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Each exercise uses a specific mental ability you have and activates an important part of your brain. There are no “right or wrong” answers. Maintain and enhance your cognitive abilities based on neuroscience principles. Each exercise takes 5 minutes or less. Write down your answers or just keep them in mind.

Exercise: Notice the two designs below. What is the relative size of the two inner circles in each.  Is the one on the right smaller or the same size as the one on the left. Is the inner circle on the left smaller or the same size as the one on the right.

For our European mental fitness buffs. Where were you and what were you doing when you learned that Princess Di was killed in a car wreck?

Exercise Goal: Visual perception of congruence.

Brain Site Activation:  Frontal and parietal regions of the right hemisphere.

Each exercise uses a specific mental ability you have and activates an important part of your brain. There are no “right or wrong” answers. Maintain and enhance your cognitive abilities based on neuroscience principles. Each exercise takes 5 minutes or less. Write down your answers or just keep them in mind.

Exercise: Where were you and what were you doing when you learned about the 9-11 World Trade Center attack?

For our European mental fitness buffs. Where were you and what were you doing when you learned that Princess Di was killed in a car wreck?

Exercise Goal: Traumatic event recall.

Brain Site Activation:  Anterior cingulate, frontal lobes, and thalamus.

Each exercise uses a specific mental ability you have and activates an important part of your brain. There are no “right or wrong” answers. Maintain and enhance your cognitive abilities based on neuroscience principles. Each exercise takes 5 minutes or less. Write down your answers or just keep them in mind.

Exercise: A Time Traveler’s Question.

“If you could live as an adult in any historic period of any past century, which would you choose? What would you do for a living? Would you marry? What kind of person would you be?“

Exercise Goal: Imaginative thinking.

Brain Site Activation: Right hemisphere of the cortex. Inhibition of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine.

Each exercise uses a specific mental ability you have and activates an important part of your brain. There are no “right or wrong” answers. Maintain and enhance your cognitive abilities based on neuroscience principles. Each exercise takes 5 minutes or less. Write down your answers or just keep them in mind.

Exercise: Take a look at a few common life situations a person may face and want to resolve. To do so successfully, the person has to decide if the situations are symptoms of a problem or are problems themselves. Which of the following life situations do you consider are symptoms and which are problems?

The person is 40 years old and holds a book further away to see it clearly.
The person is 40 years old and gets tired more easily than they used to.
The person has two children and they spend less time with their spouse than they used to.
The person has two children and weighs 20 pounds more than before they became a parent.

Exercise Goal: Analytic Thinking and reasoning.

Brain Site Activation: Prefrontal cortex and limbic system.

Each exercise uses a specific mental ability you have and activates an important part of your brain. There are no “right or wrong” answers. Maintain and enhance your cognitive abilities based on neuroscience principles. Each exercise takes 5 minutes or less. Write down your answers or just keep them in mind.

Exercise: Look at the following picture. Can you see the figure-ground reversal?

Exercise Goal: Understanding visual stimuli.

Brain Site Activation: Temporal cortical regions, middle frontal gyrus, putamen, and midline cerebellum.

Each exercise uses a specific mental ability you have and activates an important part of your brain. There are no “right or wrong” answers. Maintain and enhance your cognitive abilities based on neuroscience principles. Each exercise takes 5 minutes or less. Write down your answers or just keep them in mind.

Exercise: Look at the following picture and then look away. What did you see? Recall people, actions, and objects.

Exercise Goal: Working visual memory.

Brain Site Activation: Temporal lobes.

Each exercise uses a specific mental ability you have and activates an important part of your brain. There are no “right or wrong” answers. Maintain and enhance your cognitive abilities based on neuroscience principles. Each exercise takes 5 minutes or less. Write down your answers or just keep them in mind.

Exercise: Hold an object like a pen in front of your eyes. Look at it. Then close your left eye. Then open your left eye and close your right eye. Notice how your perspective and acuity changes.

Clue: With one eyelid closed, there is no depth perception. This is true even though you know that the object you’re holding has depth.

Exercise Goal: Neurobic achievement.

Brain Site Activation: Cingulate system and neurotrophin production.