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Neurobic Exercises

For an exercise to be Neurobic, it should involve one or more of the following:

1. Require participation of one or more of your senses in a novel way. Here are a few examples:
   • Try to discern the ingredient/source of juices or drinks that you take simply by tasting their flavor.
   • You can also combine two or more senses in unexpected ways, for example, listen to a specific piece of music while smelling a particular aroma or reading a book.
2. Invest your full concentration. In order to do this, you have to steer your mind away from any diversion and activate all its alert signals. Examples:
   • Turn the family pictures on your work desk upside down.
   • Try to switch some roles, with other family members for a day or two.
3. Break your routine in a significant way. Examples:
   • Take a completely different route to work or school/college.
   • Prepare a breakfast that you don't normally prepare. Try eating noodles with a spoon than a fork.

Popular Neurobic Exercises

• Explore a new environment: Go to a new park, garden, mall, theatre, or a new store. Travel is claimed to slacken age-related mental decline.
• Smell new odors in the morning: Have new odors, like a bottle of mint extract ready to smell first thing in the morning, to "wake up" your brain. Or just after quitting bed in the morning, visit your garden or balcony and inhale the fragrance of roses, hyacinths, lilies and tulips. It flushes in a natural feel-good fragrance.
• Perform tasks with your eyes closed: Your other senses become more active and keen once you shut off your eyes, since it blocks any distractions. You become more aware of your sub conscious mind, can recollect important things that the brain usually clears off from the buffer and can introspect into your actions and take decisions as to how to cope with challenging problems. So you can take a shower, eat or dress yourself up with your eyes closed. Normal you rely on your eyes for these tasks
• Try using your non-dominant hand for performing tasks: Practicing writing, brushing teeth, combing your hair, typing etc with non-dominant hands can teach your brain new things everyday and tear away from the boredom of routine work.
• Put on different clothes: Ever noticed how you feel differently when you wear different clothes? You may think differently as well. It is scientifically proved that different colors generate different vibes and influence your mood peaks or falls.
• Pamper your looks: Try to wear shades that are compatible with your skin color and dress according to what suits your figure. Give yourself a haircut that will suit your face-cut. No one is asking you to transform into a ramp model, but paying attention to your looks and drawing out the best of it, will boost your confidence and lend you a feel-good-factor.
• Learn to read Braille: This is a tough one, but learning to read with your fingers definitely involves one of your senses in a new context.
• Respond to a situation differently. Catch yourself in a normal and mostly unconscious response to a situation, and choose to respond in a different (and preferably better) way.
• Find a new route to work: It doesn't have to be a longer route - just different. In the process you might discover a short cut or a road with less traffic or something—these are just added perks. The main idea is to bring about a change.
• Act confidently: In a delicate or crisis situation, choose to act confidently. You'll notice that your mind gets very active once you adopt the assumption that you will brace yourself up for anything.
• Distinguish coins using tactility: This brain exercise can be a way to kill time when waiting for an appointment or while traveling. If you really want a challenge, see if you can distinguish paper currency denominations by touch perception.
• Leave the lights off in the house: Get around your home by memory and feel. This certainly fully engages your attention, but be careful of course.
• Play Dumb Charades: You can have a conversation with someone entirely through body language and not words. Its quite challenging to express thoughts through gestures or actions without using your mouth. But let me tell you its great fun.
• Television Fun: This one is not only fun, but good for stimulating creativity. You simply turn the volume off on television and invent the dialog based on what you see the characters doing. If you do this with a friend you can each play various roles. Most shows become comedies when doing this and you can have a good laugh.
• Read A New Magazine: Find a magazine you normally wouldn't choose, and read it for a while. It should be a topic that you don't know much about. If you normally read about politics-related topics, you might pick up a business magazine. As you read, relate what you are reading and learning to what you already know. This is another good creativity booster. It gets you out of your usual thinking patterns.
• Shop In New Places: Try a new store when you go shopping. It could be a new grocery store, just so you have to think to find your way around and get familiar with the different departments. It could also be a different kind of store that you would normally never visit (could be a jewelry or clothing store).

Following the simple guidelines above (full attention, use senses in a new context, break your routine), and you can invent your own neurobics exercises. Along with stimulating your brain and stirring up mental faculties, they are great fun to practice and simultaneously learn new things everyday.

Reference: Keep Your Brain Alive