Session number: 19
Average n-back: 4.40
Duration (min.): 60
I’m feeling a little bit deflated on day 19. After reaching 4.75 on day 17, and actually getting a couple of runs at n=6, day 18 was back down to 4.70. I figured that that was about right anyway, and was looking forward to making a leap at day 19, because I really could feel a difference in my thinking.
Now it’s day 19, and my brain feels pretty exhausted – not because of the training, but I think because of some other stress in my life, and the latest flaring up of IBS, leaving my stomach feeling slightly queasy, and definitely having difficulties concentrating,as well as a persistent thumping headache. I noticed that it wasn’t just apparent on my n-back exercises, but even on things as basic as recognition reaction time exercises at MyBrainTrainer – and that’s just pressing a key when a light flashes, for heaven’s sake. I don’t know whether maybe I should have let the training rest for a day as I was definitely not feeling up to it, but really wanted to do it daily, come rain or shine. The result was a sudden bounce back to a 4.40 average, 11 runs out of 20 at n=4, which I’m now normally doing in my sleep practically, but which today I couldn’t even concentrate on and had to restart so many times because my concentration was so lost.
I took a break and had a sleep halfway through. That left me feeling a little more refreshed and things started picking up, and I managed to get in 9 runs at n=5 (but not as good as previously). However, tiredness soon started to kick in again.
The thing is that my brain wants to do it, but at the moment my body just seems to be saying ‘no way today’. It’s frustrating, because the thing that I most want to do whilst typing this is to open up a new session and go hammer and tongs on it (I feel really eager), but I know that my brain is just not going to perform today.
There is no way that I’m going to give up on this. Getting to an n=5 average is my next immediate goal on the horizon and I want to work towards it. But I’m feeling like I’ve let myself down by pushing it today, that maybe if I’d held off until I was fresher I might just have hit that n=5 peak on day 19 that I was after.
I’ve got another round of IQ testing on Friday, so now I’m slightly panicked that I’m going to be doing it with my brain in this condition. I’ve been in such beautiful mental shape in the past week and ready for it, and I really don’t want to blow it.
This post was submitted by Michelle.
Tags: Brain Exercises, brain-fitness, brain-fitness-pro, buschkuehl, increase intelligence, increase IQ, intelligence-training, IQ-training, jaeggi, martin-buschkuehl, mind-sparke, susanne-jaeggi, Training Working-Memory, working-memory
Hello Michelle.
Well done on reaching the end of your first training period. You’ve achieved a very rapid score increase and you should not worry about this temporary dip. I think everyone who trains regularly goes through this. I know I do. Sometimes my ability to focus is great and other times not. My scores often vary by a whole point or more depending on how my brain is doing.
It’s only Wednesday and Friday is a long way off for your brain!
You’ve hit on a particularly interesting and beneficial aspect of the training. It gives us remarkable insight into our ability to focus. This is something that we would overlook most of the time. But the dual n-back provides a great way of highlighting just how much our mental condition varies from day to day and even from minute to minute.
So, try not to worry and instead try to relish the work you’ve done and the achievements you’ve made.
Here’s to the next 19 sessions!
Martin
Michelle, well done on finishing up the 19 sessions. Don’t worry about being off, it happens to everyone and often. There will be a point when you not only go off — you’ll go way off — on a session. For example, this happened to me yesterday. I dipped down to a 5.5, which is well below my average, and especially low compared to my high of 6.9. I attribute this dip to taking a few days off in order to complete a long project (and also to celebrating over an “extended” weekend).
I did another 19 sessions this morning and I shot back up to 6.15, so, as it’s nice to see I am not permanently brain damaged from partying. And as Martin pointed out, the long term gains are cumulative; so, from what I can see, you’re making excellent progress. The dips are similar to what you’d experience at an actual gym (with dual n back as well as with MBT or any other ‘fluid’ type of intellectual exercise).
I can confirm that with some digit span software that I have, my forward and backward digit spans have increased by 1-2 digits (depending on whether I’m in top form or not). I would assume that this has been as a direct result of the n-back training, as I’ve been on direct digit span training for only about a week, and even the base test prior to beginning that showed a marked difference from the performance I gave on the WAIS digit span subtest (both forward and backwards). I would say that that’s clear progress.
The bad news is that paired associate learning tasks are still very, very average. It took me 3 trials to get the whole list of paired words today in my neuropsychology session, so I obviously need to work on this, but I’m not sure how, or whether it’s just a case of it naturally improving over time with n-back training alone (it has, after all, only been 19 days……) Apparently my performance on it today was in the normal range, but that’s frustrating when the rest of me is performing in the top 1st-2nd percentile.
I still haven’t done any of the matrix type stuff on the WAIS yet, so I’m not sure how my progress on the n-back will be reflected yet in those areas. I can say that the problems associated with having an anxiety disorder may also factor into things, so I’m not sure whether the anxiety issue will end up overriding some of the gains I’ve made with my brain training. My verbal fluency is usually through the roof in online brain training exercises that gauge it, but anxiety completely blocked me during testing this aspect today, affecting my cognitive fluency on the exercise – which I attempted twice, but was still overwhelmed with anxiety.
To me this is not a deterrant so much as a question of how overall training needs to be tweaked in order to attain the desired goal when there are additional monsters to contend with (such as a fully-blown anxiety disorder). The n-back work has had some great results even so far, especially when coupled with the work done at MyBrainTrainer. The two seem to work really well together for me. It has shown me some personal evidence in my own life that neuroplasticity is something real, useful, and powerful. Looking at the significant change in what my brain can cope with as a result of n-back work, I suppose I’m asking the same question (albeit on a more personal plane) that people working in that area are asking – how far can this concept stretch, what are the upper limits of it, and how else can I get my brain to develop the supporting structure that I need to utilise my intellect to its full potential? ie If n-back exercises can bring about positive changes, what else is manipulatable?
It could be exciting to see what else eventuates in labs to test the boundaries of the concept of neuroplasticity, and how that might eventually be incorporated into the current brain training phenomenon.