We at concentrate have found yet another great game from Lumosity.com. The Memory Matrix game is excellent for developing and exercising your Spatial Recall awareness.

Challenge yourself to remember patterns that grow bigger and more complex as you improve.

A pattern will appear on the screen and what you need to do is repeat the pattern order on the correct tiles. All you need now is to concentrate. A piece of cake! Or is it…See how much you can challenge yourself.

Just follow the link Lumosity to play now!

Have fun!

Did you know that when you become an expert in a specific domain, the areas in your brain that deal with this type of skill will grow? There are even parts of your brain that relate to particular professions.

For instance, London taxi drivers have a larger hippocapus (in the posterior region of their brains) than London bus drivers (Maguire, Wool lett, & Spiers, 2006)…. Why is that? It is because this region of the hippocampus is specialized in acquiring and using complex spatial information in order to navigate efficiently. Taxi dri­vers have to navigate around London whereas bus drivers follow a limited set of routes. Taxi drivers also have a highly tuned ability to remember jokes, and exaggerate about who they have had in the back of their cab, but scientists have yet to track down the Joke/Exaggeration centres of our brains.

Brain “plasticity” can also be observed in the brains of bilinguals (Mechelli et al., 2004). It looks like learning a second language is possible through functional changes in the brain: the left inferior parietal cortex is larger in bilingual brains than in monolingual brains. Sacre Bleu!!

As we have mentioned in one of our earlier newsletters, plastic changes also occur in musicians brains com pared to non-musicians. Gaser and Schlaug (2003) compared professional musicians (who practice at least 1hour per day) to amateur musicians and non-musicians. He found that they were better. ALSO, He found that gray matter (cortex) volume was highest in professional musicians, intermedi­ate in amateur musicians, and lowest in non-musicians.

So for bigger brains, jump in a taxi with a violin and ask to go to the Eiffel tower.

Q1. If you put a coin in an empty bottle and insert a cork into the neck of the bottle, how could you remove the coin without taking the cork out or breaking the bottle? Hmmmm?

Q2.I have holes in my top and bottom, my left and right, and in the middle. But I still hold water. What am I?

Q3.What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?

Confused? Well try one more…

Q4. I have a four legs but no toes. I sometimes have two arms but never any hands. I have a back but no chest. I sometimes have a head but never a face. What am i?

Answers will be revealed in the next newsletter! Until then keep guessing

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2. Instead of more unhealthy snacks, try fruit or vegetable snacks. You don’t have to have them by themselves, why not combine them with some proteins (like a piece of cheese, a cup of yogurt, or a tablespoon of peanut butter), you will benefit from the energy of the carbohydrates from natural sources. Research show when children’s blood-sugar levels go down, stress hormones kick in to raise it up again, which can cause behavioral problems and diminished concentration. We even have a cool Lunchbox to put your snacks in!

3. Try something new. A trip to your local greengrocer may uncover seasonal or undiscovered fruit and veg that break up your routine choice. Why not try out something new!

4. Double up your portion. When preparing your meal, try beefing up the quantities of fruit and veg you use.

5. Get creative and introduce more fruit and veg into new areas of your cooking. For example, bread can be made with vegetables like zucchini or olives. After all, homemade recipes usually taste best, and you may even be able to rival Heston Blumenthal with your wacky and mouth watering creations.

2. Chronic Stress cannot:
a. Prevent you from being creative
b. Kill brain cells
c. Prevent you from sleeping
d. Kill liver cells

3. What type of phys i cal exercise is the best for your brain health?
a. Weight lifting
b. Aerobic exercises
c. Flexibility exercises

4. Pick the ability, if any, that can not be improved as we age:
a. Con centration
b. Memory
c. Language
d. None

5. Which of these does NOT affect your risks of developing Alzheimer’s?
a. Your family history
b. Your education
c. Your head size

6. What type of brain training has been shown to help people who are afraid of spiders?
a. NovaVision
b. Cognitive Therapy
c. EmWave Stress Relief

Answers will be revealed in the next newsletter!

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You can also take the entire Brain quiz by Dr. Pascale Michelon on www.sharpbrains.com

We at concentrate have found an excellent game from Lumosity.com to improve your ability in avoiding distractions and increase your work productivity and concentration.

Research shows attention training has a meaningful impact on your ability to improve performance on tests and on other visually demanding activities

If you get distracted too easily then this is the game for you!

What you need to do is focus on the centre bird without letting the other birds distract you. Just follow the link Lumosity to play now!

Have fun!

Q1. I come once on a ‘Tuesday’, twice in a ‘Week’, and once in a ‘Year’. What am I?

Q2. what occurs once in a ‘minute’, three times in a ‘momment’, and never in a ‘hundred years’?

Q3.What do the following numbers – and only these numbers – have in common?

Answers will be revealed in the next newsletter!

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Sudoku Rules

Each Sudoku has a unique solution that can be reached logically without guessing. Enter digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces. Every row must contain one of each digit. So must every column, as must every 3×3 square.

Sudoku Tips

* Start with number one and pencil in all options around the grid before moving on to number 2. When worked your way up to number nine, simply go back to the beginning and start with number one again

* Concentrate on the 3×3 mini grids, rather than rows and columns. They give up a lot of clues.

* If you’ve completed seven numbers in a row or column, then obviously the two boxes that are left must be one of the two remaining numbers left over. That row or column often passes through a mini-grid where you also have two options. Frequently, you can deduct exactly where the two leftover numbers go.

Answer to the last riddle: ‘What runs but cannot walk?‘: A nose