Keep Your Brain Alive: 83 Neurobic Exercises by Lawrence Katz, Manning Rubin Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Keep Your Brain Alive: 83 Neurobic Exercises
Book Review: Interesting but a bit impractical. . .
Summary: 3 Stars
"Keep Your Brain Alive" offers some fairly standard advice on how to keep the mind agile as one ages. You've heard it before--be social, learn new things and new ways of doing routine tasks, use all the senses. The unique aspect of this particular book is the suggested exercises, but here the author veers away from the practical a little too strongly for my taste. He's big on exercising the sense of smell, and recommends driving around with a bunch of bottles with fragrance soaked pieces of sponge. Then uncork a particular one when you pass a specific place to fix it more firmly in your mind. I think if I did this my husband would begin having serious doubts about my state of mind--with good reason! I thought some suggestions could be dangerous, such as wandering around your home with lights off to activate the other senses--not a good idea for an older person, just as "uncork bottle while driving" is not a good idea. The scientific explanations are excellent--very clear and easy to understand--but I'd take the exercises with a big grain of salt!Book Review: Rip
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm very disappointed with this book. While it's based on fundamentally solid brain science, there's not enough meat in here to justify an entire book.
This book offers the following to strengthen your brain (i.e. build and activate new neural connections): "1. Involve one or more of your senses in a novel (new) context, 2. Break a routine activity in an unexpected, nontrivial way." Basically, by breaking the routine and forcing yourself to learn new things or different ways of doing old things, new connections will develop within your brain and create thought processing and longevity benefits. If you're right-handed, start forcing yourself to use your left hand (I was taught this aspect almost 30 years ago). Take different routes to work. Start using other senses to take in data. You see a widget. You normally recognize it as such and move on. Here, it is suggested to pick it up, feel it, examine it, smell it, listen to it and more connections will develop. Go out and socialize. Nothing challenges the mind more than interacting with new people.
O.K. This is all good, valuable information. But the proceeding paragraph pretty much sums it up. The other 100 or so pages in this book are fluff, with examples of achieving novelty. [...].
Book Review: Keep You Brain Alive:83 Neurobic Exercises
Summary: 1 Stars
This is a silly, stupid book! Save your money.Book Review: Simple and Profound
Summary: 5 Stars
The fun and easy brain exercises found in Keep Your Brain Alive offer quick ways to increase the connections in your brain. Try them for a week or so. They work.
But for me, the real treasure in this book is that it renewed my awareness of how often we humans operate on auto-pilot, and how disabling one sense can engage others . . . thereby creating vital new connections. I'll close my eyes more often to get a more complete read on a person, a situation, and improve my brain's ability to access critical areas of information in the process.
Contemporary studies indicate that people with more education, people who've used their brains more often and in more depth (i.e., people with more "connections"), can overcome the effects of the plaques and tangles of Alzheimer's disease (at least for a while) because the brain is able to rewire or reroute information around the afflicted area. That alone makes this fun little book, a quick and easy read, worth more than the price of admission.
Highly recommended!
Phyllis Staff, Ph.D.
author:
"How to Find Great Senior Housing," and
"128 Ways to Prevent Alzheimer's and Other Dementias"
Book Review: Fun way to keep brain from decay!
Summary: 5 Stars
The mind and memory tend to break down as we age. But they do not have to. This little book of exercises first briefly describes the mental processes and how they can break down and why. Then it offers many simple daily exercises we can utilize to prevent that from happening. The brain exercises are fun and easy. As a student of psychology with an interest in cognitive psychology, I am certain the methods are in line with the current research on effective methods to improve and maintain brain function. Everyone should use it.