Brain games and training – the changing face of brain health field

Lumosity

Lumosity (Photo credit: Gustavo da Cunha Pimenta)

The rise of Brain Games and Brain Training

The brain game and training industry has grown dramatically over the last several years, led by companies such as lumosity and fitbrains. Now, the brain game / training field makes quite strong claims on what training can do for brain health, but the scientific evidence might not be there yet, but this doesn’t mean it will not come. However, I would like to remind everyone that like people trying to lose weight, or become healthier in general, you must combine exercise with healthy eating habits/diet. I will have much more to say about combining the correct diet with ‘brain exercising’ like programs to make your brain healthier (including increasing your memory and concentration ability, along with reducing your chances of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease) in the near future on this blog.

Switch to Mobile Brain Training / Games

At the same time as the growth of the brain game / traibning market  there has been a growing shift from the desktop/laptop toward mobile devices. So it would follow that we would expect that brain games would move toward the mobile space. And many of you might remember one of the pioneers in the brain game field, nintendo’s brain age (first release: April 17, 2006) was for nintendo’s mobile platform.

While Nintendo’s dominance of brain games has faded the two leading opponents appear to be Luminosity and the Vancouver based fit brains.

 A few impressive numbers:

Lumosity has 35 million members, but even more impressive they are adding 100,000 new members each day. Wow. That would equate to 36 million new members over the next year. Talk about the classic hockey stick startup growth pattern.

So how can fitbrains try to compete against such a juggernaut? By riding the shift to mobile. Fitbrains recently announced 1.5 million downloads of their mobile app in a 2 month time period. And they hope to compete based on a better mobile experience compared to lumosity.

It only make sense to me with people now spending as much time on their mobile devices as their normal computers that whoever provides the best mobile experience will see the greatest growth. Like the move of traditional games to mobile, where you can play when you have a few spare moments, be it waiting in line, or on the bus, I see the greatest use of brain games / training happening on our mobile devices.

So my question to all of you is do you use brain games / training and have you tried the mobile versions?

If you stay tuned to this blog I will tell you how you can maximize the brain health benefits of this type of brain training by combining it with a great brain health food program.