Exercising your brain

– Mariana Braz

I don’t know if you have seen one of those brain teasers online. I have seen a lot of them and I really like it. They are usually pictures that challenge your brain in fun ways.

There is a lot of controversy when it comes to the real benefits of brain teasers. “Keep Your Mind Sharp With Brain Teasers” published on August 16, 2006 on Yahoo shows the different opinions about these games: Margaret Gatz, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, said that “too much concentration on cognitive fitness and its benefits, particularly in those with Alzheimer’s disease, could attach an unintentional stigma to those patients.”

On the other side, “Dale Robinson, R.N. and a Brain Gym teacher for the Tallahassee Senior Center in Tallahassee, FL disagrees with this theory” He said that research has appointed that brain teasers “increase brain activity…That being said, brain teasers can be very beneficial to anyone as can other creative puzzles, movement, dancing, reading, to name a few.”

If they help the brain or not it is still a big discussion, but we can’t deny that they are a very fun and entertaining. They can be anything from puzzles, riddles, pictures, scrambled letters and sentences or whatever else that challenges you to figure out what it is.

I have selected some of my favorite brain teasers and I would like you to try them and then leave a comment about how you did.

Ready? Here we go:

Let’s start with some riddles:

Mary’s father has 4 children. Three are named Nana, Nene and Nini. So what’s the 4^th child’s name?
The more of them you take, the more you leave behind. What are they?
What is it that you will break every time you name it?

Ok, how hard were these?

Now it is time for the challenge:

Read fast the colors you see not the words!