We spend a fortune on gyms (which we all go to regularly of course) to get our bodies into shape, yet how often do we give our brains a good work-out? The Brain Trainer, voted 2006 Gift of the Year at the Gift Association Awards, is an excellent way of giving yourself a few mental press-ups, and is a lot cheaper, considerably less exhausting and a great deal more fun. This pocket sized personal trainer for your brain will do more than Sudoku ever will to keep your mind on its toes.

To get your prefrontal cortex going, the Brain Trainer has a series of simple exercises that you do against the clock, and it's highly addictive. The first and simplest puzzle is still keeping us occupied - it gives you a hundred simple mathematic calculations to do, and our best record so far is 100% correct in three minutes. Infuriatingly this only gave us a score of average! We shall persevere, and that's what this wicked little trainer is all about. It sucks you into its little challenges, and you simply have to keep going to better your score. How great to have an addictive game that's actually beneficial for a change, rather than playing solitaire for hours with nothing to show for it. With Basic and Advanced settings and a range of challenges from timed maths to memory retention and focus exercises, the Brain Trainer is a devilishly compulsive game that'll get your brain in shape - if only physical exercise was this much fun!

Sciency Stuff.

It has been scientifically proven by Functional Brain Imaging Research that the solving of simple mathematical calculations and reading out loud are extremely effective methods of training your brain and in particular in activating the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that operates as the control tower of creativity, memory, communication, and self-control. Just like physical and muscle strength, brain function declines each year once you have passed adolescence. However, the good news is that you can help prevent this decline by making it a habit to actively and regularly use your brain just like you train your body to keep up its physical and muscle strength.

A series of programmes have been designed to stimulate the frontal cortex to enhance your mental agility and memory retention. These consist of several numerical tests, counting tests, focus tests and memory tests in which you are variously challenged to add/subtract/multiply as fast as you can, count as fast as you can, to add a series of numbers sequentially, and to memorise and recall as many numbers as possible.

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