have fun mastering the skills you need to attain effective reading techniques and significantly increase your reading speed; this means:
– Rapid recognition of numbers, letters and words
– Flexible eye movements
– Improved ability to concentrate
– Increased vision span
The app guides you through the individual training steps.
The software immediately recognizes your strengths and weaknesses. The statistics function lets you see and track your progress.
The results of each training exercise are charted for your review. More stars mean that you are getting closer to your objective: more effective reading skills and with it extremely high reading speeds.
You can check your reading speed at any time using different reading tests from a variety of topics.
Questions about the text are used as a secondary test to assess your retention ability. This is the ideal combination for mastering effective reading skills and high retention rates.
But beware: you might get hooked since early progress will motivate you to work on your skills regularly.
It is fun and you are doing something to stay mentally fit at the same time.