Try This Simple Brain Exercise

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Last Updated on March 5, 2024 by Bill Truby

… to Achieve Growing and Sustainable Brain Function

It’s clear. Our brains are important, even more important than our bodies. We know how to keep our bodies fit. But how do we keep our brains fit? The answer is surprisingly simple.

Research has shown that keeping your mind fit can lessen short term memory loss that comes with stress, stave off dementia and make Alzheimer’s less likely. And, here’s some great news. There is no age limit to growing your brain. They proved you can grow it until the very day you die.

But brain growth happens if you keep it fit. And that takes exercise. Like physical fitness, you achieve mental fitness by exercising your brain, too. But, NEEDING to exercise is the only similarity between your body and your brain. HOW you exercise your mind is incredibly simple, and completely different than how you exercise your body.

Your body stays toned and fit by REPETITIVE exercise. It’s actually good to fatigue your muscles. But the brain doesn’t benefit as much from repetitive exercise. It needs DIFFERENCE. Repetitively processing the same kinds of tasks, even complex ones, may simply create mental boredom. And mental boredom does not grow the mind.

An air traffic controller, a surgeon or a project manager who comes home from a taxing day and feels mentally fatigued – may not be mentally fatigued at all. They may just be physically fatigued, and mentally bored. (Interestingly, the research showed you can’t distinguish the difference between the feeling of mental fatigue and mental boredom.)

To exercise your brain and grow it, your mind needs a challenge that is different, no matter how small the difference may be.

Here is a list of simple, different things you can do that will stimulate your brain:

• Use your non-dominant hand for anything you can think of: holding a glass of water, brushing your teeth, pointing, scratching, etc.
• Walk into a room backwards (do this one when you’re by yourself).
• Learn and use some new words.
• Read something that has different content than you’re used to.
• Sing if you don’t normally do so. (It might also be good to do this one when you’re by yourself!)

ANYTHING you do or think about differently works to stimulate and grow your brain. But more importantly, it can make your brain functioning more sustainable. But keep in mind; this is an exercise program, not an exercise event. Like physical exercise, mental exercise must be frequent and often to keep the mind fit and growing.

Two hep yu pratce youghr braign funchshun, eye’ll fynsh thys artke bye shoughing u howe flxble yur mynde rilly iz.

Or, to say it another way:

To create an enthusiastic and robust response in the complete organ filling your cranium, me, myself and I would like to come to complete and total closure of this well-read and widely distributed article by telling you, instead of showing you, which I’d rather do but cannot, how wonderfully responsive, creative, flexible and powerful your mental capacity is to be able to read a short sentence of misspelled, yet strangely familiar words, and make complete, intelligent and meaningful sense out of them, to the point at which you may come to exclaim, “Wow, I didn’t even have to read a run-on sentence to get, not only the gist, but the complete meaning of what the author, wants to convey to my mind, a mind that is receiving the words on this page in such a way as to relate, respond to and enjoy them.

Thank you. By writing that, I just stimulated my brain and grew it at your expense!

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