Have you heard your friends talking about cognitive training, i.e., cognitive brain training? They’ve become all the rage among older adults, with many claiming that brain exercises and cognitive exercises not only fight cognitive decline and boost cognitive strength but also help with mental health. It’s hard to deny the short-term benefits if you’ve tried it.
But what about my long-term results? Are you limited to just a few short-term results, like a temporarily improved memory? Or can brain training and other cognitive activities really provide long-term benefits for your cognitive health and brain health, including permanent cognitive boosts? Well, that’s what we here at A Cognitive Connection are here to find out!
Our team of cognitive scientists proudly serves the Colorado Springs, CO, area and can help Colorado residents better understand the benefits of mental training and whether it’s really the right process for you. We had to do a lot of research for this article, so make sure you read it fully to understand its full scope and to minimize your potential confusion here.
What is Cognitive Brain Training?
Cognitive training is a powerful process that focuses on brain exercises, cognitive exercises, and other routines that help fight cognitive decline, boost cognitive strength, and even improve mental health. While this field isn’t quite unified—i.e., some are on the fence about its effectiveness or the best ways of using it—it’s becoming very popular.
The best thing about this process (and part of the reason that it’s become so popular) is the way it uses games, puzzles, and other activities to make this process fun. VeryWell Mind defined a few fun and interesting cognitive training activities you could use to boost your brain health. These include:
- Drawing a Map From Memory: This challenging activity requires you to draw a map (of your home, city, neighborhood, etc) from memory. Don’t worry if you struggle with it: the idea is to challenge yourself to think more clearly.
- Playing Games: Challenging games like chess naturally improve your cognition by testing problem-solving skills, creativity, and focus. Even doing a crossword puzzle or daily Sudoku can help improve your thinking.
- Exercising Regularly: The mind and body are so intricately connected that it’s fair to say they’re literally the same thing. Regular exercise can boost your cognitive skills by getting oxygen-rich blood throughout your body.
- Meditation and Mindfulness: Multiple studies show that meditation and mindfulness can help with age-related cognitive decline. In some cases, it even helped reverse symptoms, though the gains were mostly minor for most people.
- Learning an Instrument: If you love music and have always wanted to learn an instrument, it’s never too late! No, you probably won’t become the next great virtuoso, but learning to play even a little can boost your cognitive skills.
- Socializing With Others: Humans are a social species, and spending time with others can greatly boost your cognitive skills. Simply talking with your best friend involves dozens of passive and active skills, such as gauging their mood through nonverbal signals.
- Playing Brain Games: You’ve probably seen dozens of brain game apps in app stores. These activities can keep you mentally strong by working areas of your mind you probably don’t regularly use, such as math and language skills you forgot five seconds after graduating.
These are just some of the most fun activities you can try to improve your cognitive health! But what exactly are the short-term results and the long-term results of this process? Are brain training cognitive activities primarily something with short-term benefits, i.e., cramming before a test? Or can you get long-term benefits and cognitive boosts?
Ah, that’s a complex subject that will require a little in-depth research from A Cognitive Connection in Colorado Springs, CO. We’ll start by looking at the potential short-term advantages of this process to ensure that you fully understand why it’s worth trying out.
Short-Term Benefits: Increased Cognitive Strength and Cognitive Boosts
Colorado residents interested in brain exercises and cognitive exercises to improve their brain health, mental health, and cognitive health while fighting against cognitive decline can receive many short-term benefits from this training. Earlier, we compared it to cramming before a test. In other words, extreme mental activity can keep your mind sharper temporarily.
- Improved Short-Term Memory: Regular exercises can boost your short-term memory by working it more regularly. Like any part of your body or mind, practice makes perfect, and working your short-term memory regularly can keep it sharp.
- Better Mental Health: In recent years, a movement toward a better understanding of mental health and brain health has made cognitive training more popular than ever. Thankfully, these activities can temporarily sharpen your thinking for hours at a time.
- Faster Recall: If you struggle to quickly recall things (such as names and addresses), cognitive exercises can help improve your abilities. With this support, you’ll more likely remember someone on the street who seems to know your name.
At A Cognitive Connection, we can help Colorado Springs, CO, and other Colorado residents with intensive mental activities. We feel that just about anybody can benefit from these processes and that they’re more than worth trying out for your needs.
That said, we know what you’re thinking: will these activities permanently improve my cognitive abilities? That’s a smart question to ask, and we’re here to say that while these long-term advantages are still uncertain, brain training is still worth it.
Long-Term Cognitive Training Benefits: Are They Real?
Now that you know the short-term results and short-term benefits of brain exercises for brain health, cognitive health, and mental health, it’s critical to examine their long-term benefits. It’s one thing for these activities to provide temporary cognitive boosts: are they permanent?
In our research, we found that the long-term benefits of these training activities for improving cognitive strength and preventing cognitive decline are still uncertain. That said, many groups are proposing that cognitive training could provide benefits like:
- Boosted Abstract Thinking: Brain training cognitive activities may help boost your abstract thinking by forcing you to think about things from a unique angle. Whether they provide long-term results is uncertain, but many think it’s possible.
- Dementia Improvement: Though cognitive training isn’t going to stop Alzheimer’s and other dementia conditions from spreading, studies show that cognitive exercises can help slow progression and keep a person sharper for longer.
- Improved Intelligence: According to Cornell University, people can boost their intelligence through concentrated effort, though other studies argue intelligence is harder to change. So while the jury is still out, cognitive brain training is a smart idea for many people.
Remember that these potential benefits haven’t yet been solidified by studies. Unfortunately, the concept of cognitive training is so new that long-term studies are rare. What has been reported is promising, though, and it honestly never hurts to try cognitive brain training.
After all, your brain is like any muscle: regular brain exercises and cognitive exercises naturally strengthen it. Whether these just create short-term results or provide long-term results remains uncertain, but brain training and cognitive activities certainly can’t hurt!
Enhance Your Cognitive Health in Colorado Springs, CO!
A Cognitive Connection can use these activities to provide short-term benefits for brain health, work to actualize long-term benefits for cognitive health and support mental health. We can even help prevent cognitive decline with cognitive boosts that increase cognitive strength. Call us at (719) 358-6637 or use our contact form to get started.
