The impetus for me to start writing this series has been rolling around in my brain for a few months, but it seems like just in the last week I’ve been seeing all kinds of news pieces that finally helped it coalesce.

As the use of AI spreads into almost every aspect of our digital lives, a lot of questions have been raised about its ethics, its environmental impact, its economic impact—the list goes on.

But the thing that keeps me up at night is how AI is changing our brains.

I can make choices for myself about how and when to use AI in responsible ways. But as a Millenial raising four Gen Alphas growing up in a vastly different world than the one I grew up in, I also want to craft life habits for myself and for them that encourage deep thought, creativity, mindfulness, and intentionality.

In an opinion essay in the New York Times last week, Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown and the author of “Deep Work,” wrote that we are going to need a cultural revolution similar to what happened after President Eisenhower’s heart attack in the 1950s. Suddenly, a seemingly healthy, highly public man was laid low by heart disease, making the largely sedentary lifestyle that many Americans were now living a visible problem. That led to an explosion of interest in exercise for its own sake—something that had never really been on most people’s radar, since most people prior to the twentieth century were performing physical labor in their daily work and lives.

Newport’s op-ed goes on to enumerate plenty of studies and evidence for how AI use is causing human brainpower to deteriorate at an alarming rate—and I’d highly recommend you go check out his article if you’re at all interested in the whys and hows.

But for the sake of what I’m aiming to do here, we just need to agree: Our brains need regular exercise to stay healthy. So how do we make that happen?

The workout

Creativity is the brain’s mode of exercise. So let’s set up a routine for getting creative.

Every week, I’ll be your brain’s Jane Fonda, offering up prompts for you to get creative, get offline, notice nature, and connect with human things—and bringing you along as I do the same.

This is for my own sake as much as it’s for anyone else’s. I want to write more, create more, notice more, and feel more connected, and this is my best idea for how to do that in a way that keeps me accountable.

So if you’re looking for a way to keep your brain sharp and your human-ness intact, I hope you’ll follow along.

Welcome!