益智游戏成公司减压新宠

    珍妮•西尔斯多弗对各种分心的事情早已司空见惯。这位59岁的政府关系专家在俄亥俄州哥伦布市的全美互惠保险公司（Nationwide Insurance）工作，由于是开放的办公室环境，她想不听到邻近工作间同事的对话都难。

    但西尔斯多弗有个秘密武器：她已经花了不少时间在电脑上进行注意力训练，任务就是在屏幕上各类物体满天飞的干扰下保持一个虚拟篮球的平衡。

    她说：“我屏息凝神，对自己说‘专心，专心，再专心。’我在头脑中想象那个篮球，试图保持它的平衡。突然之间，我又重新进入了工作状态。”

    其它公司的员工只敢偷偷摸摸地玩纸牌游戏或者单词接龙，全美互惠保险公司反而鼓励西尔斯多弗去玩各种益智游戏，因为它们已经成为公司健身计划的组成部分。游戏套装名为“脑力培养方案”（My Brain Solutions），由脑力资源公司（Brain Resources ）制作。该软件旨在指导员工如何集中注意力和应对压力，从而提升工作效率和记忆力，增进积极思维，并达成其它增强脑力的目标。

    随着越来越多的职位需要脑力活动、创造力和交流技巧，员工仅仅坐在办公桌前已经远远不够了，他们还需要思维敏捷、情绪饱满、不受干扰。有人找到了一种解决方案：头脑训练。

    “我们发现大脑和肌肉很像。如果你锻炼它，它就会变得强健。大脑真的能够生成新的神经元，”脑力资源公司的CEO格雷戈里•拜尔说。“如果你教会大家如何优化管理那些压力重重的多任务环境，你就能够让他们保持（精神）健康。”

    “脑力培养方案”首先按四个维度来评估用户的头脑健康状况：情绪、思考、自律、感受。为了强化最弱的认知功能，软件将基于测试结果向用户推荐特定游戏。软件系统还能跟踪用户的进步，为游戏时间记点，当用户完成阶段成果时还会颁发勋章。

    来自密苏里州堪萨斯城的电子病历提供商塞内公司（Cerner Corporation）也在今年夏天引入了“脑力培养方案”，作为一个试点项目，面向美国国内约9,500名年轻而富进取心的员工提供支持。塞内公司最终可能将该项目提供给全球、包括印度在内的员工。寻求精神卫生保健在印度甚至是相当大的耻辱。

    “通常只有到了无法正常工作与生活的境地，人们才会去关注自己的精神健康；而那时他们多半已经患有精神疾病了，”塞内公司的副总裁兼首席医疗官戴维•尼尔称。“脑力资源公司让消费者得以随时随地进行头脑训练，而且还可以自己制定进度，无需他人干预。”

    短短两周之内就有1,000多名塞内公司员工报名参与该项目，当前用户达2,500人，超出了尼尔的预期。这是公司很感兴趣的重要领域，因为30%的塞内公司员及其家属有抑郁和焦虑这类行为健康问题，（每年的）相关医疗费用高达约200万美元。尼尔称，费用最高的病例是与压力相关的症状，占到塞内公司员工的约5%。

    Jeanne Siersdorfer is no stranger to distraction. The 59-year-old government relations specialist at Nationwide Insurance in Columbus, Ohio works in an open office environment where it's all too easy to latch onto cubicle neighbors' conversations.

    But Siersdorfer has a secret weapon: hours of computer time she's logged balancing a virtual basketball while other objects fly across the computer screen.

    "I catch myself and say, 'focus, focus, focus.' I visualize that crazy basketball and trying to balance it and the next thing I know, I'm back in my zone at work," she says.

    Unlike other office workers who may play solitaire or Words With Friends on the sly, Nationwide actually encourages Siersdorfer to play the basketball game, among others, and has made it a part of its wellness plan. The games, which are produced by a company called Brain Resources and part of a package called My Brain Solutions, aim to teach concentration and stress management techniques to boost executive function and memory, increase positive thinking, and achieve other brain-enhancing goals.

    As more and more jobs rely on knowledge work, creativity, and communication skills, it's not enough to have workers sitting at their desks -- they must also be mentally sharp, emotionally present, and free from distraction. The answer for some: brain training.

    "The brain, we're finding out, is much like muscles in the body. If you exercise it, it gets better. You actually grow neurons," says Gregory Bayer, chief executive of Brain Resources, which created My Brain Solutions. "If you can teach people how to manage those multitasking and stressful environments optimally, you're going to preserve their health."

    My Brain Solutions users begin with an assessment of their brain to provide a baseline along four axes: emotion, thinking, self-regulation, and feeling. Based on the resulting profile, the software suggests specific games to build up the areas of cognitive function that are weakest. The system tracks users' progress, giving points for playing time and badges when users reach milestones.

    Cerner Corporation, an electronic medical records provider based in Kansas City, Mo., introduced My Brain Solutions as a pilot program this summer, aiming to offer support to its young, hard-driving workforce of about 9,500 in the U.S. Cerner may eventually expand the program to its global workforce, including staffers in areas like India, where seeking mental health care comes with a considerable stigma.

    "Usually, people don't engage in this type of activity until they're not functioning well; they're headed toward a diagnosis," says David Nill, vice president and chief medical officer at Cerner. "Brain Resources brought on an ability for consumers to engage any time, any place, on their own terms without having to talk to anybody."

    Over 1,000 Cerner employees signed up for the program within the first two weeks and currently the company has 2,500 users, more than Nill anticipated. It's a key area of interest because behavioral health issues such as depression and anxiety affect 30% of Cerner's employees and family members and cost about $2 million in health expenses. The most expensive cases, which represent about 5% of Cerner's workers, involve stress-related conditions, according to Nill.