WHAT: The Brain Fitness Challenges by Brainjo
WHO: Members of the Brainjo Collective as a benefit of membership (click here for details).
WHERE: Inside the Elite Cognition Forum.
WHY? To improve cognitive function, protect against disease and degeneration, and enhance overall brain fitness by engaging in cognitively demanding, brain building activities. In other words, to grow your brain!
NEXT CHALLENGE: Learn to Play the Ukulele. Participants will learn to play the ukulele through a series of teaching videos and supplemental materials based on the Brainjo Method, a neuroscience based system of musical instruction designed to optimize the learning process by covering both what to learn, and how to learn it.
For all ages and prior levels of experience. Below is a playlist preview of the kind of music you’ll be making in this challenge:
More About the “Learn to Uke” Brain Fitness Challenge
Over the years, many patients have asked me what sorts of things they should be doing to protect against cognitive decline, fully expecting me to compare and contrast the relative merits of Sudoku, crossword puzzles, or the latest “brain games” app.
And they’re often taken aback when my answer contains none of those things (and similarly taken aback when I discuss the critical role of sleep, nutrition, physical activity,…).
One thing my answer has always contained, however, is the advice to learn a musical instrument.
In recent years, as the research on the benefits of improving brain fitness has continued to mount, awareness of the benefits of engaging in cognitively challenging activities has grown.
Yet, for many, brain fitness has become associated with artificial activities aimed at narrow and isolated domains of cognition, the benefits of which are as yet uncertain, and likely to be modest at best.
To learn anything new, our brain must grow. And the more parts of the brain we engage in the learning process, the greater that growth.
Just as compound, real-world, functional movements of the body like pull ups or kettlebell swings are known to produce much more lasting and widespread improvements in physical strength than health, we ideally want to choose activities that do likewise for the brain.
Even better, with learning to play an instrument, you’re developing a skill that functions as its own reward. And the more you do it, the more joy you spread to yourselves and others.
Have fun, spread joy, and grow your brain? Win-win-win.
Click here to learn more about and join the Brainjo Collective (you’ll automatically have access to the challenge).