After 18 days of double dose brain training (one session of regular dual n-back combined with one session of “nines”) I’m still amazed at the effect on my scores. Apart from a general dramatic increase in sustained focus (even managing to stay at n=11 for four rounds yesterday) I’ve seen another intriguing trend. On days when I do particularly well at one exercise I often don’t do well at the other. This shows itself in the chart below as the two score lines for dual n-back and “nines” zig-zag about the combined average.
What’s more I can feel the change as I go from one exercise to the other. On some days my mind grasps and remembers the letters much better than it grasps and remembers the numbers, and vice versa. A very curious phenomenon. (It also doesn’t matter which exercise I work on first — I’ve been switching back and forth from one day to the next.)
Has this double dose training resulted in cognitive benefits? It feels as though it has. I feel more alert and “quicker.” (In November I took the Get Gamma test. Maybe I’ll retake at some point soon to see whether there has been a measurable change.)