Challenging your brain is one key piece of brain health – you should also get physical exercise, eat a healthy diet, and stay emotionally and socially engaged. Why is brain fitness important? Because learning new stuff re-wires your neurons and improves brain performance. And everyone is capable of improving. Medical research such as the IMPACT study clearly shows memory and mental fitness, like physical fitness, gets better with exercise. The next step is to do something effective. Posit Science, where I am CEO and Dr. Mike Merzenich is co-founder and Chief Science Officer, makes scientifically-validated and engaging software that can help you think faster, focus better and remember more. Over 30 clinical studies from institutions like the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins show that our technology can have a range of benefits from improved memory to lowered health care costs to improved driving safety. For more information and to try free exercises, please visit www.positscience.com

A technology solution that restricts phone or text use helps but distractions occur from many activities like kids asking questions from the back seat, music on the radio as well as many other events on the road and in the car. That is possible be improving brain performance and therefore enhancing a driver’s ability to ignore distractions and pay attention to critical cues. Posit Science, where I am CEO, recently introduced DriveSharp, a brain fitness program recommended by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. There is a free online demo of one of the training exercises and a free evaluation at www.drivesharpnow.com

Baby boomers should think about investing in another area to be the safest driver they can be on the road – the speed and accuracy of their brain’s performance. Doing so will help keep the driver focused on the road and allow quicker decisions based on what is seen. Why? Because medical and science literature is clear that brain performance is very predictive of accident risk and can be improved with the right mental exercises (just like physical fitness is for the body). I am CEO of Posit Science, the leader in clinically-proven brain fitness software. We recently introduced DriveSharp, a program that can improve driving safety that is recommended by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. There is a free online demo of one of the training exercises and a free evaluation at www.drivesharpnow.com and a review at Walt Mossberg’s Wall Street Journal column http://bit.ly/fSGl4