Brain training is structured mental practice designed to challenge cognitive skills such as working memory, attention, processing speed and problem-solving.
It usually involves short exercises that provide feedback and become more difficult as your performance improves. The aim is to keep you doing something new or challenging enough to require concentration, learning and adjustment.
This is where brain training connects with neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to adapt in response to experience and practice.
How Does Brain Training Work?
Most brain-training exercises use the same basic process:
- Challenge a skill: Complete a task involving memory, attention, speed or reasoning.
- Receive feedback: See your accuracy, response time, score or level.
- Repeat the task: Practise the process and develop a more effective strategy.
- Increase the difficulty: Face longer sequences, shorter time limits or additional distractions.
- Track progress: Compare performance across multiple sessions.
The task should be difficult but achievable. If it is too easy, there is little reason to adapt. If it is so difficult that you are only guessing, useful practice becomes harder.
Adaptive brain training attempts to keep the task between those two extremes by changing the difficulty as you play.
Brain Training and Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity means that the brain is not fixed. Learning and repeated experience can change how efficiently we perform a task and how the brain responds to it.
Brain training is designed to make use of this through:
- New or changing tasks
- Focused mental effort
- Immediate feedback
- Repeated practice
- Gradually increasing difficulty
However, neuroplasticity does not mean that one game will improve every mental ability. Adaptation is often specific to what you practise.
Which Cognitive Skills Can Brain Training Challenge?
Different brain-training games place different demands on the brain.
| Cognitive skill | What it involves | Example exercise |
|---|---|---|
| Working memory | Holding and updating information | Remembering a changing sequence |
| Attention | Focusing on relevant information | Finding a target among distractions |
| Processing speed | Responding quickly without losing accuracy | Timed symbol matching |
| Cognitive flexibility | Switching between rules or approaches | Sorting items when the rule changes |
| Visual memory | Remembering patterns and locations | Recreating a visual grid |
| Problem-solving | Identifying patterns and applying rules | Completing a logic sequence |
Many exercises challenge several skills at once. Dual n-back, for example, involves working memory, attention, mental updating and response control.
Read What Is Working Memory? for a closer look at one of the main skills used in cognitive training.
Brain Games vs Cognitive Training
A brain game can simply be an entertaining puzzle. Cognitive training is more structured.
A game becomes closer to cognitive training when it:
- Targets a defined cognitive skill
- Measures performance
- Provides feedback
- Adjusts or increases the difficulty
- Is repeated over time
Crosswords, sudoku, reading and learning a language can all be mentally stimulating. However, they are not identical to adaptive tasks designed specifically around memory, attention or processing speed.
How Brain-Training Apps Differ
Brain-training apps use different types of exercises and target different goals.
| App | Main approach |
|---|---|
| Lumosity | A broad library of games for memory, attention, speed and problem-solving |
| Elevate | Exercises focused on reading, writing, speaking, maths and processing skills |
| Peak | Short games and workouts across several cognitive skills |
| BrainHQ | Adaptive exercises with a strong emphasis on cognitive research |
| CogniFit | Cognitive assessments combined with personalised training activities |
| NeuroNation | Personalised training plans using memory, logic, attention and speed exercises |
| NeuroLifts | Focused brain-training games combined with meditation, sound healing and Daily Wisdom |
A larger number of games does not automatically make one programme better. The important questions are what each task challenges, whether the difficulty adapts and whether progress is reported accurately.
The NeuroLifts Approach
NeuroLifts currently offers brain-training games that challenge areas including working memory, visual recall, attention, pattern recognition and processing speed.
The wider app combines four complementary areas:
- Brain training provides focused cognitive challenge.
- Meditation supports attention and mental settling.
- Sound healing provides a space for relaxation and reflection.
- Daily Wisdom introduces new ideas and encourages continued learning.
These activities do not all produce the same result. Together, they create a varied routine built around challenge, focus, relaxation and learning.
Does Dual n-back Brain Training Work?
Dual n-back is one of the most demanding working-memory exercises you can play. The clearest evidence supports improvements in closely related working-memory skills, with research reporting gains in areas such as attentional updating, running span and digit span. Broader effects on intelligence and everyday cognition remain uncertain. We reviewed 80 scientific papers to examine what the evidence actually shows in Does Dual N-Back Training Work? for the full scientific review.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Brain Training in Simple Terms?
Brain training is repeated practice using exercises that challenge skills such as memory, attention, speed and problem-solving.
What Are Examples of Brain Training?
Examples include n-back, visual-pattern recall, target-detection tasks, sequence exercises, timed matching and logic problems.
Can Adults Train Their Brains?
Yes. Adults remain capable of learning and adaptation, although improvement is usually strongest for the skills and tasks they practise.
How Often Should You Do Brain Training?
There is no universal schedule. A practical starting point is five to ten minutes, three times per week.
Do Brain Games Make You Smarter?
Improving at a brain game does not automatically increase general intelligence. Broader benefits should be measured rather than assumed.
Final Takeaway
Brain training uses new and progressively difficult exercises to practise specific cognitive skills.
Its connection to neuroplasticity is simple: the brain adapts through learning and experience. The clearest progress usually appears in the task being practised, which is why good brain training uses targeted exercises, useful feedback and increasing difficulty.
NeuroLifts combines this cognitive challenge with meditation, sound-based relaxation and Daily Wisdom to create a broader routine around challenge, focus, relaxation and learning.