Drinking Too Much? Reduce Drinking with Brain Training

[I:https://healthclub90.com/storage/2011/08/MartinGWalker12.jpg]Alcohol in its various forms has been part of our lives for millennia. The consumption of distilled alcohol, for instance, initially spread through monasteries, primarily for medicinal purposes. Excess alcohol intake, of course, can be a worrying habit. But how do we know when we’re drinking too much and what steps can we take to reduce our drinking?

Drinking Too Much?

Doctors generally advise that while drinking a little is not a problem, excessive drinking can have a profound impact on our health and well being. It’s useful to know when we’re drinking too much so that we can take steps to cut back. Fortunately there are several quick and reliable tests that can give us a sense of whether we need to be worried about our drinking.

The US Department of Health and Human Services recommends the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (or AUDIT test) as an effective test of potentially harmful alcohol consumption. With 10 questions and an overall numeric score the AUDIT test can give results quickly. Web-based AUDIT tests make this assessment readily available and anonymous.

Working Memory Training To Reduce Drinking

[I:https://healthclub90.com/storage/2011/08/MartinGWalker13.jpg]Earlier this year a team of Dutch scientists showed that working memory training could reduce drinking by as much as 30%. The Dutch team used the AUDIT test to identify problem drinkers and divided the participants into a trained group and a control group. After a month of progressive working memory training for the trained participants and similar, but non-progressive, working memory tasks for the control group, the results were dramatic, reducing drinking in the trained group by about a third.

Prior research had demonstrated that excess drinking impairs cognition and working memory. And, further, that impaired working memory makes it harder for people to control their automatic impulses.

The team posited that boosting working memory with brain training might improve the participants’ impulse control. The theory proved correct with the trained participants reporting that they had reduced their drinking by almost a third. The benefits came in about a month and after following up a month later, the scientists found that the reduction had lasted.

Effective Working Memory Training

Working memory plays a key role in all conscious thinking and studies have shown that it responds well to training. Working memory training has even been shown to spur neurogenesis (new brain cell growth). So central is working memory to our ability to focus, solve problems and control our automatic impulses that intensive working memory training results in dramatic cognitive gains and improved impulse control.

For dramatic and long lasting benefits to your mental sharpness and impulse control to reduce drinking:

The brain training software must focus entirely on working memory training. Other training exercises will simply deflect or prevent any general benefits.

The brain training software should require concerted focus and should constantly extend your working memory capacity.

The brain training program should evolve over time to retain your attention. Brain fitness researchers have found that trainees who enjoy the training enjoy greater gains.

Learning that we’re drinking too much can be a sobering experience, making it all the more useful to know that we can boost our impulse control and reduce our drinking with a regimen of progressive working memory training.

A brain fitness software designer, Martin G. Walker is a member of The British Neuroscience Association, Learning and The Brain, and MENSA. Learn how to reduce drinking with MindSparke’s working memory training.

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