Brain training exercises might just make you better at brain training exercises
Here's a mystery to me: the failure of brain training games vs. the success of meditation.<p>The science for brain training games is not encouraging. A number of studies have found that they do not produce generalizable mental improvements.<p>Meanwhile, every time I turn around I run into a study of mindfulness meditation that did produce a generalizable improvement to mental abilities.<p>For example, I was just reading one about how meditation can reduce pain perception by 40% and that measurement was backed up by MRI imaging of reduced brain activity in pain centers.<p>Let's call meditation a brain game that works.<p>The mystery then is why is there only one game that works? Will we ever find a second?