We lift weights to improve strength, run laps to maximize conditioning and tailor our diets to ensure our bodies of nutrients needed to perform. All are areas worthy of attention not only for our overall health, but for both our internal mindset and external appearance. The fact that these elements are regular fixtures of our day-to-day routine is of little surprise (it’s more surprising if they’re not part of our complete breakfast). What is a bit awe-inspiring, however, is how frequent our brain is passed over as a body part that stands to benefit from a little exercise.

Our brains are complex; easily the most complicated and mysterious feature of our bodies. It’s also easy to overlook the brain since it’s a part we (and others, hopefully) can’t see and have no way of truly tangibly attributing the impact we can make regarding its performance. To state the obvious, without proper communication from the center of our nervous system, arms won’t lift, feet won’t push and mouths won’t open. Then shouldn’t it seem like the obvious thing to do to have a plan we can follow geared toward optimizing the performance of our single feature that’s at the controls of everything we do?

Outside of the routine digestion of words, thoughts and visuals, most of us exhibit little conscious effort toward injecting the brain with some extra muscle (have we ever really thought of reading a comic book or speaking with Aunt Edna as brain fuel, anyway?). Yes, the statement about us using only 10% of our brain is false; we use all of our brain, some just use it better than others. Or do they? Could it be that some just settle for the brain capacity their given, which is the equivalent of eating a bag of popcorn before it’s popped? Sure, it still has some of the taste and will fill your belly, but it lacks all of the buttery goodness and flavor if we actually put it in the microwave for a minute (sorry, bad example for a ‘health’-related topic).

A recent article in Smart Money examined a growing trend of flexing our mental muscles  – known as brain plasticity – in places like brain gyms and through activities typically associated with the, shall we say, less chiseled. From phone applications to video games to whatever else fills the $265 million mental-fitness-product market, more and more are setting out to improve their health and strength through brain training that works just like weightlifting: undertake difficult and unfamiliar activities that force new connections to be formed. Memory, attention span, stress and aura are just some of the attributes that stand to be affected by a mental fitness program, not to mention more obvious benefits like sharpened response times, better problem solving ability and heightened awareness.

Academics warn not to expect too much too soon from these products, but brain stretching brings to the surface some underutilized points of potential for pharma marketers. From metabolic management research, we already know behavior can be changed by better understanding a patient’s mindset, improving the odds of adherence to a prescription or helping curtail unhealthy behavior, such as smoking. Providing doctors with the tools to more easily identify those mindsets, however, is an area where the concepts of gaming, interactive exercises and smartphone applications might provide doctors with the behavioral insight needed to improve their patient’s lives. Even without a doctor’s presence, custom-built programs and challenges specifically for helping guide a patient’s thought process regarding a condition or treatment can be effective in driving motivation and communicating in ways physicians can’t.

We all know reshaping human behavior is no easy feat, but it’s virtually impossible without a greater understanding of what’s going on in someone’s mind. Whatever windows into that world are available must be considered, especially if science is on its side. Although creating effective training programs will likely be expensive and difficult to personalize, it’s a step in the right direction and one of the few solutions that might help both patient engagement and patient-physician communication. That’s truly some heavy lifting.

Tags: Behavioral Insight, Brand Adherence, Consumer Mindset, Metabolic Management, Patient Adherence, Patient Engagement, Patient Physician Communication