You don’t remember your friends’ phone numbers by heart, your smartphone does it for you. It’s definitely more convenient, but do you ever wonder how harmful technology might be for your brain?

Ironically, technology remedies what it destroys in the first place. Below are five extraordinary apps that help you improve your memory, your thinking skills, and even your intelligence – and they really wake up your brain!

1. Brain Fitness Pro

For a one time $3.99 payment, you definitely get your money’s worth with this app. It’s sophisticated, user-friendly, and amazingly efficient. Brain Fitness Pro claims to to increase your IQ, sharpen your intelligence and give your memory a good push.

It’s especially addictive and the developers claim that with a daily half hour of training you get to see results in less than 20 days. If all it takes to un-rust your brain is $3.99, why not go for it

2. Eidetic

Eidetic is an app exclusively dedicated to boosting your memory. Through an ingenious, efficient tactic, it nags and nags and nags you some more, until you remember everything. It might not be the most fun to use, but it’s effective.

This app trains your brain in remembering dates, numbers, facts, and pretty much anything you think it’s worth remembering. Plus, you get to choose how often and in what way the app will test your memory on things you submit (birthdays, quotes, facts). For just under $1, memory improvement is on its way.

3.    Memory Trainer

Another hard-to-beat memory app is Memory Trainer, which boasts over 6 million downloads to date. Nearly all aspects of memory are targeted by Memory Trainer, leaving no room for excuses for missing yet another birthday.

Spatial and working memory, memory chunking and information recalling, all are addressed through its many exercises, and each exercise has various levels.

4.    Critical Thinking University Think-O-Meter

Yes, there’s an app (even) for that. Critical thinking is no laughing matter and Pearson has developed a free app to help you sharpen your critical thinking skills. Problem solving and decision making are just a few aspects of the critical mind that the Critical Thinking app focuses on enhancing.

5.    Lumosity Brain Training

This widely used (over 20 million users ) website for brain training, has its own app now. It was long overdue, wasn’t it?

This extremely efficient collection of activities and addictive games offered right on your smartphone allows you to challenge your brain any time you have a few minutes, on the subway, at your coffee break, and in between meetings.

You know this is not your average brain training app, because Lumosity teamed up with leading universities’ neuroscientists when designing both the Lumosity.com site and this new app.

The app is free but you can choose to purchase additional features for as low as $4.99 for a 3 month access.

Remember, any app you choose will only be effective if you use it consistently to train your brain. Find one that suits your needs and start practicing today for a stronger, smarter brain.