Smart for Life, by Michael D. Chafetz

Most neurobics authors establish distinctions among levels of brain accomplishment or mental prowess, since “you do not have to attain the brain equivalents of SteffiGraf’s or Michael Jordan’s level of physical fitness to be quicker in conversation, better at solving problems, have richer memories, and livelier associations” (Chafetz 1992, 23).

For “those of you who wish to exercise your brain systematically as an athlete would exercise various muscle groups,” manuals provide well-ordered cerebral training programs and recommend hiring a cerebral “marathon trainer” and keeping “brain workout diaries” (213–214). The vocabulary of bodily fitness is thus extrapolated to the brain itself. Causally and rhetorically, bodily and cerebral fitness go hand in hand.

Vidal, Fernando and Ortega, Francisco. Being Brains: Making the Cerebral Subject (Forms of Living)....