Brain Fitness: Mental Aerobics

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

19 Sep 2006 02:42 PM

I've been talking about Brain Fitness here in the Fitness blog and today, I want to share with you some mental aerobics that you can do in order to warm-up or refresh your mental muscles. You can perform these exercises whenever you are feeling sluggish or need a mental break from work, study or even just the mundane every day activities that we all do.

You can do the following exercises in any order and you can do any or all of them as you see fit. Print out a copy of this and keep it somewhere handy if you need to refresh yourself on them later.

• Count backwards from 100 to zero as fast as you can without taking a break.
• Practice your alphabet, but assign a word to each letter - for example A is for Aunt, B is for Butter - make it trickier and use a theme - for example - Disney A is for Antz, B is for Brother Bear, etc
• Using a name and a number, make a list of foods that you like as quickly as you can: 1. Mocha, 2. Tilapia, 3. Baked Potatoes, 4. Roast Beef - etc, etc, etc
• Choose a letter of the alphabet and name 20 words that start with it, do this as fast as you can
• Take a creative leap, look at the word fence and then start listing off all the words that have a relationship with it - for example grass, yard, dog etc
• Recite the names of all the teachers you've ever had, don't worry if you get them right, just start listing them off
• If you live in the U.S., recite the names of all the states in the United States - want a real challenge, do them in alphabetical order - if you live in another country, name all the territories or major cities
• Take a moment, name every dog breed you can think of
• Take a moment, name every relative you can think of and their relationship to you

Feeling a little more alert now?

Related Articles:

Brain Fitness: Exercises to Improve It

Mental Calisthenics to Help Your Workout

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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