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You are here: Home / Archives for Mental Fitness

Mental Fitness

Review: Bend Your Brain (From the Minds Behind “Marbles” The Brain Store)

September 20, 2014 by Joi 3 Comments

Bend Your Brain
Bend Your Brain: 151 Puzzles, Tips, and Tricks to Blow (and Grow) Your Mind has a few questions for you: Want to get your frontal lobe breaking a sweat? Make your blood pump to your cerebellum? Stretch your occipital lobe to its limits?

If you’re as interested in mental fitness and brain health as I am, you’ll answer this question with a question of your own: How soon can we begin?!

Fortunately, you can begin the second you get your hands on this outstanding book. Bend Your Brain: 151 Puzzles, Tips, and Tricks to Blow (and Grow) Your Mind is actually more than a book, if we’re being honest here. It’s more of a workout program for the part of our body that is probably taken more for granted than any other part.  Which is perfectly ridiculous when you consider that it runs the whole shebang.

Bend Your Brain
From the Back Cover:

Then you need to bend your brain! This first book from the team behind Marbles: The Brain Store, a chain devoted to building better brains, offers puzzles and brain teasers to help enhance memory, build problem-solving skills, and reduce stress.
Since Marbles started helping people play their way to a healthier brain, they’ve sold, solved, and been stumped by more than their fair share of puzzles. Along the way, they’ve learned which puzzles tie people in knots (not in a good way) and which ones make the neurons downright giddy. With the help of their in-house team of BrainCoaches and access to cutting-edge neuroscience, they’ve designed these puzzles to keep your mind flexible and fit.
Arranged in five key brain categories—visual perception, word skills, critical thinking, coordination, and memory—Bend Your Brain offers a variety of puzzles ranging from mind-warming (easy) to mind-blowing (hard!):

·  Connecting the dots? More like working your spatial-orientation skills.
·  Identifying famous smiles? Flexing your visual memory.
·  Taking a closer look at your keyboard? Coding, storing, and retrieving.
·  Word-doku? Summoning cognitive abilities like appraisal, inference, impulse control, and evaluation.
·  Word scrambles? Tapping your brain’s association areas.

Your brain is your most important muscle, so let the brain-building begin! –  Bend Your Brain: 151 Puzzles, Tips, and Tricks to Blow (and Grow) Your Mind

Bend Your Brain
I have to say, I love everything about “Bend Your Brain.”  I know the STELLAR reputation Marbles: The Brain Store has in the mental fitness world.  When it comes to brain fitness, Marbles is “all in.”  They invest their hearts, bodies, and souls into discovering how the brain works, what it needs to keep working at an optimum level, where problems can arise, and what steps can be taken to avoid these problems.  I’d have as much confidence in their teachings on brain health as I would Rachael Ray’s teachings on cooking, Jillian Michael’s teachings on physical fitness, Albert Pujols’ teachings on swinging a baseball bat…

Well, you get the idea. We’re talking about experts in their chosen field.

MARBLES: THE BRAIN STORE is in malls across the country. They’ve been featured in Good Housekeeping, Real Simple, USA Today, and Wired, as well as on the Today show and Martha Stewart Living.  Like I said… experts.

While the book is flexible, the cover is made of a very sturdy material – it isn’t the type of “romance novel” paper covers that dog-ear or tear. It’s ideal for curling up in a comfy chair with a pencil and a hot Chai Tea Latte as you treat your mind to a FUN and STIMULATING workout.  I’m, perhaps, more familiar with brain games and brain puzzles than the average person. Another one of my blogs (“Out of Bounds“) involves mental fitness and brain health.  While doing research for the articles on “Out of Bounds,” I’ve bought and used countless books with “brain stimulating” puzzles.

Frankly, there are quite a few on the market that are outstanding. However, the puzzles throughout Bend Your Brain: 151 Puzzles, Tips, and Tricks to Blow (and Grow) Your Mind are different from other puzzles I’ve seen in other books. Bend Your Brain does a much better job of letting you know WHY you need each type of puzzle.  I also love the fact that the puzzles address the five key brain categories (visual perception, word skills, critical thinking, coordination, and memory).

What good would it be to focus on just one or two?!?!

If I were to recommend one book for the individual who is interested in protecting and strengthening their mind, this would be the book.  The puzzles are a PERFECT blend of challenging, very challenging, and OMG challenging.  What’s more, they’re a lot of fun!

If you’re looking to strengthen your mind and memory, increase self-confidence, and even improve your problem-solving skills, Bend Your Brain shouldn’t just be the next book you buy… it has to be the next book you buy.

Click through and learn more about Bend Your Brain: 151 Puzzles, Tips, and Tricks to Blow (and Grow) Your Mind. Trust me, this is one you and your brain are going to love.

Never stop learning!
~ Joi

Bend Your Brain Book Review
Note: I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. The opinions are entirely my own.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Books I Love, Fitness, Health, Mental Fitness, Self Growth Tagged With: Book Reviews, brain puzzles, mental fitness, strengthen your mind

Life is A Lot Like a Jigsaw Puzzle

August 9, 2012 by Joi Leave a Comment

My oldest daughter Emily and I have a great love for jigsaw puzzles. We came by it honestly. My mom and aunt seemed to always have a jigsaw puzzle going when I was growing up.  Each of them had card tables set up expressly for their puzzling passion.

When Emily lived at home, we often had a jigsaw puzzle going.  We always got a big kick out of working on a masterpiece, even though it was a bit of a struggle – thanks to our cat Alexa who loves to lay right in the middle of everything, swatting pieces onto the floor just because she can. Her involvement actually added a whole new level of difficulty to the process, but that’s okay, we like a good challenge.

Working jigsaw puzzles is actually an outstanding stress-relieving activity. Whenever we have a puzzle set out, every member of the family gets in on the fun.  Whenever any of us passes by a puzzle in progress, we feel compelled to try to find a few pieces to magically fit in place.  I haven’t had a puzzle going in a while – it  seems to be one of those things that I do more frequently in seasons other than summer. Like updating blogs!  Summer cuts into my writing and updating like a sharp knife cuts into a watermelon.

The last jigsaw puzzle my family and I had going was a real beauty. There were six big, colorful hot air balloons against a blue sky with just enough fluffy clouds to make it one of the most puzzling puzzles ever.  The only one I can remember being tougher was a Times Square one that was just vicious… it’s actually still too soon to talk about that one.

One afternoon Emily and I were hard at work on the Hot Air Balloons puzzle, sipping coffee and strategically trying to find pieces of the sky that would consent to fit together.  We got tickled once because we caught ourselves trying to enforce our will a couple of times.  I mockingly acted like I was pounding one in with my fist. It, of course, didn’t see things my way – no matter how hard I pounded.  I decided to accept the inevitable and took the “difficult” piece on the same tour the last pieces of a puzzle get… a visit to each open bay or available peninsula.

Please tell me I”m not the only one to think of puzzle pieces geographically.

Life, interestingly enough, is often like a jigsaw puzzle.  Sometimes it hums along beautifully. All the pieces fit perfectly. We see the big picture of our life the way we see the big picture on the front of a puzzle’s box.  We have money in the bank, food in the refrigerator, the kids are being down-right saintly, our spouse is so close to perfect it scares us… all’s right in the world.

The pieces fit effortlessly.

Other times it seems like we can’t catch a break. Money’s tight, the kids are getting into everything, our spouse is in the worst mood in the history of moods, bills are piling up and…  Days (sometimes weeks!) when you’d be hard-pressed to find an answer if someone asked, “What are you most thankful for today?”

The pieces don’t fit.. no matter how hard we pound!

Yet, all the pieces are necessary to complete the big picture – the masterpiece that will be our life.

Have you ever worked a puzzle only to find a few pieces missing? If you have a cat like Alexa, it probably happens regularly.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve crawled around on my hands and knees peeking under sofas, appliances, tables, etc for missing pieces she swatted.  I suspect it’s all part of the game she plays called, “Let’s see how many crazy things I can make the humans do today.”

A puzzle is anything but a work of art when there’s even just one piece missing. Isn’t that crazy? There can be 999 pieces beautifully in place, but if there’s one tiny piece missing, it messes everything up.  The entire picture is ruined.

Difficult times in our lives… the pieces that don’t fit… are just as necessary to complete the “big picture.”  They may take extra time, work, and patience, but they’re necessary – every bit as necessary as the pieces that glide into place.   In fact, these times will probably always have a special place in your heart.  After our Hot Air Balloon puzzle was completed, we’d all talk about the sky each time we looked at it!  We’d remember what a struggle it was to find just the right pieces of white for each cloud and we’d remember asking each other, “How many shades of blue can actually exist?!”  Looking at the beautiful cloud-filled sky may have even been more gratifying than the big beautiful balloons.

When we look back over trying times in our lives, we’ll be able to get a certain kind of satisfaction and relief from just knowing we made it through alive! If the events made us stronger, the satisfaction will be even greater.

I’ve heard from quite a few people lately who are currently going through difficult times. I know that there are many others out there who are just trying to find ways to make the pieces fit.  When I correspond with friends I meet through Self Help Daily, one of the things I always say is, “Stay Strong…” I should say one of the many things – anyone who knows me knows that some of my e-mails should come divided into chapters!  “Stay Strong” may seem like simple little words, but if you keep them as your mindset, they can help see you through anything.

Staying strong is the key to making  it through to the other side a stronger, better person.  It’s the key to hanging in there long enough to make the pieces of the puzzle fit.

Whatever puzzle lies before you, know that you hold all of the pieces.  Keep the big picture in front of you and… yes… stay strong.

~ Joi

Filed Under: General, Mental Fitness, Positive Thought, Problem Solving, Self Growth Tagged With: inspirational, overcoming difficult times, Self Help

Strengthen Your Brain

August 12, 2011 by Joi Leave a Comment

Owls

If you want to strengthen your brain and keep your mind as sharp as ever, you have to be proactive. Wisdom won’t just come to you automatically… that only happens to owls!

I’ve posted two new articles on my mental fitness blog, Out of Bounds.

The first article, How Exercise Strengthens Your Mind, Body, and Soul: Get That Body Moving shows how exercise is actually vital for mental health, physical health, and even emotional health.  The article also shows you sneaky ways to “trick” yourself into getting more activity!

The second article, How to Strengthen Your Mind and Avoid Brain Atrophy details the mental dangers of living in a rut.  Growth never occurs in a rut.  We all HAVE to start paying as much attention to our mental health as we do our physical health.  If we keep overlooking our brain’s fitness, we’ll suffer memory loss, brain fog, and possibly dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.  Make today the day you begin paying more attention to your brain’s health.

Filed Under: Health, Mental Fitness, Self Improvement Tagged With: brain health, mental fitness

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