The Case for Re-Reading

About 10 years ago I read a book called Brain Rules by John Medina.

At the time, I was living in Seattle and John was a professor at Seattle University and that connection, along with an interest in learning how the brain works, made me interested in tackling his book.

One of the concepts of the book that had interested me most was the idea that our brains (the brains of Homo Sapiens) had developed by walking 10 to 20 kilometers a day.

That’s a lot of walking!

This was to say that we were built for significant daily exercise, and that our brains actually developed and functioned best in a physically active lifestyle - versus the sedentary lifestyles lived by many of us today.

But as I revisited the book via Blinkist (shortcut!) out of interest in that concept, I stumbled back into another concept that calls for great attention.

That is:

“The brain is like a muscle. The more activity you do, the larger and more complex it can become.”

As most athletes and, especially, body builders know, muscle growth requires rigorous exercise, demand, and discomfort.

So too does mental growth.

And now I’m stuck asking myself:

What rigorous exercise and discomfort am I running my mind through to develop my mental muscles?

What reps am I putting in?

What discomfort am I taking on?

I certainly read a lot.

But those serious about their physical health are exercising daily, with rigor, and making disciplined choices in their nutrition.

I can’t say I’m doing the same for my mental muscles.

I wonder what a good solution to this would be?