Luminosity

What it does

As we enter our advanced years and retirement, staying sharp and keeping your mind engaged becomes increasingly important. Luckily, there’s Luminosity – a brain-training app that improves all areas of mental acuity (no matter your age).

Using Luminosity is like playing a sport to help keep you fit and healthy. Except, the aim of the game is to improve your cognitive abilities. And make no mistake. This isn’t the same as doing a crossword or building a puzzle with thousands of pieces. The games have been developed by leading scientists, doctors, psychiatrists and researchers.

Like most training apps, Luminosity is adaptive. Sign up and log in, and you’re given three tests to determine your baseline cognitive ability in memory, math, and flexibility. Your test scores are then used to compare you to other members, and allows the app to tailor an exercise programme to you.

The exercises themselves are deceivingly simple. But as the complexity or size of a mental puzzle is increased, you’ll immediately start breaking a mental sweat – but it feels great.

How it helps

Whether it’s memory, maths, or even language and comprehension, Luminosity’s game design is combined with science-based and research-backed methodologies to ensure the cognitive exercises are both fun and effective for all ages.

This makes it both addictive and rewarding. It keeps track of your stats, so you can see how you compare to other users, and how you’ve improved.

It also allows you to target specific cognitive abilities and train them. So, if you’ve been experiencing a decline in a specific area, let’s say your memory functions, Luminosity allows you to focus and develop that specific ability.

Conclusion

Much like those super-ripped 70-year-olds that keep training, eat well, and can outperform most young folks, you can keep your mind fit and healthy with Luminosity.

Its success speaks for itself. It’s been going for over 10 years and has over 100 million subscribers. But, if that doesn’t convince you, its benefits of prolonged use have also been proven in peer-reviewed scientific studies.

But perhaps the best part is that it never feels like a chore or hard work. It’s like you’re playing a game, because you are. One that exercises and keeps your brain fit. So, if you’ve got time on your hands (and spend a bit too much time on social media) give it a go. Using Luminosity as a constructive distraction is an absolute no-brainer.

What other users say

“You can literally feel your brain working better! Your analytical thinking, focus, concentration, memory, even your mood gets better. Plus they’re just fun convenient and easy!” – Sarah Juliette (Google Play review)

What the experts say

“There is preliminary evidence on how regular training with Lumosity exercises impact cognitive abilities in healthy adults, in elderly patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment, in individuals who have had chemotherapy, and in individuals with medical conditions associated with cognitive impairment. Cognitive change has been documented with regard to improved game performance, improvement on the Brain Performance Test, and there is some evidence to indicate that generalization to cognitive performance on independent standardized measures of neurocognition can occur.” – Dr. Alice Saperstein