Apps to train your brain: Top Ten

[CherryBomb]

Has anyone ever used apps to train your brain? Or have you ever thought about using apps? 

There's an interesting article about the Top Ten app that can be used to help train the brain.

I'm interested in what your thoughts are about using technology to train to the brain. Are you into it or not, and why? 

CB

[morningstar]

On the other hand . . . http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/apr/21/brain-training-online-neuroscience-elizabeth-day

[ButterflyGirl]

Hi how are you,

I found a great one for panic attacks, simple called Panic Attacks. It had great audios for relaxation as well as techniques. 🙂

I also use lumosity everyday

and One Giant Mind to meditate (almost everyday)

[w1sdumb]

I don't want you to think I'm knocking the idea of having an app, or searching for an app; I think it's laudable that you're doing something, because it can be so easy to do nothing but complain. My experience though, has been that the brain that I am training, be it using cognitive behaviorial therapy, or an app, is not the 'brain' that will be in control when the crisis that needs the training hits. (Ah, it might help to know I'm labelled bipo and I hold down a full time job in the IT world on a 457 visa). So in the remisssion period, I get CBT, and I find an app that looks like it could help, and I train away.

Then along comes a day when I start finding a hundred apps that look about right, and I register on all of them, and convince myself I can still do productive work whilst getting up to date with my training from a thousand different angles. Exit brain #1, the trained, but vastly over extended brain. Each new app doesn't learn from the last, it means starting from scratch on each, leaving a confused overload reinputting the myriad of different angles.

The apps are not inter-related and one app doesn't know that I'm doing the same on 99 other apps, and so none of the apps are alerting someone that something is going horribly wrong. Each app is just recording that i am not doing so well and so they rate me down for more training.

I do this frantically until one day my brain sort of pops, and I can think nothing, zilch, zippo. I'm spent. Enter brain #2, a brain in stupor. Not only does it not have the intense training of brain #1, it also doesn't have the personal relationship value that I would have attained had I spent the time I was training on a machine with genuine real humans. Now I'm exhausted, I have a million experiences, and I have no one to share them with. No one understands what I have been through, except some google experts someplace noting the frenetic behaviour somewhere on the planet. 

Training is great. Apps are great. Doing something to help is great, but always remember that machines don't have empathy - only people do. I would even go so far as to suggest that if you use more that 2 you are investing too much time in technology, when technology won't invest a millisecond on you when you really really need it. People take investing too. It's so easy to end up with no people and no one to tell, and no-one to notice when things are going horribly wrong.

[ButterflyGirl]

Hiya!

I respectfully disagree, if you continuously use an app you connect with (which for me isn't really an app, its audio and videos) then your brain will learn to use these things you learn in a crisis. Alternatively I write down the things I learn on cue cards so I can remember them when I start to panic. Training your brain and inner voice is so essential to recovery.

However I agree that if that doesnt work, and you cannot find an app to connect with, then go see someone. I do 🙂 But of course I only see someone once a fortnight so for all of the other days, apps can be great :). Especially my meditation app! 🙂

Also alternatively you can chat online with people on this forum, or sites like beyond blue when its night time and there may not be a professional available.

I love apps and I am very excited to see what they can do in the future. My teacher is designing an app at the moment which is similar to lumosity, that can help people with schitophrenia cope better in the workplace. Amazing stuff!

I also love speaking to people about my issues, and I love seeking professional help as they have no judgement 🙂

Thanks for sharing your story too! 🙂

[w1sdumb]

Hi ButterflyGirl! Nice to meet you. I'd agree, using audio and video is a great way to tune yourself into a calmer groove. What I'd meant by app was a specific program, like Endomondo would be for running. I get such a lift out of watching the first auditions on xfactor or idol or voice, seeing someone do well seems to lift me out, even if for a moment. And hey, I liked the 'respectfully' bit ... ha ha!

[ButterflyGirl]

Oh I see what you are saying 🙂

Yeah I often watch my favourite movies when I need a lift, or call a family member. There is no denying that human interaction is the best medicine 🙂

[NikNik]

Hi all,

I found this article about an app which helps you track your anxiety and analyise what you're concerned about.

What do you guys think?

Nik

[Loopy]

CherryBomb, I have found the best way, for me, to calm down is using relaxation tapes, either voice over or just sound. The voice over ones, by the seaside, bush track make you aware of your body are really good as you act on suggestion. That is purely my preference.

[Alessandra1992]

I love Tony O'Connor CD's like Kakadu..music with native bird song, water falls..