Dr Hanish Babu, MD | Dermatologist | Sharjah | Ajman | UAE

Dr Hanish Babu, MD

Neurobics : A Brain Exercise For the Brain and For the Muscles!

This is an exercise that can strengthen neural connections in the brain and even create new ones.

Switch the hand you are using to control the computer mouse. Use the hand that you normally do NOT use.

What do you notice?

Is it harder to be precise and accurate with your motions?

Do you feel like you did when you were first learning to tie your shoelaces?

If you are feeling uncomfortable and awkward don’t worry, your brain is learning a new skill. When you use a new muscle for a common task, your brain will get busy building new neural pathways. 

The more neural pathways and neurons, the better!

Try other neural building and strengthening exercises with everyday tasks. Use your opposite hand to brush your teeth. Try typing or operate the TV remote  with your less dominant hand.

In a fascinating experiment, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation discovered that a muscle can be strengthened just by thinking about exercising it.

Pay attention to your breathing. Is it slow and deep, or quick and shallow? Is your belly expanding and contracting, or is your chest doing all the work?    

Engage Your Brain!

It is important to challenge your brain to learn new and novel tasks, especially processes that you've never done before. Examples include square-dancing, chess, tai chi, yoga, or sculpture. Working with modelling clay or play dough is an especially good way for children to grow new connections. It helps develop agility and hand-brain coordination, (like controlling the computer mouse with your opposite hand).

Neurobics™

Created by Lawrence C. Katz, Ph.D., a professor of neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center, Neurobics^TM can be done anywhere, anytime, in offbeat, fun and easy ways. Nevertheless, these exercises can activate underused nerve pathways and connections, helping you achieve a fit and flexible mind.

Neurobic Exercises

These are exercises that utilise new muscles and new movements involving maximum of your senses in a coordinated, meaningful movements. These include using more than one sense (touch, smell, hearing, seeing, taste, thinking) in daily chores, combining more than two of the above, breaking routines and early morning exercises that you can perform in the bed itself, before you get up.

Let us examine each of these now:

1. Try to include one or more of your senses in an everyday task

• Get dressed with your eyes closed
• Wash your hair with your eyes closed
• Share a meal and use only visual cues to communicate. No talking.

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2. Combine two senses

• Listen to music and smell flowers
• Listen to the rain and tap your fingers
• Watch clouds and play with modelling clay at the same time

 3. Break routines

• Go to work on a new route
• Eat or button with your opposite hand
• Shop at new grocery store

4. Wake Up Your Brain in the Morning before getting up

In the morning, while you're still in bed, slowly begin to move your toes – any way that feels good. Wriggle, flex, and stretch. Move all your toes up and down several times, or work just your big toes. Wiggling your toes activates nerves that stimulate your brain and internal organs.

Do this exercise first thing each morning or after sitting for an extended period of time. It will help you to wake-up and become alert more quickly. Your whole body may feel pleasantly energised. Most important, your first steps – and those throughout the day – will be safer ones. (Falls are the second leading cause of spinal cord and brain injury among people over 65 years old).

Reading and Bingo

Consider your brain a muscle, and find opportunities to flex it. "Read, read, read," says Dr. Amir Soas of Case Western Reserve University Medical School in Cleveland. Do crossword puzzles. Sudoku is a very good brain stimulant. Play Scrabble. Start a new hobby or learn to speak a foreign language. "Anything that stimulates the brain to think." Also, watch less television, because "your brain goes into neutral," he said.

A cognitive psychologist in England found that when elderly people regularly played bingo, it helped minimise their memory loss and bolster their hand-eye coordination. Bingo seemed to help players of all ages remain mentally sharp.

Travel Stimulates Your Brain

Travel is a very good way to stimulate your brain. You see new places, you observe new cultures and taste different varieties of cuisines- new sensations, new neurons!

Keep your brain busy! It will not let you down!