15 replies to this topic

[gizmobrain]

There has been a lot of talk about Dual N-Back. If anyone feels like repeating it, they can. I however, would like to hear from users about their experiences.

In general: Do you have any tips?

There are a few well known programs, but there are lesser known, maybe superior ones. What program do you recommend? What settings? Feel free to share clients for PC's and mobile devices.
What is your regimen?
How have you improved?
Any techniques that allowed you to improve your scores?
Were there any supplements that you saw a discernible improvement on?

Basically, I am so bad at it, that I'm having a hard time getting into. Any general discussion would probably encourage me to try a little harder

[nito]

im on nback 4. I have been stuck here for some time with mixed results. Sometimes i get 70 % correct which is rarely other times a mere 23%. However i tried playing when i was high. Wow got 100 % effortlessly and then averaged 75% correct. I'm wondering how the weed has actually allowed me to play using my intuition in an easier way.

[X_Danny_X]

i sometimes wonder about these brain games, do they actually improve your intelligence permanently? Or just for a short period of time. i kind of feel that doing/learning something new accomplishes the same goal, something that is challenging.

[Slahzer]

Dual N Back has been proven to raise fluid intelligence, most other games don't help at all. There are also a lot of anecdotal reports of dual n back being permanent.

[jroseland]

You don't have to spend much time researching Biohacking before you start hearing about the myriad benefits of Dual N-Back training...
Sharpening the working memory, the 'scratch pad' of the mind that we use to solve problems.

Increasing IQ

Lifehacking language learning, by promoting Nueroplasticity and Grey matter density
Improving fluid intelligence, to solve novel problems intelligently. 

Increasing self control.
Compartmentalization of emotions.

Higher scores on Raven's Matrices Test.

 

This article is primarily concerned with the 'transfer effects' or Personal Development benefits of Dual N-Back training; I'm of the school of philosophy that if something doesn't ultimately lead to getting me paid or getting me laid, it's not really worth my time. I'm all about 'know thyself' as long as it leads to more of this...

 

The challenge issued to me by my friend Mark Ashton Smith, Ph.D., one of the top Cognitive Neuroscientists in Europe and the creator of HighIQPro®, was 20 minutes a day of brain training, 5 days a week. When I first downloaded the Dual N-Back app I found that despite really believing in it as a Biohacking tool, I had abysmally bad consistency with my training. I was training maybe 2-3 times a week mostly in the late evenings after I had finished my work.

 

Honestly I was pretty damn disappointed in my consistency and felt a bit disingenuous, since Dual N-Back training has always been one of the main Biohacking products I recommend. Obviously my recommendation is based upon the solid science behind it and the mountains of 3rd party credibility behind it, but failing to take ones own advice is recipe for 'impostor syndrome'!

 

+3 Months Without Missing a Day
Fast forward to today and I've Dual N-Back trained over 100 days in a row. Now keep in mind, I was not a monk during this period, I was as busy as ever running two businesses, learning voraciously and carrying on my sometimes ridiculous social life. 

What made the difference between this unbreakable consistency and my previous wishy washiness?
10 Minute Training Sessions - I found that cutting the Dual N-Back training session down to 10 minutes made it way more manageable and easier to fit into my day. Also, as I've said other places Dual N-Back training is pretty damn boring and it's really easy to procrastinate when you are facing a whole 20 minutes of grueling brain training. Sure, I had to do double the sessions but that's not a problem, I'm not in a hurry to master Dual N-Back training.
Lift™ App - One of the few Apps I have in my life that actually makes me more productive, in Lift™ you checkin daily to habits that you want to train yourself to practice consistently. It applies some healthy social pressure to your quantifiable self improvement, by sharing your check-ins with your followers. It also shows your progress visually which certainly adds to the motivation factors. I was delighted to find a small community of Dual N-Back trainees already active on Lift™, I joined the habit and began checking in daily. Once I hit the 50 day point there was NO way I was missing a day. A couple times I trained in ridiculous states of exhaustion after long nights spent on the dance floors of Medellin. I started training first thing in the mornings when my mind was the sharpest.

I think my experience here highlights one of the most subtle yet valuable effects of using Lift™; since you are really motivated to practice your habits and tracking your progress accurately you naturally start to get smarter about the way your organize and prioritize your day.

Mobile vs Desktop - One thing that actually made a pretty big difference in my train consistency was doing it on my mobile device as opposed to the PC. I just found it was easier to fit into one of my periods of intermittent leisure I schedule throughout the day.

 

Memory
Dual N-Back does not really affect long term memory (sorry you wont be able to instantaneously pull obscure memories out of your subconscious, like Eddie in Limitless) but it does help your short term memory. In particular I noted:

As stereotypical ADD-Entrepreneurial-Creative personality type, my mind has always jumped around A LOT during my workday. Rarely can I focus on just one thing for more that 15-20 minutes before I start to wonder if I should be spending my time on something else. This has improved significantly.

I've also noticed decreased incidences of:

Loosing my train of thought.

Finding myself haphazardly jumping between Google Chrome browsers tab.

My mind wandering into areas of my personal life that bother or irritate me, while I'm working.
Example: The other day I was at a friend's house, I asked them for their WiFi password, it was just a random string of numbers; seven or eight digits long. About 45 minutes later somebody asked what the WiFi password was and I was able to tell them just from memory. Everyone was pretty impressed.

 

Presence & Mindfulness
Dual N-Back forces you to 'be present' for the duration of the 10-20 minute training session. Any time your mind wanders off into the past or the future you will lose track of N-Back positions in your current session and your score will suffer. Dual N-Back is actually quite similar to the practice of focused attention meditation
Example: As one of world's top dating psychology experts, Alex Treasure, suggests in the video below, dating should be an exercise in mindfulness...

For me dating definitely is because I'm something of a workaholic so I find that that it's quite rare that I take the time to prepare myself mentally and sufficiently 'socially warm myself up' before a date. It's also rare that I make carefully laid plans beforehand, usually I just have her meet me at whatever bar, restaurant or cafe is within a 200 second brisk walk of where ever I'm at.
Couple this unpreparedness with the fact that I almost exclusively date girls who don't speak English (my first language) and you have a recipe for, well, awkwardness!
Mindfulness is my secret weapon for beating the awkwardness that dating inevitably entails. I use the same mental muscles I developed Dual N-Back training to ignore and past, future and all the small mistakes I'm making and to just drink in the moment, be ultra attentive to body language and enjoy her feminine presence.
By the way, dating people who don't speak your first language, while a bit awkward, is a major lifehack for accelerated language learning!

 

Practicing in a Foreign Language
HighIQPro can be played in English, Spanish, French, German... After finishing my first 20 sessions I got curious about the other languages.
So I undertook another 20 sessions en Espanol (my second language) which marginally improved my Spanish due to the sheer repetition it entailed. Then I switched to German, however I noticed something odd, Dual N-Back training German significantly hurt my Dual N-Back scores. Even after +15 sessions my scores were still consistently worse than my personal bests in English and Spanish. Despite being a little demotivated I finished the 30 German Dual N-Back sessions but I wasant evolving.
I switched back to training in English and my scores improved, so I guess Dual N-Back training in a language you don't actually speak isn't a good idea (at least for me).

 

Cognitive Performance Variables

One of the most useful things N-Back training shows you about yourself is how ineffective you become at tasks demanding your cognitive energy the more tired you are.

In the past I was the kind of person who would stay up all night programming, writing or working on problems that required a creative solution to hit a deadline. Now after I've hit a certain level of energy or hour of the day, I know when to call it quits. 

This has trained me to be profoundly more efficient with the way I organize my workday. In the past I may have been lazy about spending my cognitive energy on:

• Rote processes.
• Repetitive copy & paste tasks.
• Responding to emails with questions I'm familiar with.
• Surfing Facebook and social media.

I now employ a strategy I call Hour 2:Zombie Mode to ensure I'm not wasting cognitive energy.

 

Around Day 60 of Dual N-Back training, I hit a performance plateau that I still haven't really broken through. There is certainly correlation between this performance plateau and trying to practice in a language I didn't know but I can only guess as to causality. I'm a little disappointed that I'm not scoring better in the game after all the time I've spent, some Biohackers have made it to 8-Back within their first 25 sessions. I still haven't made it past 6-Back.

I did not receive a Statistical Significant increase in IQ, before I started training so aggressively with Dual N-Back I scored 100 on an Anders Jensen IQ Test, after +100 days of Dual N-Back training I scored 101. While this was surprising and disappointing to me I do this for personal development, not for a test score.

 

The most valuable thing I got out of 100 unbroken days of brain training is the deeply internalized confidence; that if there's something healthy for me, but really difficult to practice, with the proper motivation mechanisms in place, I have the will power to practice it with complete consistency and benefit in tangible areas of my life in just a few months. However, to be honestly I'm pretty bored of Dual N-Back training at this point and looking forward to diversifying my brain training.

 

In the Comments

Let me know your experiences with Dual N-Back training, especially 'transfer effects' how it effected your life outside of playing the game. Or have you used an similar motivation mechanisms for personal development?

 

[Luxflux]

 

You don't have to spend much time researching Biohacking before you start hearing about the myriad benefits of Dual N-Back training...
Sharpening the working memory, the 'scratch pad' of the mind that we use to solve problems.

Increasing IQ

Lifehacking language learning, by promoting Nueroplasticity and Grey matter density
Improving fluid intelligence, to solve novel problems intelligently. 

Increasing self control.
Compartmentalization of emotions.

Higher scores on Raven's Matrices Test.

 

This article is primarily concerned with the 'transfer effects' or Personal Development benefits of Dual N-Back training; I'm of the school of philosophy that if something doesn't ultimately lead to getting me paid or getting me laid, it's not really worth my time. I'm all about 'know thyself' as long as it leads to more of this...

 

The challenge issued to me by my friend Mark Ashton Smith, Ph.D., one of the top Cognitive Neuroscientists in Europe and the creator of HighIQPro®, was 20 minutes a day of brain training, 5 days a week. When I first downloaded the Dual N-Back app I found that despite really believing in it as a Biohacking tool, I had abysmally bad consistency with my training. I was training maybe 2-3 times a week mostly in the late evenings after I had finished my work.

 

Honestly I was pretty damn disappointed in my consistency and felt a bit disingenuous, since Dual N-Back training has always been one of the main Biohacking products I recommend. Obviously my recommendation is based upon the solid science behind it and the mountains of 3rd party credibility behind it, but failing to take ones own advice is recipe for 'impostor syndrome'!

 

+3 Months Without Missing a Day
Fast forward to today and I've Dual N-Back trained over 100 days in a row. Now keep in mind, I was not a monk during this period, I was as busy as ever running two businesses, learning voraciously and carrying on my sometimes ridiculous social life. 

What made the difference between this unbreakable consistency and my previous wishy washiness?
10 Minute Training Sessions - I found that cutting the Dual N-Back training session down to 10 minutes made it way more manageable and easier to fit into my day. Also, as I've said other places Dual N-Back training is pretty damn boring and it's really easy to procrastinate when you are facing a whole 20 minutes of grueling brain training. Sure, I had to do double the sessions but that's not a problem, I'm not in a hurry to master Dual N-Back training.
Lift™ App - One of the few Apps I have in my life that actually makes me more productive, in Lift™ you checkin daily to habits that you want to train yourself to practice consistently. It applies some healthy social pressure to your quantifiable self improvement, by sharing your check-ins with your followers. It also shows your progress visually which certainly adds to the motivation factors. I was delighted to find a small community of Dual N-Back trainees already active on Lift™, I joined the habit and began checking in daily. Once I hit the 50 day point there was NO way I was missing a day. A couple times I trained in ridiculous states of exhaustion after long nights spent on the dance floors of Medellin. I started training first thing in the mornings when my mind was the sharpest.

I think my experience here highlights one of the most subtle yet valuable effects of using Lift™; since you are really motivated to practice your habits and tracking your progress accurately you naturally start to get smarter about the way your organize and prioritize your day.

Mobile vs Desktop - One thing that actually made a pretty big difference in my train consistency was doing it on my mobile device as opposed to the PC. I just found it was easier to fit into one of my periods of intermittent leisure I schedule throughout the day.

 

Memory
Dual N-Back does not really affect long term memory (sorry you wont be able to instantaneously pull obscure memories out of your subconscious, like Eddie in Limitless) but it does help your short term memory. In particular I noted:

As stereotypical ADD-Entrepreneurial-Creative personality type, my mind has always jumped around A LOT during my workday. Rarely can I focus on just one thing for more that 15-20 minutes before I start to wonder if I should be spending my time on something else. This has improved significantly.

I've also noticed decreased incidences of:

Loosing my train of thought.

Finding myself haphazardly jumping between Google Chrome browsers tab.

My mind wandering into areas of my personal life that bother or irritate me, while I'm working.
Example: The other day I was at a friend's house, I asked them for their WiFi password, it was just a random string of numbers; seven or eight digits long. About 45 minutes later somebody asked what the WiFi password was and I was able to tell them just from memory. Everyone was pretty impressed.

 

Presence & Mindfulness
Dual N-Back forces you to 'be present' for the duration of the 10-20 minute training session. Any time your mind wanders off into the past or the future you will lose track of N-Back positions in your current session and your score will suffer. Dual N-Back is actually quite similar to the practice of focused attention meditation
Example: As one of world's top dating psychology experts, Alex Treasure, suggests in the video below, dating should be an exercise in mindfulness...

For me dating definitely is because I'm something of a workaholic so I find that that it's quite rare that I take the time to prepare myself mentally and sufficiently 'socially warm myself up' before a date. It's also rare that I make carefully laid plans beforehand, usually I just have her meet me at whatever bar, restaurant or cafe is within a 200 second brisk walk of where ever I'm at.
Couple this unpreparedness with the fact that I almost exclusively date girls who don't speak English (my first language) and you have a recipe for, well, awkwardness!
Mindfulness is my secret weapon for beating the awkwardness that dating inevitably entails. I use the same mental muscles I developed Dual N-Back training to ignore and past, future and all the small mistakes I'm making and to just drink in the moment, be ultra attentive to body language and enjoy her feminine presence.
By the way, dating people who don't speak your first language, while a bit awkward, is a major lifehack for accelerated language learning!

 

Practicing in a Foreign Language
HighIQPro can be played in English, Spanish, French, German... After finishing my first 20 sessions I got curious about the other languages.
So I undertook another 20 sessions en Espanol (my second language) which marginally improved my Spanish due to the sheer repetition it entailed. Then I switched to German, however I noticed something odd, Dual N-Back training German significantly hurt my Dual N-Back scores. Even after +15 sessions my scores were still consistently worse than my personal bests in English and Spanish. Despite being a little demotivated I finished the 30 German Dual N-Back sessions but I wasant evolving.
I switched back to training in English and my scores improved, so I guess Dual N-Back training in a language you don't actually speak isn't a good idea (at least for me).

 

Cognitive Performance Variables

One of the most useful things N-Back training shows you about yourself is how ineffective you become at tasks demanding your cognitive energy the more tired you are.

In the past I was the kind of person who would stay up all night programming, writing or working on problems that required a creative solution to hit a deadline. Now after I've hit a certain level of energy or hour of the day, I know when to call it quits. 

This has trained me to be profoundly more efficient with the way I organize my workday. In the past I may have been lazy about spending my cognitive energy on:

• Rote processes.
• Repetitive copy & paste tasks.
• Responding to emails with questions I'm familiar with.
• Surfing Facebook and social media.

I now employ a strategy I call Hour 2:Zombie Mode to ensure I'm not wasting cognitive energy.

 

Around Day 60 of Dual N-Back training, I hit a performance plateau that I still haven't really broken through. There is certainly correlation between this performance plateau and trying to practice in a language I didn't know but I can only guess as to causality. I'm a little disappointed that I'm not scoring better in the game after all the time I've spent, some Biohackers have made it to 8-Back within their first 25 sessions. I still haven't made it past 6-Back.

I did not receive a Statistical Significant increase in IQ, before I started training so aggressively with Dual N-Back I scored 100 on an Anders Jensen IQ Test, after +100 days of Dual N-Back training I scored 101. While this was surprising and disappointing to me I do this for personal development, not for a test score.

 

The most valuable thing I got out of 100 unbroken days of brain training is the deeply internalized confidence; that if there's something healthy for me, but really difficult to practice, with the proper motivation mechanisms in place, I have the will power to practice it with complete consistency and benefit in tangible areas of my life in just a few months. However, to be honestly I'm pretty bored of Dual N-Back training at this point and looking forward to diversifying my brain training.

 

In the Comments

Let me know your experiences with Dual N-Back training, especially 'transfer effects' how it effected your life outside of playing the game. Or have you used an similar motivation mechanisms for personal development?

 

 

I think the marketing team needs to go back to the drawing board, this is not so good. I'll find a website of someone selling an "ultra-effective, secret marketing technique from professors at the Wharton school of business" for you.

 

[jroseland]

 

I think the marketing team needs to go back to the drawing board, this is not so good. I'll find a website of someone selling an "ultra-effective, secret marketing technique from professors at the Wharton school of business" for you.

You'll have to be more specific. Thanks

[Stephen12]

My experience with Dual N-Back training was I lost about 15 minutes.

[Arjuna]

I've been doing it for a long time off and on, and I'm currently plateauing at 9 back.

 

IQ

My opinion on DNB is complicated and I believe DNB is limited when people define it's viability by the scope of IQ results.  I did happen to score higher on a IQ test after using DNB, I do not believe that my crystalized intelligence has changed, and I do not think that everyone could expect that result.  People, like me, who have hypofrontality and low alpha brainwaves will benefit from the training.  You can't get a newer car (more powerful brain), but you can become a better driver.  Basically, damaged brains will benefit.  In a world of extraordinarily high stressful stimulation devoid of natural human interaction and reckless diets there are many of us with damaged brains, and a lot of people who could benefit from DNB.  Hypofrontality is the signature sign of an addict.

 

Meditation

Dual N Back for me has become more of meditation than anything else. In Japanese Zen Buddhism there is a meditation technique where the pupils meditate and when they a seen losing their attention to the practice then they are struck by the master.  This practice, albeit masochistic, is an effective means of biofeedback, and this practice is essentially the same way DNB works.  When doing DNB my attention will drift, and then my performance will plummet, and the little red warning signs will flash.  This gives my ego (the part of me that wants to perform well and doesn't like the red warning signs) awareness of my subconcious (the present-involved aspect of myself that is either relaxing into the practice or daydreaming without my control).  It becomes a great arena to test the strength of your mindfulness meditation abilities, as you must let go of everything to perform well.  Since doing DNB my ability to meditate has skyrocketed, and with it all the benefits one reaps from meditation has skyrocketed; patience, insight, self control, visualization abilities, more abstract thinking because I can tie more threads together.

 

Alpha brainwaves

I've spent a lot of time with binaural and isochronic beats so that I can recognize the different brain states (high and low beta, high and low alpha, gamma, and even delta) [I do not recommend overusing these beats unless you enjoy tinnitus]. Since doing DNB I have more of a grasp on my brainwave status, like an equalizer knob I can turn up and down at will.  While doing DNB your brain naturally learns to go into a deep trancelike alpha state, because the exercise simply can't be done in the stressed out beta, thus biofeedback.  This access into my brainwave state has made it easier to fall asleep when I want, or be excited or relaxed when I want, or be however I see fit for a situation.  It has dramatically improved my public speaking skills, social skills, creativity, and ability to express myself.  All of those traits are hallmark signs of a brain in the alpha state, completely merged into life and activity.  At moments I feel myself in a complete state of non duality, which is a bliss-like state of being connected to everything.

 

Lucid dreams

I don't know if it is DNB increasing visual-spatial intelligence, improving trance-like unified brain states, or both that causes this... but I have unfathomably lucid dreams now.  This is fun, and a great source of creativity, but can also be exhausting.

 

 

Do you have any tips?
My tip is that it doesn't matter if you use chunking or not (for example on 6-back memorizing the first three, then memorizing the next three as two different sets)  Also it is completely frustrating and slow to get results, just like working out it feels like a complete waste of time at the beginning.
There are a few well known programs, but there are lesser known, maybe superior ones. What program do you recommend? What settings? Feel free to share clients for PC's and mobile devices.

I don't think that the program you use matters, as long as it is comfortable and you don't mind the sounds or visuals.  I use braindscale.net.  I do not recommend ever speeding up the stimulus rate to shorter than 3 seconds, as most people's delta brainwave is at about 2 seconds.  The delta brainwave is sort of a reset brainwave to make really large commands on the brain systems, so if  complex stimulation is coming in it is best to give the brain the time it needs.  I tried practicing on 1 second simulations and it really messed me up for a while.  Start with settings found from the Jaeggi study.  I do not see a reason to use TNB or QNB.
What is your regimen?

I've tried 20 mins a day, hour a day, hour a day at night only, splitting 30 mins morning and night, currently decided to do 2 hours a day for a month and take an IQ test after, mainly out of curiosity, and I do not intend on keeping such high levels of practice.
How have you improved?

I averaged 7 back after a year of off and on practicing, and another year of off and on practicing I'm on 9 back.  I do not believe that what level you are on means anything, I think the real improvement is how we feel.
Any techniques that allowed you to improve your scores?

Use chunking, the digit span only goes to 7 or 8 anyway, and at the speed of DNB it will naturally be cut shorter.  Sleep well. Take antioxidants and minerals so that your brain isn't in a state of inflammation and can actually be used.
Were there any supplements that you saw a discernible improvement on?

Anything dopaminergic should improve scores.  DNB training is proven to increase D1 receptors in the prefrontal cortex on its own.  I noticed that after a day of intermittent fasting (which makes catecholamines skyrocket, expecially norepinephrine) I scored well on 9 back for the first time. I was amazed.  Norepinephrine does activate the prefrontal cortex and will improve your scores, but I don't think that is a good thing. I think a more efficient pre-frontal cortex is the goal, one that can be dormant and called to attention when needed is optimal.  For example jazz musicians and rappers and artists have a quieter pre-frontal cortex when being creative, it is as if the PFC is doing its job but not getting in the way by making noise and ruining the act of improvisation.  A norepinephrine loaded PFC may be too loud and sparky for creativity to shine from other parts of the brain.

Edited by Arjuna, 27 September 2014 - 08:26 PM.

[fairy]

Arjuna, thank you for your inspiring post! I have a LOT of questions about your experience. Please, feel free to answer to none of them.

 

Has DNB improved your memory retrieval or vividness, both visual and auditory?

Do you find hard sometimes to fall asleep because of hypnagogic imaginery?

Have you had any hallucination/illusion during this time?

And last but not least, after how much time you learned to manipulate your emotions?

[Arjuna]

im on nback 4. I have been stuck here for some time with mixed results. Sometimes i get 70 % correct which is rarely other times a mere 23%. However i tried playing when i was high. Wow got 100 % effortlessly and then averaged 75% correct. I'm wondering how the weed has actually allowed me to play using my intuition in an easier way.

I've had this experience too. The relaxing effect of cannabinoids make it easier to go into alpha wave flow states.  That is the reason why musicians and athletes use marijuana, as a performance enhancing drug for flow states.  The good thing about DNB is it can train your brain to snap into flow states even with a sober mind.

 

--

 

Hi Fairy, I appreciate your enthusiasm. I'm happy to share my experiences.

 

Has DNB improved your memory retrieval or vividness, both visual and auditory?

    I've always had a good, semi-eidetic memory and I do not believe that that has changed, but what has changed is an increased ability to retrieve and with less effort.  A memory is triggered by a related stimulus like a smell, a scene, an emotion, or some detail that links to the memory, and it is as if now, after DNB, that more stimuli can be imagined or experienced at once, and then the more complex the set of stimuli the more I can call back to more specific memories.  This is hard to explain.

   While doing DNB I've randomly remembered things vividly that I didn't even know that I had remembered, it could just be from being in a very relaxed meditative state where latent emotions emerge, or a function of stretching one's working memory.

   One of the early benefits (after the first 2 or 3 days of 20 minute training) was that my conversational segues were improved, because every thread of a conversation ended with me being able to comfortably remember a relevant subject to lead into (when I wanted to keep the ball rolling).  That benefit alone was worth it for me.

Do you find hard sometimes to fall asleep because of hypnagogic imaginery?

No, but when I experience sleep problems I emerge from delta to alpha states with broad retrievals from my subconscious.  Currently I'm having sleep disturbances from nofap, despite feeling really energetic.

Have you had any hallucination/illusion during this time?

   Only in terms of imagination.  DNB improves the prefrontal cortex and working memory, which is actually damaged in those with schizophrenia, so DNB could be a useful treatment for adhd as well as schizophrenia.

   I've always had strong visualization abilities, aptitude in math and art, but after DNB I'm more able to call on my abilities.  I'm able to see into my mind's eye and construct visuals more at will, and build on them with less effort, and this can be very expressive and satisfying.

And last but not least, after how much time you learned to manipulate your emotions?

   I don't want to paint DNB as a panacea for emotional well being, but it can bring us more composure and self awareness.  This benefit was noticed in the first week and has a semi permanent effect that gets stronger with more training. Also my experience is going to be different than others because I've combined heavy DNB with nofap, meditation, and extremely challenging life experiences to build my emotional stability.

[fairy]

Thank you!

[William Sterog]

I passed all levels in dual-n-back and now I'm stuck in quad-3-back. Feels nothing. 

[jroseland]

My review of EQPro: 

The eWM Classic mode is my favorite and closest to the original N-Back task. With the N-back box replaced with faces with a variety of expressions. The verbal data you need to store in your working memory is sprinkled with emotional phrases: hammer, door, hate, auto, rape, bird, circus, smile You have to purposefully ignore the emotional data, and cold record the audio and visual sequences in the RAM of your mind. Obviously some instances in real life when you want to be able to ignore all or some emotional data: Jobs that require you to deal completely objectively with people, ignoring emotional biases towards individuals. When managing investments (Like stock daytraders or currency traders). Management of employees toward certain objectives. Making hiring and firing decisions. Managing or leaving a codependent relationship. Consciously managing one's social life. However, the aspect of EQPro that trains you to compartmentalize your empathy makes me think that if the wrong person played it way too much they may become too effective at turning off their mirror neurons and become a psychopath on command. I've long heralded Dual N-Back as a tool for training emotional compartmentalization. A couple of anecdotal examples of this At the end of one weekend on Facebook a bunch of photos popped up of several of my friends at what looked like an awesome party having a rockstar time. I immediately double checked my Facebook event invites and text messages. Nothing. In past this kind of thing happening would have stung and bothered me for at least a few days, maybe I would have even made a smart ass comment to my friends about it next time I saw them. In past I've been a person that was susceptible to spend a lot of time wallowing in self pity. This time I kept my cool and I reminded myself that my expectations of my 'party friends' are low and that Facebook as a way of magnifying jealousy and drama. I came up with some logical reasons as to why I hadn't been invited to an awesome party and then I moved mentally. Anytime this feeling of rejection comes back up, I instantly compartmentalize it in an air tight emotional box. Talking about this incident now on this video is the most I've thought about it since it happened. Now I will choose to forget it again. I had a date with a girl, she was really excited, texting me lots of cute things before the date. We met for sushi and had a lovely conversation for about 2 hours, after which she started acting pretty cold to me actually, she brushed off my arm as we were walking. At first I was totally confused by this, but then I remembered her mentioning she felt cold, she hadn't brought a coat and indeed the restaurant was cold, the food was cold and the drinks were cold. I had environmentally turned her off. So I got her a jacket. Which I thought was a pretty emotionally intelligent thing to do.

Edited by jroseland, 30 May 2015 - 04:34 AM.

[Omega 3 Snake Oil]

I started 9 days ago and am at n-4, sometimes dipping down to 3. I've had bad cognitive deficits due to Lyme disease and I'm hoping this well help me improve my working memory. I do find I start to crash after around 10 rounds, which I think is just mental fatigue caused by Lyme. So I split my daily training into two sessions of 10. What does everyone make of this? I'm hoping to reach n-5 by next week.

[irony]

any recommendations for dual-n back games that are the least boring?