Remember the good old days when your mind seemed sharp as a tack; when you could remember the phone numbers of two dozen people with no effort at all; and when an important date never slipped by without proper acknowledgement from you? How often, these days, do you have to grab the phone book to look up a number before dialing? A number you could have almost dialed in your sleep a year ago. And have you recently found yourself purchasing belated birthday cards to make up for the event you forgot? Do these, and similar events sometimes make you wonder if you are getting just a little too forgetful?
You probably don’t have anything to worry about. Health experts tell us that the mere fact that we notice our forgetfulness is probably a good indication that we aren’t really in serious trouble. The problem comes not when we misplace a library book, but when we can’t remember how to find the library to return it.
Knowing that occasional lapses in memory are not usually serious, doesn’t help us feel better when we experience them, so what can be done to stop such things from happening over and over again?
Just as our bodies need physical exercise to keep them in the best possible shape as we grow older, our mental faculties also need exercise if they are to remain useful.
There are countless ways to give your mind a workout; most of them costing nothing but a small investment of time each day. Following are 18 simple, inexpensive, and mostly painless ideas for you to try. Select several to practice for a few weeks, and see if your ability to remember things, as well as your enthusiasm for life, doesn’t improve dramatically.
1. Get plenty of sleep, exercise regularly, and eat a balanced diet. If your body is
suffering decline due to unhealthy living, your mind will also suffer decline.
2. If you are depressed, talk to your doctor to see what can be done to relieve the problem. People who maintain a positive outlook on life are less likely to suffer from lapses of memory.
3. If you smoke, stop. If you must drink, do it in moderation. Both habits are detrimental to the ability to think clearly.
4. Join a club or organization where you interact with other people. Discussion groups do wonders to stimulate even the most sluggish minds.
5. Get curious. Choose a subject each week and find out everything you can about that subject. Can’t think of one? Try sea horses, or kiwi fruit, or Mardi Gras. There is no end to the interesting information you can glean from the internet on subjects you previously knew nothing about.
6. Every morning, pretend you are going to write a story. Choose any subject, and then give your mind a workout by asking yourself what your main character or subject smells like, looks like, sounds like, feels like, and, if appropriate, tastes like.
7. When someone calls on the telephone, try to guess who it is before they identify themselves.
8. Read the daily newspaper, and try to share information from one or two of the articles with a friend.
9. After a visit with someone, review the conversation in your head.
10. When you finish a chapter in a book, write a one or two sentence summary of it.
11. Do crossword puzzles. (No peeking at the answers until you really have to.)
12. If remembering names is a major problem, try making a rhyme out of a person’s name as soon as you are introduced. For example, Ted Gates -- uses red skates. Picture Ted skating around on red skates. The more ridiculous your mind picture is, the easier it will be to recall that person’s name.
13. Borrow a math book from a child, and try doing the problems in it. Work your way up to more and more difficult examples.
14. Pick up a book of simple riddles or word games from your bookstore. Try to figure out the answers without peeking.
15. Pick out a short poem that appeals to you. Memorize it, and say it every day for ten days. Then choose another poem and do the same thing.
16. Work jigsaw puzzles. Rework the same puzzle several times to see if you can improve on the time it takes you to solve it.
17. Find a friend to play card games or board games with. Try new games frequently to increase the mental challenge.
18. Finally, read, read, and read some more. Your brain is much more involved when reading than when watching TV. Branch out into areas other than fiction. Biography, poetry, and travel are areas you might want to try.
After working on some of the mental exercises in this list, you will probably find many similar challenges to add to your daily routine. Don’t let down your guard for even a day; instead, determine that no matter how many birthdays you may have celebrated, you will do your part to continue to stay mentally alert and interested in life.
