Mental exercise

 What mental exercise will keep my brain sharp in just 10 minutes a day?

LET’S HAVE SOME CONSCIOUSNESS FUNZIES

It's time to throw a bunch of boundary breaking "micro-exercises" at you. Here's a list of eleven things to do to break a variety of patterns and get to see what it's like to be in a situation where typically you would just "cruise on automatic."

Try these:

1. Try to sense your way around a room with your eyes closed. Tune into the smells and sounds as you do. Develop a mental map that is NOT visual.

2. Use your feet to pick up things, open a door, flush the toilet, turn on the TV, etc. Have a "footsie hour," and see if you can get through it without using your hands.

3. Read a whole page in a book upside down.

4. Write the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" backwards in cursive.

5. Hold your soap and your wash cloth in the opposite hands while you bathe.

6. In your next conversation, try to blink every time the other person blinks -- and don't get caught doing it!

7. Next time you are washing your face, try to think only of the point exactly between your eyebrows, but yet continue to wash your face.

8. Try to talk while feeling your heartbeat, or if this is not possible immediately, just try putting your attention on general area of your heart for the entirety of your next conversation with anyone. Note whatever emotions come into "play" while doing this.

9. The next time you talk to someone, whenever that person pauses in their speech, repeat, in your mind, the last three spoken words.

10. Using your peripheral vision, practice seeing the sides of your nose during conversations. Easily be aware of the nose being "visually available" to you.

11. The next time a person is angry, note how much their voice has changed in pitch, volume, and tone.