Open Today
Your first puzzle starts straight away, with no sign-up. Five rounds picked for your level, from memory, focus, logic, numbers, spatial and language.
How long should you do brain games daily?
Five to ten minutes a day, on most days, is a sensible target for brain games; there is no proven daily dose, so pick the length you will still be doing next month. Cognilo's Daily 5 is built around that: five short puzzles, about six minutes at a typical pace, and a Rhythm that counts days per week rather than punishing a missed one. Updated November 2026.
Proof: what six minutes looks like
Store screenshots, stacked in the order you'd see them.
What your calculator result means
The number above is honest arithmetic, not a prescription. At the default 6 minutes and 5 days you'd play 30 minutes a week, or 25 puzzle rounds. Each Daily 5 plays five different categories out of six and rotates, so every skill comes round across the week.
For scale, ACTIVE, a large NIH-funded trial of cognitive training in 2,832 older adults, gave each training group 10 sessions of 60 to 70 minutes over about five to six weeks, roughly 10 to 12 hours, with some booster sessions later (NIH (2014)). Ten years on, more people in the reasoning and speed-of-processing groups were still above their starting level on those skills than in the control group; memory training showed no lasting difference, and standard tests of daily function didn't differ between groups.
Put in Cognilo terms: at 6 minutes a day, 5 days a week, reaching ACTIVE's 10 to 12 hours would take roughly 20 to 24 weeks. Slower, and much easier to fit around a life.
- ACTIVE doseAbout 10 to 12 hours, front-loaded into six weeks.
- Cognilo defaultAbout 6 minutes a day; 30 minutes a week at 5 days.
- What it meansDifferent puzzles, different people, different goals. Don't read ACTIVE's results onto any app, including ours.
Minutes are easy to count; what transfers to everyday life is much harder to prove.
This is general information, not medical advice. Talk to your clinician.
Comparison strip: short daily vs long weekly
6 minutes, 5 days
30 min a week. Fits beside coffee. Ratings move only when several sessions agree, so one off day doesn't matter.
30 minutes, once
Same 30 minutes. Easier to skip, harder to pick up again, and one tired evening carries the whole week.
We'd pick the first. The research doesn't settle it either way for apps, but habits are easier to keep in small pieces, and the Daily 5 is built for exactly that.
How the 6-minute Daily 5 works in 3 steps
Play untimed, or not
Precision is untimed by default. Sprint adds a clock for a push. Zen is unrated. Each puzzle shows why it was picked today.
Read one tip, then stop
After each round you get a strategy tip and notes on pace versus accuracy. Then close the app. Six minutes is the point.
One design decision we made: the Cognilo Benchmark uses held-out rounds you never train on, so playing longer each day can't flatter your Benchmark score through familiarity alone.
Honest limits
Days with the longer Market Run shopping scenario take a little more than six minutes. Weekly and monthly reports and 12 months of rating history are part of Cognilo Pro ($9.99 a month or $44.99 a year on the App Store); the Daily 5, all six skills, ratings and the Benchmark are free. If you want long, deep puzzle sessions, a dedicated sudoku or crossword app suits that better.
Brain game timing questions
How long should you do brain games a day?
There is no proven daily dose for brain games. A short session you repeat most days is easier to keep than a long one you abandon. Cognilo's Daily 5 takes about six minutes at a typical pace.
Is 10 minutes of brain training a day enough?
Enough for what matters most: playing regularly and getting better at the puzzles. Claims that a set number of minutes will improve everyday life are not well supported; the FTC (2016) fined Lumosity's maker $2 million in 2016 over claims like that.
How much training did the ACTIVE study use?
According to the NIH (2014), groups had 10 sessions of 60 to 70 minutes over about five to six weeks, some with later booster sessions. Reasoning and speed training effects were still measurable after 10 years; memory training was not different from controls.
Can I play more than one Daily 5 a day?
Yes. Once the Daily 5 is done you can pick any game in Train, choose untimed Precision, timed Sprint or unrated Zen, and play as long as you like.
Is it bad to miss days?
Not in Cognilo. Rhythm counts days per week instead of an unbroken streak, and Grace and Vacation cover busy weeks.
Does Cognilo show how long I play?
Once it has seen a few of your rounds, Cognilo shows your own estimate before you start the Daily 5.
Get Cognilo free
Six minutes today, six tomorrow, or skip a day and come back. Get Cognilo free on iPhone.
Related
- Cognilo: five daily brain training gamesFree brain training games for adults: five untimed puzzles a day, about six minutes, adapted to your level. No account, no ads, works offline.
- Brain games for retirees: where six minutes of puzzles fit in a weekNewly retired? What brain games can and can't do, what the NIA says about staying sharp, and a week planner that puts puzzles in their place.
- How to make brain games a daily habit, without streak guiltA week-long story of making brain games a daily habit: a six-minute slot, days-per-week instead of streaks, and what to do on a missed day.
- Printable brain games for adults, with answers: a free 5-page PDFA free 5-page PDF of brain games for adults: patterns, sequences, money sums, rotations, words and a rule stream, with a full answer key.