10 Ways To Keep Your Brain Alive

Over 40? Getting forgetful? Having trouble learning new things, or remembering that actress’s name without reaching for your smartphone? Neurobics are simple, unique brain exercises that can be done anywhere, anytime. Learn more here!

11. Wake Up and Smell the Vanilla!

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...Or a different scent besides freshly brewed coffee. By consistently linking a new odor with your morning routine, you are activating new neural pathways.

10. Blaze New Trails

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On your routine commute, the brain goes on autopilot and gets little stimulation or exercise. An unfamiliar route activates the cortex and hippocampus to integrate the novel sights, smells, and sounds you encounter into a new brain map.

9. The Scent of Music

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Start by choosing an odor canister (either deliberately or at random) and a favorite song. Open the odor canister and take a good sniff every time you listen to that song. The repeated pairings of these two stimuli makes your brain create powerful links between the two, increasing the number of pathways available for storing or accessing memories.

8. Take Brain Breaks

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A brisk fifteen-minute walk outdoors invigorates the body, clears the mind, and opens the door to real-world sensory stimulation. Try fostering non-stressful, mind-expanding interactions during this time.

7. Take-Someone-to-Work Day

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Introducing your child, friend, spouse, or parent to coworkers exercises your abilities with names far more effectively than sitting at your desk and trying to memorize them. Everything you take for granted--the pictures in the halls, the machines you use, your familiar coworkers-- are seen anew through another person.

6. Visit a Farmers Market

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Go to the market in an exploratory mode--with no list--and invent a meal from whatever you find that looks, smells, and feeds good. This exercise ranks high on all the elements of Neurobic requirements: Novelty, multisensory associations between different shapes, colors, smells, and tastes, as well as social interaction.

5. A Taste Down Memory Lane

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Certain foods reactivate and exercise the memory or emotional circuits that were associated with them in the first place. Look for foods that might rekindle childhood memories--a baseball-park hotdog with that neon-yellow mustard, birthday cake and ice cream, Popsicles, s'mores, macaroni and cheese--or any ethnic foods you used to eat as a child and no longer do.

4. Go Camp

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There's probably no more direct way to experience the unexpected than camping. Not only are you responsible for constructing your shelter, you have to navigate trails with a compass, make food, and deal firsthand with the challenges of weather and terrain.

3. Be Creative

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Take a creative workshop. Lots of places both in the U.S. and abroad offer week or month-long courses in writing, painting, photography, sculpting, music, acting, archaeology, or whatever you've always wanted to try your hand at.

2. Grow a Garden, Grow Your Brain

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You use all of your senses in the process: feeling the earth, smelling the fruits and plants, tasting sprigs of herbs. And your brain's planning and spatial abilities are called into action as you decide which plants to put where, the direction of the sun, and how much water is needed. At the end there are potent rewards: fresh, homegrown fruits and vegetables, flowers, or a beautiful yard!

1. Keep Your Brain Alive

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Purchase Keep Your Brain Alive to learn even more offbeat, fun, and easy exercises to stimulate your brain nutrients and help new brain cells grow!