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Brain turned to mush

Its been ages since I've done any brain training on Lumosity and I finally got aorund to a session yesterday. I was shocked at how bad my scores were against scores that I have had before!  Clearly in the intervening months that I have not been practicing my brain has turned to mush.  I can hear it slopping around now as I shake my head in disbelief.

One of the things that does motivate me is measuring things. I like to measure the business turnover and see it increasing in graphs. When I was getting fit and losng weight a few years ago it was really motivating to have a graph that showed my weight falling.  All this has turned me into an Excel bore but it has kept me moving forwards!

As we get older its great that we have a whole store of experinces to analyse so that we can find out what motivates us. So when you think back to different jobs that you've had, which were the ones that you really enjoyed and did really well in?  What was it in those jobs that was different from other jobs that you didn't enjoy?  What are the things that you enjoy out of work?  What is it in these things that appeals to you?  By asking yoursefl these sorts of questions you can build a picture of what motivates you and then use that knowledge to take an approach that will power you through projects or amend your approach when the going gets tough.

Maybe my brain hasn't turned to mush. Maybe I'm just out of practice with the way the games work. And I have found a new one called Word Bubble. It is completely addictive (driven by wanting better scores!)

Yellow kinetic fog - continued

A yellow kinetic fog descended around the golf course as the elephant started the hunt for its medallion.She knew that she had last been wearing it when dying her curtains in the saucepan.  She already used the photocopier to make pictures to help her find it and her energy was high as she tied her hair back with elastic and set to.

Yellow kinetic fog

Just time for a quick brain energiser today as its late.

Saucepan, curtains, yellow, photocopier, marshmallow, kinetic, fog, golf, energy, medallion, hair, elastic, elephant

Using all of these words, not necessarily in this order, construct a short story of several sentences in less than 7 minutes.  Share your responses if you wish by posting them as comments to this post.

Happy writing!  I'll post my effort tomorrow

Bring more maths into your life

I'm still reading my book on brain training, in between lots of other writing that I'm doing. I turned over the page the other day to find lots of sums. They are all straightforward sums involving all the operators (that +-/x in real person speak).  Doing these sums mentally is agreat way of sharpening up your mental agility and keeping your brain young and active.

Once I've done these sums though where am I going to find some more?  Well the Lumosity brain training programme does have a game of metal arithmetic which is timed and I really enjoy that.  However I can't take that with me on the train.  Or I could scrub out all the answers in the book and try these sums again, completing them all in a faster speed, that is a great thing to do (although not late on a Friday afternoon!).  Alternatively I can write myself my own pages of sums - its not difficult after all!  Or I can go out and buy myself a sum workbook aimed at 10-16 years olds - that would be about the right level of complexity.

However you don't need a sum book to bring more mental arithmetic into your daily life. I was driving home from skiing and was very tired, with another 4 hours still to go on the motorway. I started adding up & keeping a running total of the numbers from car registration plates. This kept my alertness up much better than I've experinced with coffee or red bull.  You can make sums part of your daily living by:

• working out and comparing price per pound or price per kilo when you are out shopping,
• working out what the price is when you see discount advertised,
• add up the contents of your shopping basket before you get to the till or even better keep the running total in your head as you are walking around the shop,
• work out how much earlier or later you would get to your destination if you changed your speed in your car,
• add up the numbers on car registration plates as you are travelling,
• add up, divide, multiply or subtract any numbers you see when you are out and about,
• work out how many people there are in the cafe by adding them up in table groups, 
• ask yoursef if things were irregular percentages bigger, faster, cheaper, longer what would they be - so when you fill up your car, work out how much it would have cost if the petrol was 12% more expensive or your tank was 23% bigger,
• check the addition of your bank statements mentally,
• divide car registration numbers by each other
• count then divide or multiply the number of cows or sheep in fields that you pass, the number of people in queues, meetings, shops, lifts or cars, the number of windows in houses, chimneys on rooves, the number of birds on your bird feeder
• play more darts

Numbers are around us everywhere, raw material just waiting to be used.  You are looking at the world in a new, numerate way now.  Have you done your sums today? 

The old folks home

I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 yesterday where they were talking to both men and women at residential care homes and day centres.  There were very few men attending the day centre as they said that all the facilities were geared up for women. However one enterprising day centre had installed a snooker table and had drawn in a critical mass of men who came to play snooker.

Many centres like this have probably set up their facilities based on research that shows that women live substantially longer than men. That is now changing and the gap between life expectancy of men and women is closing for two reasons. Firstly men are living longer as the general health of the population increases. Secondly women are living shorter lives as they engage in the sort of risk taking behaviour traditionally seen in men (such as smoking and being in stressful jobs).

The interviewer concluded that he didn't want to spend time in the atmosphere of a day centre, preferring to spend time with his existing friends and family.  This just underlines the importance of nurturing our networks and establishing new ones as we grow older.  There is also a lot of research that shows that maintaining active social networks into old age helps to maintain mental fitness.

Who have you not seen for ages?  How can you see them regularly?  How are you going to increase your network?  What new people do you want to spend time with now? What networking will you do today?

Failing memory?

I'm working at home and, mid morning, I just went up to go to the loo and I couldn't remember if I'd cleaned my teeth today.  Very quickly I realised that if I had, then my toothbrush would still be damp. I checked, it was dry so I knew that my pearlies needed some attention.

Now I might have been tempted to assign this experience to the "getting older - memory going" category.  But I know that I've always been like this. I get really involved in what I'm doing and can't remember if the routine things have been done or not. I bet if you search your experience you'll find the same as well.  We are all forgetful at times, whether its about our friend's birthdays or putting the bins out. But because of this we have all developed strategies to help our memories, they may be things like diaries that warn you of things in advance (but you still need to remember to look at them!) or other physical checks, like the damp toothbrush, that can tell you if a thing has been done.

Its great to recognise that we are all capable of devising schemes to help our memories at whatever age we are and to recognise and be comfortable about these schemes already being in place as we grow older. As you have been devising these for years then you are probably really good at it so just keep doing it and continue to support you memory in clever ways. 

Ask yourself the two simple questions - What did I use to remind myself today? and What tricks did I use to check that things had been done?  These give you the basis for development of new memory helping strategies.

Keep Learning

A study in Finland, reported in today's Times of India, has linked learning with protection from Alzheimer's disease.  This really backs up a lot of the work that we do in our Fresh Steps programme with some hard evidence.  We already know that as we get older we are into a use it or lose it situation in relation to "the little grey cells" so extra cerebral exercise is a great insurance policy.  We now know from this study reported in the learned journal Neurology that the risk of Alzheimer's correlates inversely with the years of education that you have experienced.  Basically what they are saying, having studied 1400 people over 20 years, is that the longer you have been in education, the less your risk of Alzheimer's.

Now you could sit back and say that it's too late now to do anything, my education is over.  That would be fatalistic and definitely very un-Fresh Stepish!  Or you could choose to say "Wow what great news!  That just spurs me on to find out about that evening course/sign up for that training course at work/enquire about study leave/buy that new teach yourself electronics textbook/go back to my French class/learn some new Salsa steps" (delete as appropriate).  That would be a much more positive response, to keep topping up that insurance policy constantly with new education and learning.

It's invigorating, stretches your mind, gives you added confidence and is of course fun (and we all need more fun as we get older!).  So what are you waiting for, make that phone call, send that email or fill  that application form in TODAY!  The longer you leave it the closer you are getting to your brain frying itself.

MOT and Service

Here in the UK we have to have our cars tested for road-worthiness every year and because I do lots of miles I also get mine regularly serviced.  However we often fail to treat our bodies in the same way.  My body is the machine that is going to get me through life so I feel that I'd better look after it.  That means that it needs regular servicing and MOT and an occasional polish, just like my car.  And as my car is getting older I am finding that I am having to do more at each service.  More parts require attention. And my body is just the same. As I am getting older I am putting more effort into looking after it.  I was chatting with a friend the other day who observed that I needed to keep working as long as I could just to pay for all the specialists working on my body - the osteopath, chiropractor, physio etc etc

As we get older lots of things that we used to take for granted with our bodies do start to change, metabolism slows down, muscles start to decay, joints become stiffer and everything then becomes much more effort.  However it does not have to be that way.  You can make a decision today to look after your sole life machine even better than you do your car.  You can make a decision to service it every day with exercise, to keep it operating smoothly with regular stretching, to give it the best fuels to run with by eating and drinking well and to pep up that metabolic rate through regular aerobic workouts.  You sole life machine will reward you for this by giving you better performance every day and you can then give it a polish with a treat like a day out, new experience or just some relaxation time.

So when did you last go for your well woman or well man MOT?  Ring your GP today and get it booked then draw up your body servicing and maintenance plan to follow.  And if you need more motivation just keep reading this blog and of course BlogPositive.

The League for Older Gamers

Well today I have read some news that has left me behind.  The new Nintendo Wii is a virtual reality computer game that allows you to take part in simulated sports like tennis, bowling or golf in the comfort and safety of your own living room.  There is a lot of evidence that keeping active physically as well as mentally as you grow older is really beneficial.  This game allows you to bring those two together as well as improving hand to eye co-ordination.  The news that I saw today was that they are now using it in a old person residence in Birmingham.  The game was brought in by one of their chefs and now all the residents are challenging each other.  And what I thought was - how invigorating that must be to be able to have a physical and mental challenge - pitting your wits and skills against each other.  One guy was heard to say "Well we all hate each other now!"

So maybe its time for you to commandeer the game console from your children or grandchildren and create the league for older gamers.  At the very least you'll have a good laugh which will increase your heart rate, release endorphins and make you feel good!   And while you're at it what other games and activities seem to be the preserve of the young?  Isn't it about time we also thought about and grab for those areas as well.  A life without fun and enjoyment would seem to drag on for ever due to boredom.

Here is the link to the news piece

BBC News

The back roads

I was driving across to my nearest town on Saturday to collect some great pictures that I'd had framed and I went the back way.  I chose the small winding road that travels along Hadrians Wall rather than racing along the main road.  Its about the same distance and a much more relaxing and interesting drive.  I get to see the abbey at Lanercost, the roman fort at Birdoswald, the tranquil River Irthing tumbling though the valley.

As I drove I reflected that in our grey and forbidding future we may be forced to all drive on the main roads because the back roads have fallen into disrepair when everyone wants to go faster, quicker more directly.  The same thing happens with pathways in your brain and your skills.  If you don't use those pathways that are conencted with all the things that you can do then they too fall into disrepair and get overgrown by the moss and grass of your sidelined future.  If you make a positive effort to keep using all those pathways then you will continue to have limitless possibilities.

So what are the back roads that you have been neglecting?  Where are those shady lanes down which you have not taken your thought processes for years?  Do you need a map now even to remember the way back to some old ideas, old feelings, old experiences.  Get out on those back roads of your brain every day and keep the neuronal traffic flowing.

Creativity

I've been on a creativity in business course this week.  It was a fabulously stimulating experience and I'd reccomend it to anyone.  I got to thinking about how our creativity is fueled and part of this is about connections.  A lot of these can be contributed to experience.

If you have a wide experience of food then you can probably think of lots of things to do with green beans. You'll have experienced soups and salads and a vareity of dishes which had other ingredients but where you could easily contruct them using green beans.  If you diet consisted solely of boiled green beans then you would probably find it difficult to think of many other ways to serve them.

One thing that is true as we get older is that we have a greater store of experiences and there are some experiences that we have repeated many times.  This gives us a great wealth of material within which we can make new connections.  After coming back from holiday in India you'll be making green bean curry, which you'd never thought of before. So as well as older and wiser we are also older and more creative.

Things beginning with K

In our Fresh Steps programme we use lots of brain energisers to keep us focused and alert throughout the learning journey.

Todays energiser for you is:

How many things can you think of that you might have in a kitchen that begin with the letter K?

And even better repeat the list in your head as you build it up, rather than writing it down, as this will help improve your memory.

• Knife
• Kelloggs Cornflakes
• Ketchup

Just to start you off........

Lumosity

No its not Lumos as Harry Potter would command but Lumosity.  There is loads of research that shows that our brains can lose their vigour if we don't keep using them and that becomes more significant as we grow older.  I know that very often now I find myself when I am multi-tasking confusing the two tasks.  So last night I was making some tea and also tidying around the kitchen.  I put the fresh tea bag in the bin instead of in the tea-pot as at that moment I was visualising throwing away the cling film that I'd used in the microwave.  This sort of things can also happen when we are also leading really stressed lives as many of us do.

However I have discovered Lumosity and I am recommending it to everyone I know.  You will find a link to the website in the Resources section if you scroll down in the left sidebar.  What they have is a set of brain training games that have been shown by research to improve how your brain works whatever your age.  The exercises can improve memory, attention, processing speed, concentration and alertness (and believe me I need help with that sometimes on the M6 heading North late at night).  The games are challenging and fun.  I really enjoy both raindrops and the birdwatching.

Taking their initial programme is free and you can then sign up for the extended programme at about $50 a year.  You'll proably need a broadband connection as the games might struggle with a 56k modem.  So what are you waiting for take the first step to expand your brain power today.  Now it must be time for my next training session soon!