I see so many of them around today but I am always skeptical of the scientific validity of them. I’m happy to pay a reasonable amount and I greatly value privacy. Main thing for me would be trying to improve memory.
Any recommendations are appreciated! If I need to go out and buy a DS and a copy of Brain Age, so be it.
Learn a language! There’s been a lot of research in language learning being greatly beneficial for your brain. It’s also an incredibly useful skill to be able to communicate with more people
Take this course. You can do it for free. At least that was the case a couple years ago. Free version does not provide certificate of completion.
Really worth the time and effort!
Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects
The only thing “brain training” games train, is your ability to play their game. There are no games that make you smarter or improve your memory in everyday life. And the ones that say they do are the ones you need to stay away from.
Here’s what I do on my phone most of the time nowadays:
- Practice sudoku @ sudoku.coach
- Practice chess @ Lichess
- Practice Japanese @ renshuu.org
I almost got rid of all of my doomscrolling with actual brain activity. It feels great, and having different topics to choose from helps break the monotony.
I would say reading books. It’s a long form activity that is a strong counter to the brain rot of scrolling and being mindlessly entertained by 100 different things for 10 seconds each. I find that when I read I have more vivid dreams which I think is definitely a sign that my brain has been fired up.
Almost all lack generalizability to everyday life with the skills they purport to target and improve. In other words, you may get better with your, say, reaction time in the actual “game” but that doesn’t mean you’ll experience a transfer effect in your reaction speed globally in day to day life.
All games can be brain training games, just depends on what you want to train.
going to become a genius by mastering atari’s ET
I’m utter shit at math, so I got one of those apps for kids from Kahoot that teaches you algebra starting with symbols instead of numbers, which was helpful until I reached the level where they started switching some of the symbols to numbers and letters, and it got way too confusing again.
numbers and letters are symbols
I would say:
- Reading books
- Playing chess
Both can be done on a phone I suppose.
Or just do them on a computer and stop being a peasant.
I have never been able to read a book on a computer. It just feels completely unnatural, even though I read a ton of articles, forum posts, manuals, etc. on my phone or computer. Not a peasant because they could historically usually not read let alone afford a book, but I do love actual physical books.
Same! I’ve read 1 (one) book in my life on a kindle and hated it. Physical books are just really cool, or maybe it’s just preference because that’s what I grew up with.
Brilliant.org, app has same name. There’s discount codes available.
Yes. It’s called learning, and you can use just about any app to do it. Note taking apps, lecture/course apps, flash card apps, you name it.
But an app that arbitrarily claims to “improve your brain” with little addicting games? That’s the opposite thing. Good luck
But an app that arbitrarily claims to “improve your brain” with little addicting games? That’s the opposite thing.
I mean, quick-fire math problems and memory games and such don’t teach you anything, but they do help keep your brain “agile”. If you want to compare it to physical fitness, then learning is like weightlifting and brain games are like cardio.
[citation needed]
Anki is great for flashcards
Your brain gets good at what it does. There’s a bit of skill transfer here and there but overall, training your brain on brain training games trains your brain to play brain training games. Practice what you want to get good at
Portal & Portal 2
And if you’re really feeling masochistic, Portal Reloaded
Portal rewired my brain for a fairly long time. I was really thinking in portals. No game has influenced my head like that. L4D didn’t have me seeing zombies everywhere.
I’m trying to 100% the achievements in Portal without guides, and I’m doing the challenges now but I have never felt so fucking stupid.
I started using Neuronation and am pretty happy with it so far. It has quite a bit of challenging tasks (math, quickly building words, logical thinking, memory training) you need to do. They test you one time to evaulate your skills and then the training is started at your own level. Normally you do it 10-15 min /day. They also seem to treat data privately and since the company behind is based in Germany they would have to comply to GDPR anyway which gives further protection. Got suggested to me from a friend which also has ADHD. His psychiatrist recommended it to him, so it seems to be mainly used in this context and also scientifically backed. I pay ~50€/year. Also I use it in German, but I’m sure it’s also available in English
Sudoku is one that’s been studied and shown, so far, to help with some cognitive issues.
