Exercise Your Brain

Here is an awesome statistic – People that get into a ‘routine’ are more likely to get diseases like Lou Gehrig’s disease, Dementia, or other problems that affect brain function to the body. By ‘routine’, I mean your literal daily routine and the muscles you use in that routine. For example,

when you wake up, what is the first foot you put on the ground? How about when you walk into the bathroom, do you always turn the same direction? Do you use the same hand to grab the doorknob to get into the bathroom? When you open the shower door, do you use the same arm everyday? Which foot is first to step into the shower? Which hand do you wash your body with, and what side of your body do you star on? Which foot is first to step out of the shower? Do you dry off your arms first? Which hand do you brush your teeth with?

At the moment, you are probably thinking “Who the heck thinks about this stuff?”. I do. Why? Because I want to have stellar utilization of my brains ability to send innervative signals to the muscles in my body to activate when necessary and prevent mental problems down the road. The point of all those questions is for you to consider how much you are really using your brain. When you go through the same morning routine (for example), your brain is not really functioning much because it is so ‘routine’. You know that you don’t really think about how to brush your teeth – you just brush them. By forcing yourself to use your left hand to brush your teeth (if you normally use your right), guess where the signal comes from for your left arm to do that? Yup, your brain. You will feel moronic at first, but after several times your brain will be sending the proper signals to your arm on how to utilize your arm to perform the motions to brush your teeth with ease.

The more you train your brain to innervate muscles that you don’t normally use (maybe like reading holding the book in your left hand rather than your right) in a normal day, the more prepared your body will be to respond to random events/stimulus. You will also be training your brain and lessening the chance of the illnesses that come from your brains inability to function properly.

via Nicolas Frank’s blog: Exercise Tips – Exercise Ideas – Exercise Plans – Fitness Tips.