Customer Reviews

Keep Your Brain Alive: 83 Neurobic Exercises to Help Prevent Memory Loss and Increase Mental Fitness

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This little audio book is a gem! Many of us have had the sad experience of watching an older person who is dear to us decline mentally, perhaps it is dementia, Alzheimers. Whatever the case memory is impaired. Perhaps we then see ourselves in the same condition some years hence. Not necessarily so say the co-authors of Keep Your Brain Alive, one a Professor of Neurobiology at Duke University, the other a researcher whose work focused on brain development.

They suggest simple yet fun exercises that "help stimulate the production of nutrients that grow brain cells to keep the brain younger and stronger." Put quite simply, there are areas of our brains that we do not use. Areas in frequent use produce new nerve cells, the unused areas simply fade away and die. Studies seem to indicate that memory loss may be due to always using those familiar areas while neglecting others.

The authors propose 83 exercises that will stimulate these little traveled paths, such as brushing your teeth with the hand that you do not normally use. It is explained that when you do this you're forcing another area of the brain to do the work. Try taking your morning shower with your eyes closed - again putting another area of your brain to work. How about not speaking at dinner, allowing your contact with one another to be visual rather than oral?

Simple suggestions? Yes. But, intriguing ideas and you know what is said about an ounce of prevention.

- Gail Cooke

How we rate a book depends primarily on what we are induced to expect from it. The title suggested that this book would offer ways to increase one's range of thinking styles.

Instead, what I found to my disappointment, were trivial exercises that aim to change routine habits. Most of it is about deliberately changing the way we perfrom our routines and mundane daily activities - like closing your eyes and opening your bathroom tap, taking a new route to a familiar destination, getting exposed to strong and unusual smells etc. This might be of help to those who have considerably aged and require any sort of mental stimulation to activate their brain cells. For someone like me, working as a bank clerk at the age of 30, brimming with ideas on creativity and imagination techniques, these exercises really do not make much of a difference.

I think what the younger population needs for brain development (not in the physiological sense) is a solid exposure to the different ways of thinking - analytical, logical, creative, lateral, absrtact, visual, holistic, intuitive, pattern-based thinking etc and ways to improve memory. The more tools you have to choose from the more ways you have to tackle and solve a problem. This book doesn't do a thing towards this objective.

If you feel what I mentioned in the last paragraph is what you're really looking for, I would whole-heartedly suggest Karl Albrecht's "Brain Power". That book really deserves to move up in the sales ranking. ("Brain Power" focuses on thinking methods. For memory improvement the only book you need to read, in my opinion, is "Your Memory" by Kenneth Higbee).

What follows might be an unkind comment, but I should mention it because the title does not suggest it, "Save this title for the time when you are old and senile".

I'm surprised at the response of some other readers of this book. I read the book, and I found that it offered a very interesting explanation of how the brain processes information.

A lot of the points that the authors make are perfectly valid. We live in an increasingly complex society, and, as a result, rely on a lot of routines (like taking the same route to work each day, buying the same items at the same stores each day, etc.) to make our way through day-to-day life. The down side of this sort of lifestyle is that these routines are brain deadening.

This book offers ideas on ways to break free of mind-numbing daily routines like using the five senses in new ways or taking unexpected approaches to everyday events. Sure, some of the exercises are pretty silly, and I can't say that I've embraced a lot of their ideas, but the basic premise behind neurobics makes sense.

I suggest you read the first few chapters on how the brain works and skim through the exercises--essentially use the exercises as a springboard to living a more active, engaging life. The average person will learn a lot about the workings of the brain and may even take a new approach to living their life.

Keep Your Brain Alive By Lawrence C. Katz,Ph.D and Manning Rubin

Reviewed by Nancy Newman whose novel "Disturbing The Peace" is to be published by Avon Books this fall

If you've been suffering periodic memory lapses lately and are worried a your middle-aged brain is turning to mush, take heart. Help is here in the form of a terrific little book called Keep Your Brain Alive by Lawrence C. Katz,Ph.D. and Manning Rubin. Based on the latest scientific research from around the world, the book offers a short explanation of how the brain functions, then goes on to describe a unique program called neurobics (aerobics for the brain) which can keep your mind healthy and agile even as you and your brain age

The balance of science and exercises is organized and written in a way that let's you understand enough about what's happening in the brain without bogging you down with technical explanations. Basically the system uses the brain's ability to produce it's own nutrients that strengthen and preserve brain cells and applies that to the discovery that nerve cells in adult brains can be stimulated to grow dendrites with these nutrients. As we age our lives tend to become so routinized that we rely too heavily on only one or two senses and many pathways in the brain's circuits become inactive. As a result there is a thinning out of dendrites. Since these threadlike tendrils receive and process information from nerve cell to nerve cell, our minds can begin to feel sluggish.

But according to the authors, this situation can be vastly improved by presenting the brain with unexpected combinations of the senses in novel ways, thereby stimulating it to increase the health and complexity of its dendrites and thus giving memory and mental agility a boost.

The eighty-three exercises offered in the book are simple, fun and easy to integrate into daily life. Try brushing your teeth or buttoning your shirt in the morning with your less dominant hand. Scramble the location of familiar objects in your office. Take a whiff of pungent spices at an ethnic market. Make your way through your bedroom without turning on a light. You're giving your neural pathways a workout. Soon you'll be thinking up your own neurobic exercises. Growing older doesn't have to mean growing dimmer, say Katz and Rubin, not if you start living neurobically.

"Keep Your Brain Alive" offers simple, easy-to-maneuver exercises for ones brain. It is not rocket science nor do I believe it was written to prepare people for raising their bar on the genius scale.

What it CAN do is keep your saw sharpened as many people go on the decline... not as one reviewer suggested, when people are already senile.

I also appreciated the teachings in regards to growing new dendrites-the connective links which work as memory sharpeners - by taking simple actions like shaking up your breakfast menu using a multisensory approach to menu planning.

My children, ages 11 and 5, enjoyed doing some of the associative games which will also build dendrites.

Again, intentionally using these techniques and others in the book will do exactly as this book is intended: keep the mind fit... not create genius in 10 days or less.

"83 Neurobic Exercise to help prevent memory
loss and increase mental fitness" is the sub headline.
This short 148 page book is a must for everyone over
50 years of age. Those under that age that want to
start early are also advised to read this book and
try some of the simple ways to stimulate your
brain, create fun and new challenges to the
way it stores information. Neurobics simply uses
the five senses in unexpected ways and shakes up
everyday routines. It is also fun. I hope it works.

fitting in fitness and keep your brain alive combo

The exercises these guys recommend are becoming more widely accepted as specific tactics for reducing the risk of Alzheimer's .... They are straightforward and enjoyable.

Keep Your Brain Alive with neurobic exercises reminded me of that which I learned through physical exercising years ago; if its fun, its easy to stick with and it works. Without the day to day stimuli I encountered as a younger person, I enjoy and notice the acuity difference I derive from these simple and productive tasks. And, it comforts me to know that I have some control over my aging mind. I've told my friends, its a book for boomers for sure.

This book contains some exercises which might be good for one's brain. However, I did not notice any improvement. Furthermore, some of the exercises he suggests are not helpful, and I found them in fact to hinder my own brain's functioning. I refer to the suggestion that using one's non-dominant hand could be beneficial to one's brain. This may be true in some cases, but I strongly suggest not to use one's non-dominant hand to write, because this can result in the development of a stutter. It is well known that when children are forced to change their writing hand it can have negative effects. I don't think the author specifically suggested experimenting with changing one's writing hand however, he did not recommend against this course, which is why I am writing this now. A much better book for improving one's brain is "The Einstein Factor" by Win Wenger.