Are you wondering how to keep your brain healthy and fit in 2009? And just what is brain fitness you ask?

Wikipedia defines brain fitness as "the capacity of a person to meet the various cognitive demands of life. It is evident in an ability to assimilate information, comprehend relationships, and develop reasonable conclusions and plans. Brain fitness can be developed by formal education, being actively mentally engaged in life, continuing to learn, and exercises designed to challenge cognitive skills. Healthy lifestyle habits including mental stimulation, physical exercise, good nutrition, stress management, and sleep can improve brain fitness.

But look out: "On the other hand, chronic stress, anxiety, depression, aging, decreasing estrogen, excess oxytocin, and prolonged cortisol can decrease brain fitness as well as general health."

So what's the secret? Of course it all boils down to exercise and nutrition:

1. Top 50 Brain Teasers and Games to Test your Brain
- By Alvaro Fernandez
It is always good to stimulate our minds and to learn a bit about how our brains work. Here you have a selection of the 50 Brain Teasers that people have enjoyed the most.

2. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
- By Alvaro Fernandez
Let's review some good lifestyle options we can follow to maintain, and improve, our vibrant brains. My favorite: don't outsource your brain (even to us).

3. Why do You Turn Down the Radio When You're Lost?
- By Caroline Latham
You're driving through suburbia one evening looking for the street where you're supposed to have dinner at a friend's new house. You slow down to a crawl, turn down the radio, stop talking, and stare at every sign. Why is that? Neither the radio nor talking affects your vision. Or do they?

4. Brain Plasticity: How learning changes your brain
- By Pascale Michelon
You may have heard that the brain is plastic. As you know the brain is not made of plastic! Neuroplasticity or brain plasticity refers to the brain’s ability to CHANGE throughout life.

5. Top 10 Brain Training Future Trends
- By Alvaro Fernandez
In an emerging market like brain fitness training, it is difficult to make precise projections. But, we can observe a number of trends that executives, consumers, public policy makers, and the media should watch closely in the coming years, as brain fitness and training becomes mainstream, new tools appear, and an ecosystem grows around it.

6. Brain Exercise and Brain Health FAQs
- By Alvaro Fernandez
Answers to 7 most common questions around brain exercise and health, to help you navigate this emerging field.

7. It is Not Only Cars That Deserve Good Maintenance: Brain Care 101
- By Alvaro Fernandez
If we can all agree on the importance of maintaining our cars that get us around town, what about maintaining our brains sitting behind the wheel?

8. Evaluation Checklist for Brain Fitness Software and Training Games
- By Alvaro Fernandez
Unless you have been living in a cave, you have read by now multiple articles about the brain training and brain exercise craze. Now, how do you know which of the new programs can help you more, or whether you need any of them?

9. Brain Training Games: Context, Trends, Questions
- By Alvaro Fernandez
This past Tuesday, the MIT Club of Northern California, the American Society on Aging, and SmartSilvers sponsored an event to explore the realities and myths of this growing field. Here is the summary.

10. Stress Management Workshop for International Women's Day
- By Alvaro Fernandez
Global consulting company Accenture organized a series of events, and I was fortunate to lead a fun workshop on The Neuroscience of Stress and Stress Management in their San Francisco office, helping over 125 accomplished women (and a few men).

And my favorite:

14. Cognitive and Emotional Development Through Play
- By David Elkind
Play is rapidly disappearing from our homes, our schools, and our neighborhoods. Decades of research has shown that play is crucial to physical, intellectual, and social-emotional development at all ages.

Check out the complete list of the top 30 articles at BrainFitness.

So what are you waiting for? Now is the best time to exercise, eat right, read, and play like there is no tomorrow!