10 Best Apps to Train Your Brain

Many people spend a great deal of time in the gym working on our bodies, but can we say the same about our minds? Just like a healthy physical form, a healthy mind also needs to flex its mental muscles and get some exercise. In fact, there are studies that show playing puzzle games can help increase mental agility. Brain training apps combine the latest in brain science with puzzles and mind games in order to exercise your faculties. Grab your smartphone – with thousands of interesting apps for all devices, there are many ways you can train your brain with technology. Check out 10 of the best brain training apps on Android and iOS devices below.

1 . Lumosity (Android, iOS)

Lumosity combines proven cognitive science techniques from the Human Cognition Project with a gamified approach to provide users with brain-training mini-games that are fun and effective at exercising your mental muscles. Users create a Lumosity account and then select particular mental faculties they want to exercise. Lumosity then creates customized daily exercise routines with mini-games built around those particular skills. 

The app tracks your scores, with difficulty adjusting to your performance, ensuring that you're always challenged. Compared to elevate, Lumosity's exercise tend more towards pattern recognition, reflexes and abstract puzzle solving, rather than the language skills of Elevate. Free users can access a set of daily exercises, while subscribers gain access to a wider variety of exercises and more features.

2. CogniFit Brain Fitness (iOS)

Improve cognitive abilities, such as memory and concentration, with sleek, fun and addictive games designed by neuroscientists. Users can track progress and access insights about overall brain health. Competitive players can challenge friends, too

After an initial quiz, the app adapts each game's difficulty to your profile and gives you recommendations based on your results. Developers found that users saw improvement by spending at least 20 minutes, two to three times a week, playing the games.

3. Personal Zen (iOS)

Players follow two animated characters, one of which looks calm and friendly while the other looks angry, as they burrow through a field of rustling grass. This game, developed by Dennis and researchers from Hunter College and the City University of New York, reduces anxiety by training your brain to focus more on the positive and less on the negative. 

"The habit of thinking about the world in a more positive light - like looking for a silver lining in a bad situation - is one of the key ways we can promote our own resilience in the face of adversity," says Dennis. 

Even a single session of play can build resilience over several hours. She suggests using the app right before a stressful event, but 10 minutes a day will help build more enduring positive effects. (Free; available for iOS).

4. Eidetic (iOS)

Rather than deliver an all-in-one brain training package, Eidetic focuses on one specific faculty: memory. Eidetic uses a flash card-style approach to help its users memorize everything from notes, lists, phone numbers, quotes and other useful real-life applications. 

The app includes a simple system for users to write down their own content in easy to use categories, allowing users to store and then memorize whatever is relevant to them. Users simply set the intensity of memory training, from one day cramfests to a more sedate weekly period, and Eidetic automatically notifies you when it's a good time to practice. (Free; available on iOS)

5. Fit Brains Trainer (Android, iOS)

Rosetta Stone's own entry into the brain training field is Fit Brains, an all-in-one brain training program. Fit Brains Trainer serves as the core of the program, featuring more than 360 games and training sessions designed to sharpen memory, concentration and other mental faculties. A scoring system allows users to track their performance in each mental skill relative to other users of the same age or gender. The app uses this performance data to dynamically assess and adjust the difficulty of its games relative to your progress. 

6. Happify (iOS)

Train your brain to be happier? Yep, research shows that some activities help build your ability to conquer negative thoughts, show gratitude, cope with stress, and empathize -- all essential ingredients for a fuller, happier life.

Using fundamentals of positive psychology, which involves focusing on the strengths and virtues that enable individuals to create fulfilling lives, the app's quizzes, polls and gratitude journal -- combined with a positive community -- gradually teach life-changing habits. The goal is to build these skills and keep users smiling all day. (Free; available for iOS)

7. Positive Activity Jackpot (Android)

 

This app was originally developed for service members returning from combat with high risk for post-traumatic stress disorder. It uses augmented reality with an Android phone's GPS to find nearby activities and diversions for someone coping with depression. 

If you cannot make up your mind what to do, "pull the lever" and let the app's jackpot function make the choice for you. PAJ is based on a form of behavioral therapy called pleasant event scheduling, which encourages a daily schedule of enjoyable activities to improve moods and overcome despondent thoughts. (Free; available on Google Play). 

8. ReliefLink (iOS)

While primarily intended as a suicide prevention and awareness app, ReliefLink also functions as a great mental health awareness tool. In addition to safety planning, reminders and emergency contacts, ReliefLink comes with a handy mood logging journal for easily recording how happy or down you feel as well as a selection of guided meditation, mindfulness training, relaxation techniques and relaxing music. Less about IQ and more about EQ and building a positive, mindful outlook, ReliefLink is a different way to train your brain.

9. Fit Brains Trainer (Android, iOS)

More than 360 unique games and puzzles aimed at stretching and improving your mental agility lead users through various tasks. Sessions get harder as you improve and will always challenge you and provide a solid brain workout. 

Keep track of your progress and performance tools and the program offers training recommendations for best results. (Free; available on iOS and on Google Play).

10. Sudoku (Android, iOS)

A challenger to the long time dominion of the daily crossword, Sudoku is a puzzle where players must fill in the blanks in a series of nine 3 x 3 magic squares. Emphasizing logic and pattern seeking, Sudoku might be considered more 'universal' than the vocabulary and pop-culture knowledge required for crosswords. There are a wealth of free Sudoku apps out there, and two that we like are Sudoku for iOS and Simply Sudoku on Android for their wealth of puzzles and UI.