Brain training apps: free, for adults

Just as we exercise our body's muscles, we can exercise our brain to have greater mental agility, and be more efficient and creative. Nowadays, technology offers different applications that can help you work on skills such as memory, logic, concentration, critical thinking, problem-solving and more. Whether in your free time or on your way to work, you can play and have fun whilst training your brain and promoting its neuroplasticity. Here are the best brain training apps.

CogniFit

Thanks to CogniFit, you can train your mind through interactive games, puzzles, exercises, tests and scientifically validated challenges that allow you to stimulate skills such as your attention, concentration, memory, mental agility, coordination and reasoning, among others. After evaluating your skills, the app creates a personalized training, which you can follow daily. CogniFit was developed for children and adults by neuroscience experts and the app can help determine cognitive impairments. You can access some games for free, and if you are interested, the full version of its patented technology is available for $19.99 per month.

You can download CogniFit for Android here and here for iOS devices.

Lumosity

With more than 100 million users, Lumosity offers free mental training to strengthen cognitive skills such as logic, memory, critical thinking and problem solving. The app makes an initial diagnosis to have a starting point and offer you a personalized program. The free version of the app allows you to access a basic training, while the premium version gives you the possibility to follow a specialized one and access the analysis of your performance and tips to improve. The subscription costs $11.99 per month.

You can download Lumosity for Android here and here for iOS devices.

Elevate

Elevate adapts to the user at every stage of the games and focuses on helping you to improve your attention span, speaking, memory, mental agility, math skills, and more. Each person can access a personalized brain training program and it is recommended to follow it at least 3 times a week. This app is distinguished by its focus on linguistic competence, as it features fun vocabulary and diction activities. The Elevate exercises were developed in collaboration with experts in cognitive learning and neuroscience. This app offers you a free basic version, as well as a yearly subscription for $27.99 after a 7-day free trial.

You can download Elevate for Android here and here for iPhone and iPad.

Skillz

If you're looking to have fun with logic games, the Skillz app is made specially for you. Its activities challenge and help you enhance skills such as memory, accuracy, speed, color coordination, sense of reflection and more. Skillz offers different levels of difficulty, personalized cognitive training and statistics related to your performance. The application has advertising in it, so it allows it to be free.

You can download Skillz for Android here and here for iOS.

Peak

Peak offers a fun mind training through free games that test your memory, mental agility, problem solving, concentration, creativity, coordination and language skills. In addition, something quite special about Peak is that it also offers relaxation and emotion control activities. With this free app, you can compete with your friends and compare your performance and strengths with theirs. According to the developers of Peak, the app was designed with the advice of experts in neuroscience, cognitive sciences and education.