Drive Your Brain in Reverse, on the Wrong Side, and Upside-Down
No extra time required, only a possible side effect of extra laughs
Really? Learn a new language?
Numerous articles have been written to encourage our brain exercising activities. Suggestions are plentiful and range from learning to play a musical instrument to mastering a foreign language. Ballroom dancing is also an option that appears to waltz into a lot of articles. All these activities are indeed of great value to strengthening our brain capacity by means of generating new neural connections.
The problem with such endeavors is not even their arduousness. We are smart cookies, we can do it! The issue here is it’s simply not realistic for many of us to allot extra time for such cognitive musings. We may even end up agreeing with our ambitions that surely one day … maybe when Covid retreats or maybe when kids are off to college, or better yet, when we retire. We will then travel the world, learn a new language, master a new musical instrument, and waltz to the delight of our family. Such a pretty picture, we can easily start framing it in our mind.
Pretty indeed, but not realistic for most of us.
This line of thinking is similar to a well-known dialogue we tend to have with ourselves about joining the gym. “I would totally go the the gym. But I currently can’t because of X, Y, Z, so workouts will have to wait till X, Y, and Z are resolved.” We conclude this diatribe without a mention that there are other ways, other than joining the gym, that we can engage our bodies to pursue physical fitness.
Exercising our brain, also does not have to adhere exclusively to traditional methods
but can hack time by incorporating new and unexpected cognitive challenges into routine tasks.
Let’s go over three of them:
- Driving your brain on the wrong side, or using a non-dominant hand
2. Turning your world (or at least simple objects around you) upside down
3. Driving your brain in reverse, or walking backwards.
Drive your brain on the “wrong” side
If your “right” side is your right hand (if you are right-handed), drive your brain with your “wrong” side, or use your non-dominant left hand. And vice-versa for those who were born with a left-hand dexterity.
Surprise your brain and your muscles with performing common functions by using a “wrong” hand. Brush your hair, brush your teeth, hold a utensil, do occasional handwriting, and open a door key with a hand that has little to no dexterity for a required precision to not a miss a key hole from the first try or to graciously place a spoonful of soup in your mouth without spilling it or poking yourself. You probably shouldn't be applying makeup with a non-dominant hand right before a job interview; but then again, that would definitely make you stand out among other applicants!
Turn your world upside down, as much as possible
Something as simple as turning some household objects (such as picture frames and maybe even some paintings) upside down, will trigger your brain to create new connections by having to (re)make sense of smilingly familiar objects.
Drive your brain in reverse
Walk backwards (ensure safety first!). Walking backwards offers not only multiple physical benefits but also forces our brain to create new neural paths for brain-muscle connections that we don’t tend to use or may have never engaged in action at all.
No extra time, only extra laughs
For most of the tasks listed above, you don’t need to allot extra time out of your busy life. You have to brush your teeth anyway, you have to eat regardless how busy you are. Do be prepared to amuse yourself and your loved-ones with your new awkward self.
It is this awkwardness, however, that will equip your brain with further dexterity and confidence to tackle future challenges that may approach you from the “wrong” side.
