Building Mental Muscle: Conditioning Exercises for the Six Intelligence Zones (Brain Waves Books)

Rating:
Summary: Flex the cortex
Review: Based around the six "intelligence" zones (social, memory, emotional, language, math & spatial) the book aims to present both background information and exercises for bulking up each of the relevant mental areas above.
With ample information of the neurology of the brain, solid examples to support the information and some rather neat practice exercices, this is a solid example of a boox that does what it says it will.
It's well worth a read and very recommended.

Rating:
Summary: The title is misleading
Review: Based around the six "intelligence" zones (social, memory, emotional, language, math & spatial) the book aims to present both background information and exercises for bulking up each of the relevant mental areas above.
With ample information of the neurology of the brain, solid examples to support the information and some rather neat practice exercices, this is a solid example of a boox that does what it says it will.
It's well worth a read and very recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Enlightening and Motivational
Review: I had one main motivation for getting your book. To recapture my learning power! My second motivation was to understand why it needed to be recaptured.

Not only did I want to gain back my "Mental Muscle", but I wanted to understand why and how my learning capacity diminished in a few short years. I also wanted to understand preventative measures. And I wanted this information backed by research. So you see, your book was a perfect match.

The book is more entertaining than I anticipated! That has been the biggest surprise- it's fun. The mix of puzzles, exercises, research studies and explanations is like a song with an interesting and varied melody. It never stays in one place long enough to tire of it. Also, the information on how the brain functions (how it can become more/less powerful) was exactly what I wanted to know. Things like how the Hippocampus routes and retrieves data, how stress interferes with memory and how exercise helps the retention of mental function not only enlighten, but serve as positive motivation that the brain can be made strong again. Probably my favorite parts are those that explain the underlying logic needed to work through and solve the exercises. Like in the "Familial Dilemma" exercises.

As you can tell, I feel you have written a fine book and I am excited to see how my learning will be impacted. (bangonrecords.com -Music Production for film and television)

Rating:
Summary: Terrific
Review: Terrific read, if you want to know how the brain works, and how to be aware of it to your advantage, ie acheiving near-to or photographic memory, and increasing you math, verbal, and spatial reasoning skills, then i reccomend this book for you.

Rating:
Summary: The title is misleading
Review: The 5 star ratings are very suprising to me. This is an informational manual on how the brain works and that's about as far as it goes. It provides different puzzles for you to do, but the puzzles are presented as a side note, are very complicated and are never explained as to why or how they got the answer. You have to crawl before you can walk, and this book assumes that you are already a marathon runner.It would be analagous to buying a book on how to build your biceps. The author explains how the biceps work and as a side note tells you to do a set of 10 curls with 100 pound dumbells in each hand, but the author never describes to you how to actually do the curls, assumes that your biceps can handle that much weight, and never gives you any exercises or explanations on how to work up to that level of training. The author is obviously well versed in the functions of the brain, but is an extremely poor mental muscle trainer and fails to realize that if someone was gifted enough to understand all of the mysterious and esoteric puzzles in his book, then they would not need to buy a book on how to build their mental muscle.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: What a great book. I really enjoyed reading "Building Mental Muscle." When I decided that I wanted to study whole brain thinking, I spent over $1,300 on books and yours was exaclty what I was looking for-among the very best. Congratulations!

Rating:
Summary: I can only agree ...
Review: With the reviewer from April 6, 2004.

This is exactly what this book is. A sort of guide to how the brain works, with some "exercises" thoughtlessly thrown in when the authors remembered that it's supossed to be a book on "Building Mental Muscle."

I, too, am surprised at all the 5-star reviews. I wouldn't throw the book away, though; I'd say you can glean some pretty interesting information from it.