Improve Your Brain

I received an e-mail today that said:

Try this. You gotta pay attention!

http://flashfabrica .com/f_learning/ brain/brain. html

1. Touch 'start'.
2. Wait for 3, 2, 1.
3. Memorize the numbers positions on the screen. You will only have about one second to do this.
4. The numbers will go away but there will be circles where the numbers once were. Click the circles from what was the smallest number to the biggest.
5. At the end of game, the computer will tell you the age of your brain.

When I clicked on the link, I was surprised to be taken to a page filled with a language that wasn't English! Turns out the page, Flash Fabrica, is a Japanese site for Flash games. There was an option at the top of the page to change the language to English. When I did that, I found there were actually many brain training games--including four brain age tests.

I played Brain Age Test 01-Instantaneous Memory. The concept was easy, but the game itself was challenging. There were ten rounds. Each round had somewhere between 4 and 8 numbers on the screen which appeared very briefly, then were replaced by circles. You had to click the circles in numeric order to get the round correct. I did a good job on the easy rounds, but messed up whenever there were more than five numbers I had to order.

At the end of the test your "brain age" will be posted on the screen. The lower your score, the better you did. I tried several times; my best score was 23, but the rest of them were about 30 (give or take a few years). However, that is substantially lower than my chronological age, so I should be happy.

Since brains, like the rest of your body, decline over time if not used, it's probably a good idea to keep the grey matter active. There were many other games on the Flash Fabrica site that looked like they might be fun and helpful for mind exercise.