Try challenging both your body and your brain today by using your non-dominant hand to complete as many simple tasks as you can. Try brushing your teeth with it, your hair, using your phone with it, try catching with it, writing with it, etc.
Not only will it provide you (& potentially your family members) with a bit of amusement, but it will also give your brain a workout. New and novel stimulus has been shown to improve neuroplasticity, which basically means the brain’s ability to to build new neural pathways. And whilst most of you reading this are quite some way from old age, waiting until you’re there with all these pathways in decline seems inadvisable, particularly in an environment with dementia levels on the increase.
When it comes to your workout, try and remember to put your non-dominant side to work first (rather than last when you’re tired) and do a few more reps on it to help even up the imbalance between sides. We don’t need to be symmetrical, but we don’t want there to be a massive difference between sides.
You’ll also potentially tap into other benefits such as increased creativity, better memory, increased emotional health, intuition, etc. as well as better use of both halves of your brain, both separately and together.
And, finally, if you fancy a full body workout for the brain, get playing a musical instrument, as it fires pretty much every area of the brain at once…
Let me know how you get on! Bonus points for photos 🙂