Scan at the supermarket
Stores are designed to have the most profitable items at eye level, and when you shop you don’t really see everything there.
Brain exercise: Stop in any aisle and look at the shelves, top to bottom. If there’s something you’ve never seen before, pick it up, read the ingredients and think about it. You don’t have to buy it to benefit; you’ve broken your routine and experienced something new.
Do an art project in a group
Art activates the nonverbal and emotional parts of the cerebral cortex. When you create art, you draw on parts of your brain interested in forms, colours and textures, as well as thought processes very different from the logical, linear thinking that occupies most of your day.
Brain exercise: Ask each person to draw something associated with a specific theme like a season, an emotion or a current event.
Make more social connections during your day
Scientific research has repeatedly proved that social deprivation has severe negative effects on overall cognitive abilities.
Brain exercise: Thirsty? Buy a drink from a person rather than a vending machine. Need gas? Pay the clerk at the counter rather than just swiping your credit card at the pump.
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