In winning the gold medal in the 200m butterfly in Beijing, Michael Phelps swam 7% faster than Mark Spitz did when he won the same event back in 1972. Phelps would have beaten Spitz by 14 meters. More remarkably, even the slowest swimmer in the 2008 Olympic butterfly final would have beaten Spitz by 5 seconds. This doesn't diminish Spitz's achievements. It just shows us how much more we know today about training for peak physical performance than we did in 1972.

In much the same way, we're now beginning to see serious attention given to brain training as a mechanism for reaching and maintaining optimal mental condition. As the data from academic research and field studies mounts, it becomes clear that brain training can provide a broad range of benefits - providing worthwhile results in everything from senior brain health to childhood education.

Some recent examples:

Scottish Study: Computer games boost math scores

A broad study involving over six hundred children in Scotland measured increases in test scores of more than fifty percent for children who played brain games for just twenty minutes a day for ten weeks.

New brain fitness program to fight memory loss

The Alzheimer's Association of Australia has endorsed brain training as a way to maintain good brain health into later life. In randomized, controlled trials, program participants more than doubled their processing speed and had gains of more than 10 years in standardized measures of memory and attention.

Training Working Memory Increases Intelligence

A study published in April, 2008, is revolutionizing the way we think about intelligence. With thirty minutes of rigorous daily training in working-memory, scientists from the Universities of Michigan and Bern demonstrated increases in fluid intelligence of more than 40% in less than 20 days.

The Benefits of Brain Training

Sadly, once we're out of school and established in a career, most of us don't stretch our brains the way we used to. And this means we're facing a long slow decline in mental function. That's the bad news. The good news is that scientists have proven that with the right kind of exercise we can stimulate new cell growth and positive change in the brain at any stage in life, stemming or even reversing this decline. If we want to keep the brain growing, it's not enough to turn our mind to familiar tasks. New cell growth and new brain maps require focused attention and fairly intensive mental exercises. But the benefits are well worth it.

Education & Testing

As the study of Scottish schoolchildren demonstrates, supplementing traditional study with brain training can help children get the most out of the time they spend at school, improving academic performance and making them better life-long learners. Teenagers taking standardized tests, or adults applying to graduate school, can now add brain training to their pre-test regimen. And whereas traditional test preparation only helps with the tests being taken, an appropriate brain training program can provide a broad increase in thinking ability that will carry across into the student's eventual program of study.

While it's become an accepted practice to help children with learning dysfunctions by providing workarounds or accommodations for a child's particular weakness, some pioneering learning specialists (such as Barbara Arrowsmith Young, founder of the Arrowsmith School in Canada) have begun to tackle the dysfunctions head on with brain training. By targeting and strengthening the particular brain function that is underdeveloped, it is possible to reduce or eliminate the dysfunction altogether.

Career Success & Self-Improvement

It is unfortunate and ironic that the modern workplace produces a work environment that is detrimental to brain health and mental fitness. With conference calls, dozens of e-mails, endless meetings, instant messages, chronic multi-tasking, and shortening deadlines the office worker must forever divide his attention and deal with habitual stress - two prime candidates for preventing new neural growth and brain plasticity. Without some form of focused, mindful brain exercise, we're in danger of reducing our cognitive ability when we most need it. By taking time out to engage in brain training that demands complete focus and builds working-memory, processing speed, and left-brain right-brain interaction we can become much happier in our day to day lives and much more effective in the workplace.

Brain training can also bring about changes in areas that we would not initially imagine it could. Users of brain fitness programs regularly report improved self-esteem, improved hand-eye coordination and increased self perception. But since the brain directs all aspects of thinking and feeling these findings are perhaps not at all surprising. By incorporating brain training into our schedule of self-improvement activities we can derive considerable value and satisfaction from this new self-improvement tool.

Brain Maintenance and Mental Health

A study published in 2003 in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that by adding just one mental activity to their weekly routine, people could reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer symptoms by almost two-thirds. Not only that, but the same study found a significantly reduced risk of dementia for the more mentally active. Studies have also shown that we can reverse the deleterious effects of aging on memory through brain training. No matter what our age, it's never too late, nor too early to begin a regular program of brain exercise.

Several recent studies have also connected brain health with mental health. In one, researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center showed that the effectiveness of anti-depressants can depend upon the growth of new nerves in the part of the brain called the dentate gyrus. Although anti-depressants themselves can stimulate this growth, so too can the training of working-memory. Another study showed that stress, a cause of depression, inhibits brain cell growth. Effective brain training can create a virtuous cycle of brain exercise, challenge, reward, and cell growth that helps combat and reduce the impact of depression.