For a little over a year I have been practicing daily routine-breaking exercises to increase my creativity. Until recently, I did not know there was a name for these exercises, or even a formal study of this practice.
The exercises are called Neurobic Exercises and my recent discovery is a book by Katz and Rubin called Keep Your Brain Alive.
My journey started when I read an article about sparking new ideas and creating change in your life, by changing something very routine in your life. The article suggested switching the order of your shower routine. For instance, if you normally wash your hair, condition, scrub top to bottom and finally wash your face, try scrubbing top to bottom first. Every day rotate or switch the order of your routine. Something in the article struck me as very interesting and I began to deploy this new task in my daily life. At first it was very difficult. As time has passed, I have found myself getting mildly frustrated with the simplicity of the task and have added new things to my shower routine to increase the complexity. I've added brushing my teeth, shaving and scrubbing bottom-up.
My discovery of the book Keep Your Brain Alive has extended my daily challenge to other parts of my life and has provided insight into the science behind the activities. As described in complete detail in the book, changing our routines and involving all of our senses in our activities, creates new neural pathways in the brain. By increasing your brains neural paths, you should reduce or prevent degradation in brainpower, increase your memory retention and live a fuller life.
Some of the neurobic exercises they recommend and some of my own creations are:
- Brush your teeth with the opposite hand.
- Shower with your eyes closed.
- Break your morning routine by re-ordering your morning tasks.
- Replace your speed dialing with old-style number pushing while saying the numbers. Try recalling the number without looking it up in your phone book.
- Eat with your eyes closed. Do this while eating alone at home. Concentrate on the smells, textures and tastes of the foods.
- Exercise with free-weights rather than machines.
- Practicing writing with your opposite hand. Make your shopping lists this way.
- "Make a move" on the road. Find alternate ways to work. Travel side roads. Open the windows in your car and take in the smells of your route.
- Meet someone new with all of your senses (except taste). When meeting someone new, feel the handshake noting the texture of the hand and the strength of the grip. Size-up the person by mentally noting the height and approximate weight of the person. Focus on facial features. Listen to the voice and note the tone and pattern of the speech. Smell the air, trying to identify colognes and natural odors.
- Dress with matching textures. Try matching the feel of your clothes when choosing your attire.
If you're up for the challenge, take the brain quiz at www.neurobics.com and get a baseline for your neurobic ability. I'm slightly embarrassed by this, but I'll tell you that I scored a 23 after honestly answering the questions. I'm looking forward to retesting in a month after deploying more of the techniques discussed in the book.
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