Strengthening your muscles is easy – at least it is easy to know what to do to reach that goal with various methods be it push-ups or weightlifting – however if your aim is to strengthen your brain and train it to be sharper and better, things get a little complicated.
Research is still exploring how exactly we can train the brain, but we know this much: Solving puzzles can help keep your mind fresh as you get older.
"We don't really understand what happens in the brain when we train a particular cognitive function," says Dr. Emrah Düzel, director of the Institute of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research at Magdeburg University Hospital in Germany. "We don't even know exactly where the processes take place."
Nevertheless, he says, it's generally possible to train a particular cognitive skill, such as memorizing telephone numbers. How this influences other cognitive processes or brain regions remains largely unclear, however. Researchers hope to learn how to train overall cognitive performance.
Although many questions remain unanswered, there are brain training programs on the market, some coming with grandiose claims that Düzel sees with skepticism.
On the other hand, he says, it doesn't hurt to try to stimulate your brain. It can be helpful after a stroke if you have trouble concentrating after anesthesia or simply in your everyday life.
It needn't be complicated either. Düzel tells the story of an American physician who, some 150 years ago, gave a politician with memory problems an assignment: Every evening the man was to report to his wife all the people he had met with during the day.
"He did this for several years," Düzel says and became better able to remember. It's not quite clear why.
"Either his memory improved, or over time he developed strategies to concentrate on certain information and thereby better take it in and store it," says Düzel, adding that it doesn't really matter so long as it helped.
"You can train your short-term memory, but not your long-term one," says Peter Sturm, co-founder of the Society for Brain Training (GfG), near Munich, where he's responsible for training the trainers.
For Sturm, brain training goes beyond memory exercises such as memorizing telephone numbers. "Modern brain training boosts and stabilizes the basic functions of cognitive capacity," he says. "That's the long-term effect. In the short term, training makes your mind faster and more alert."
This is true, studies have shown, until the ages of 80 to 85, according to Sturm. He says that while brain training doesn't arrest dementia, it strengthens the remaining intact structures of the brain.
How does it work? "Everything that's new rouses the brain," Sturm says. "Simply do everyday things a little differently."
Try reading a text backward, for example. Or read several lines looking for how often the letter "e" follows a "t." You could also turn down the volume of the radio and try to make sense of what's being said.
"The brain doesn't like routine," remarks Sturm. It's challenging when it has to explore new paths, and quite literally so when you're in an unfamiliar city or taking a walk in the woods.
Exercise in general seems to be extremely important to the brain. "Physical exertion, coupled with the newness of something, is a key stimulus," says Düzel.
Staying in power is important as well. "As in sport, it's no use going to the gym for 10 days and working out for five hours at a time," Düzel says. "The body needs recovery periods, and so does the brain."
How long the brain needs to process and reorganize information is something else that's still little understood, however.
"If you're curious, you don't really need brain training," says Sturm. "Brain training helps when you face too few (intellectual) challenges in your everyday life."
This can apply, for instance, to people who require lengthy rehabilitation following a health condition. Or to older people who are no longer as mobile as they once were. Sturm also provides advanced training to staff in rehab clinics and homes for the elderly.
For older people, exercises using a sheet of paper and something to write with are suitable. "Simply the act of writing stimulates blood circulation in the brain," Sturm says.
Here's an example of an easy exercise to start with: The person has to cross out, in alphabetical order, a large jumble of letters written on a sheet of paper. A more demanding exercise might be to draw a simple sketch of something from memory.
"With practice, it becomes fun," says Sturm. He also recommends playing games together, such as a simple memory game.
"Social contacts activate the brain too," he points out and says an interesting conversation is the best brain training.
"You listen and react to what's being said. This requires creativity, flexibility and retentiveness. It can also be done with people who are severely limited, in which case you ask questions that can be answered with a 'yes' or 'no.'"
