In this article, I want to recommend a “brain fitness” program I use, and explore its implications on the brain and sleep. The program is Lumosity.

• Visit Lumosity.com

Sleep and the brain are inseparable. Anyone interested in optimizing sleep quality is probably also interested in maximizing brain power. I’m a math and physics guy, so maximizing cognitive abilities has become a passionate hobby of mine.

And I’m continually amazed at how modern research shows the intricate connection between cognition and sleep.

Your Brain and Sleep

Why should you care about simultaneously maximizing sleep quality and the mind?

If your brain isn’t working at optimal capacity, it may be giving you poor sleep. And poor sleep may be hurting your brain. It’s a downward spiral — and many of us are trapped inside.

Fortunately, there’s an upward spiral, too. Good sleep → better intelligence. And a better brain → better sleep. Get inside this upward spiral and the rewards are endless: higher IQ, stronger feelings of happiness, boundless energy, improved focus, greater longevity…

Sleep, Learning and Neurogenesis

One way to get inside this upward spiral is to maximize the process of neurogenesis.

Your brain has the incredible ability to create new brain cells — up to 10,000 per day — a process we call neurogenesis.

Science research shows that successful neurogenesis depends on two things: Learning and Sleep.

For example:

Learning spatial tasks increases the production of new cells in an area of the brain involved with spatial memory called the hippocampus. Sleep plays a part in helping those new brain cells survive.

Learning during the day promotes neurogenesis. High-quality sleep at night promotes the survival of these new brain cells:

Learning new things, at least in the case of spatial memory, quite literally keeps your brain young by ensuring a better survival rate for new brain cells in the hippocampus. However, not getting enough sleep eliminates the potential benefit of new learning on the hippocampus by suppressing neurogenesis.

Bottom line: Good learning cannot exist without good sleep, and vice-versa. Sleep quality is important, too — just dozing off at night doesn’t cut it. It’s deep sleep (or slow-wave sleep) that plays the biggest role in skill/memory consolidation.

• Every night when we go to sleep, our brains process new skills learned in the day.
• Each night of sleep is your opportunity to improve your mind — become smarter, faster at processing information, improve spatial and procedural memory, etc.
• If you spend your day in a familiar routine, you throw away that chance, and sleep becomes nothing more than “restorative”.

So the key is: mental stimulation during the day and quality sleep at night → maximum improvement to brain function.

Much of the SleepWarrior website is about optimizing sleep. This article will help fill in the necessary prerequisite: mental stimulation.

Mental Stimulation

To stimulate (and grow) the brain, you could:

• Learn a language
• Visit a new location
• Work on a difficult “brain teaser”

But many of these techniques are impractical, at least for most of us. Believe me, if I could spend my life learning new languages and traveling the world, I would. But like most of you I sometimes get stuck in a routine, not because I want to, but because I gotta pay the bills.

Mental exercise is an important part of brain health. But we often get stuck in routines, going day-to-day with our brain on auto-pilot.

The solution is to break the mental auto-pilot routine in a convenient way. Because, let’s face it, none of us are perfect and sometimes we just like to…

• Watch TV
• Play video games
• Surf the web
• Watch movies

I’ve got nothing against those activities (I do all of them). But we should at least find some way to “sneak in” mental exercise. The brain needs exercise just as much as our bodies. And like our bodies, the brain doesn’t necessarily need overstimulation — just 15 minutes of brain fitness a day is enough to trigger neurogenesis and put us in the upward spiral of brain & sleep health.

Everyone can find their own brain fitness solution — read a book, play online chess, practice music, learn a foreign language. But it’s hard to commit to some of these. Ever try teaching yourself a foreign language?

My Brain Fitness Solution: Lumosity

This is where Lumosity comes in. As fun as it is to teach yourself a new language, sometimes such hobbies can get overwhelming. Lumosity is a great way to overcome this.

Lumosity.com is an online “brain exercise” website. It’s much like Brain Age from Nintendo. Lumosity has 14 games (and counting) that focus on improving four areas of brain training:

• Memory
• Attention
• Cognitive control
• Processing speed

You spend 15 minutes a day playing the games at the Lumosity website — that simple addition to your daily routine is enough to spark the brain into neurogenesis.

I personally find Lumosity much better than Nintendo’s Brain Age. Why? Because it’s actually challenging.

Lumosity is Actually Challenging

I spent my college years solving math and physics problems. Since then, however, I haven’t exposed my brain to the same mental rigor. I miss it.

For someone who likes chess, math and physics, I prefer games that actually make my brain hurt. I love the feeling of tackling a challenging problem.

Many of the games on Lumosity are insane, and make your brain weep tears. I love it. (Games start off easy, but after a while they push your limits).

Challenge = fun = addictive.

I never found Brain Age to be particularly fun. It just sorta feels like you’re spinning your wheels when you play it. Lumosity on the other hand truly pushes your brain to work its ass off. Try a few games and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Try Lumosity

You can set up an account at Lumosity.com.

• Visit Lumosity.com Click “free trial” to start playing.

The free trial is 14 days. So you can decide whether or not it’s for you after playing around with it first.

Lumosity Tips

If you decide to test it out, here are some points to keep in mind.

• Studies show that 15 minutes a day of brain exercise is all that’s needed to utilize the “sleep makes you smarter” effect.
• Brain games are a good alternative to “idle” activities like surfing the Web. Might as well get some good use out of down time.
• Brain games are paradoxically quite relaxing. They focus your brain on a certain skill, which clears your thoughts from life’s stressful distractions.
• Bottom line: brain fitness is a healthy way to have fun and break the everyday routine without taking too much time away.

If you test out Lumosity, let me know your score on the game “speed match” — I’m a pro and I bet you can’t beat my score