The great Brain Age experiment!
Update: Wednesday 05th July.
Another solid week of Brain Training! Well, I missed out on Saturday's sesh, but Prof. Kawashima scolded me when I returned to his world on Sunday. I have noted that in some areas I have improved a great deal - most notably the simple arithmetic - while in others - like memory, always one of my weaker areas - I have shown improvement, albeit not as much. I have also unlocked hard modes on a couple of the exercises, but have not yet had the confidence to try them out.
The great news is that I tested my Brain Age again and again it's shown a jump - to 27, which is a year younger than myself and a big step towards the ideal Brain Age of 20!
Update: Wednesday 28th June.
My fifth consecutive day of Brain Training. In this time I have opened such mini-games as Syllable Count and Head Count, and after doing a Brain Age Check, I can confirm that my skills have improved my new Brain Age is 36!
My name is Jonny Austin, I'm 28 years old, and I'm the Commercial Content Manager for game.co.uk
It could be argued that I'm not all that bright. Since leaving school, I've had few occasions to read aloud or to carry out even simple sums without using a calculator.
According to highly respected neurologist Prof. Ryuta Kawashima (author of the best-selling 'Train Your Brain: 60 Days to a Better Brain'), I've been wasting my brain away. Like my body, my brain also needs daily exercise to keep it in prime condition. Surprisingly, we're not talking about calculus and long division here - it's simple maths and puzzle-solving and reading in short bursts which generates blood flow to the largest areas of your brain and improves its general working speed and ability.
Nintendo and Prof. Kawashima have teamed up to create Prof. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old is Your Brain? on Nintendo DS – a game which can reputedly increase your brain power by providing it with daily short bursts of exercise.
Its popularity in Japan has been phenomenal, and it has just been released in Europe. The question is though. Does it work?
Using myself as a human guinea pig, we're going to find out!
Over the next few weeks, I'll be charting my ongoing progress to see if my brain skills improve to the point that I reach the ideal brain age which Prof. Kawashima tells me is 20.
I got hold of Brain Training on Saturday 24th June, and after completing a series of sums, memory tests and other puzzles as fast as I could, I had my first Brain Age given as 80. Oh dear. I put that down to first-time nerves and a night of heavy drinking for the GAME Summer Ball the night before. On Sunday I tried again, achieving a more respectable 42. Well, respectable if you're 42 I guess, rather than 28.