Neurobics: Exercising Your Brain

Sure, you've heard of aerobics. Even though it was only about twenty years ago that aerobics ran headlong into mainstream usage, it seems like it's been around forever. Nowadays, you can't read an article on fitness or weight loss without some kind of discussion of the importance of aerobic exercise. But have you ever heard of the word neurobics?

If you haven't, be prepared. It's a word likely to come into common usage as the baby boomer generation misty wonderland of memory loss and Alzheimer's. What exactly is neurobics? It's a word that was coined by Lawrence Katz and Manning Rubin to describe exercises designed to increase the brain's ability to stay fit so it can learn and remember better. Neurobics is really nothing more than a fancy new term for an idea as old as dirt: mental alertness comes with using your mind.

The brain works by firing off its neural pathways. An unstimulated brain is an underutilized brain. The latest research into this area indicates that by using one's senses in new and unexpected ways, a chemical known as neutrophin is produced by the brain. This chemical works as a sort of mental Miracle-Gro, allowing parts of the brain called dendrites to actually increase in size-sometimes even doubling in size-as well as making them more complex.

The key to neurobics is using all your senses, but using them in new ways. The purpose is to do something that has become such a trite and overused phrase that I really don't even want to use it here, so I will use it in a new and different way: Considering a method whereby old avenues are considered in a manner that takes place external to the cardboard cube in which products are stored.

You know, thinking outside the box. (And, hey, wouldn't it be great if that was the last time you ever had to read or hear that phrase, huh?)