Brain Exercises
When I was in Sept-Iles for hospital appointments last week, I had an opportunity while shopping at Bureau en Gros to buy a computer CD called (I think) "Brain Exercises", supposedly to keep the brain functioning and developing through old age. I wish I brought it!!! Now I'm kicking myself. 
But I'm also thinking that maybe babblers might have some resources to share along these lines - or might know where to purchase this particular CD online (I'm going to email Bureau en Gros on Monday to ask if it the CD is still in stock).
Aging is starting to be an issue for me - I've had memory problems, and health issues as well. I'd like to keep my brain functioning at least on its current level of sophisication, and even help it grow a bit. What works for you? (I just turned 60 btw).
I think physical exercise is one of the best ways to reduce plaque buildup in both our bodies' arteries as well as microcapillaries in our brains. Someone said that we were designed to be in motion, and that everything works better over time with exercise. And I really believe that.
Bob Demarco wrote:
Middle frontal and inferior gyrus? Who knew? So put down the books and newspapers, and stop watching TV. I remember reading that watching TV burns as many calories and stimulates your mind into raising its brainwaves to some level about as much as doing absolutely nothing at all. Personally I think it's some kind of weird quantum effect. They say the universe knows when it's being observed. Could be something similar with the Google effect.
Think long thoughts, teach yourself to look at things, all things in as many aspects as you can.
Take a box of tissues for example, and then write down all the things you know about it, like listing how many working hands, it has passed through, from beginning to end, what procressing has been done for its composition, contents and packagings, in order for it to come to you as is.
Think about what governs its production and contents, and transportation and anything else you may think has gone into it.
Once you think you know your tissue box, move along and get to know something else.
I have worked with people in groups getting them to do this, some list 100's of truths about a tissue box, and how many dozens of workers hands it has been through to get to them, while others list somewhere around 10 things they can see about it, and workers never have a thing to do with it.
Somehow that box just made itself, and then filled itself with tissues, that also made themselves.
The people who list 10, are the ones, that need to get their brains into action, and really think about something, instead of being a reaction, to a provoked emotion.
Thanks for the responses.
yw, how many worker's hands has a tissue box and its contents, been through, before it got to you? ;)
I'd like to start with the loggers who cut down the trees, but I also assume that recycled paper comes into play as well. So, from new wood freshly cut, I'd guess 20 - 25 pairs of hands have been involved in the production of a box of tissue paper. Recycled paper, probably half that number. This is a good exercise - now I'll probably go and apply it to everything I see.
Well more than 25 hands for production, and even more for it to get to you, but a good start.
I was reading somewhere or other about memory exercises being helpful as a brain booster and the advice given was to exercise your memory by not writing every little thing down. So with that in mind, I go grocery shopping without a list and go through the store aisle by aisle letting my vision jog my memory.
Ha! If I go grocery shopping without a list, I end up buying almost everything in the store.
I've tried that... and I know neither the chocolate nor the salty "treats" were on the list... but they were in the shopping bag. Strangely enough I also ended up with a third box of corn startch...
When it comes to grocery shopping I try to follow the advice a friend's sister passed on... walk the perimeter of the store, produce, dairy, bakery and butcher shop are on the perimeter... only go down the aisles if you actually require something that is processed and comes in a container... this really cuts down on the impulse purchases.
Boom Boom, I've read that learning a second language really helps keeping the mind fit throughout your entire life. Are there any French or Spanish classes nearby where you live, or a private tutor that could come by and give you lessons?
Oh, I'm terrible at learning languages. I have a French Language certificate from Canadore College in North Bay (I think it's dated 1986), but I've forgotten all of it. I have a French Language learning CD, but it's too dense for me. Locally, there's no part-time French tutor here. I'll probably take another crack at the CD this winter while I'm hibernating.
Yes, I even have a grocery shopping term for that, I call it "going off list". It usually involves high carbohydrate items, or non-food related items that I think might make good sex toys.
Shopping with me is fun and fattening.
AAAAAaaaaaaaanyways....
Back when I was going through separation, and working nights and not sleeping well either at home or work, I began to have memory problems. Of course, I attributed it to stress, but I wanted to find out.
I took a book of poetry to work, and started memorizing. I memorized "The Cremation of Sam McGee", "The Highwayman" and "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", and refreshed my memorization on some Shakespeare and a stanza from "Horatius at the Bridge"
Years later, I think I could get through Sam McGee and the Highwayman right now cold, with a bit of prompting here and there. And, McBeth's last siloloquay sticks with me always, as does the stanza from Horatius at the bridge.
I found this memory work actually easier than the memory work I did in high school.
It's been noted in my household that my "memory loss" is selective in nature and has a flavour of being somewhat self serving. But I don't care what they think. (kidding)
My personal failings aside, Boom Boom, besides memorizing your favorite poems, I'd suggest a few video games. Tetris is good, to a point. After a while, parts of the brain that builds new connections stops doing that, so one could move on to another type of game.
Just trying to understand everything is good, too. I'm allways looking into this or that-- for example, if I'm to understand the flora and fauna of my locale, then I think I should understand the underpinnings, so I've been investigating and reading here and there about Ontario geology.
Understanding where you live could be a life's endeavor, and should keep your brain active.
Low Carbohydrate Dieters Lose Memory Skills - Study
Breakfast, the most important meal of the day. My grand' used to tell me that strength goes in at the mouth. It goes for improved memory in the am, too.
Oh, I love a big breakfast!
(wish we had a 'drooling' smiley)
I skipped very many breakfasts when I was a skinny kid. And I was a straight C's student then, too. Things improved when I broke with the morning fasts.
Gary Anaka, brain coach, is pretty good on brain exercises. He does a workshop for teachers that is excellent.
Gary Anaka, Brain Coach.
OMG, you know Gary, nbeltov?
What a blast from the past.
Crossword puzzles have really improved my memory.
My mom used cryptograms
Every day I play about three dozen moves of word games online on Facebook (Wordscraper and Lexulous) similar to Scrabble. I used to play chess but got tired of losing.
If you want to play chess at your own level, set up an account at FICS, download an interface, and play people with a rating around your own. I do.
Too busy for chess, and I love scrabble-type games.
I'm off to play blitz chess. Games over in 10 minutes. You are not too busy for chess, Boom Boom. Purchase some books of chess problems and try solving them. Wonderful for the brain.
Usually takes me ten minutes or more to make a move in chess, aside from opening moves.
Here's the link to the disks I made reference to in my OP: http://www.neuroactiveprogram.ca/EN/
Jeez, you aren't fooling around. How's it helping so far, Boom Boom?
I've ordered one of the three packages, should arrive next week. The one I ordered is "Complete Brain Training" although I'm now thinking I should have ordered the second one, "Fitness For the Brain". I very much doubt I will order the final one, "Learning" because I don't see it as relevant to my needs. Damn, I wish I had ordered that second kit instead.
Ya they tried to teach me about learnin, too. I'm sure I made it as difficult for them as possible at the time.
Here's a related article from today's Toronto Star. The focus is on our education system, but the ramifications go beyond school.
http://www.thestar.com/atkinsonseries/atkinson2009/article/719091--brain...
"We used to say that intelligence was 80 per cent genetic and 20 per cent environmental," says Martin Westwell, a neuroscientist in Adelaide at Flinders University. "Now we tend to say that it's 20 per cent genetic and 80 per cent environmental."
The brain is malleable. And the research is showing that if students think they can learn, then they do. If they think their intelligence is fixed at a low level – whether because of social or economic status, skin colour, gender, family history, which country they live in – then they stick to that level.
"It is absolutely clear that the brain is not fixed," says Westwell. "And in schools the kids who see intelligence as malleable have a better trajectory."
At work, things have been in flux, to say the least. It used to be that you posted for a job, and that's what you did. All the time. But lately, you may be classified in one job, but you get transferred to others quite a bit. Particularly me, as I tend to like learning different jobs.
I had to learn to run a blanking press. Essentially, it makes the simplest part in the plant-- something that resembles a 22 inch, 30lb washer. Only it makes a lot of them, really fast. There's several elements to it. At the back end, we use a crane to unload 20 ton coils of steel off of trucks. Then they are loaded into a de-coiler, which takes the tongue of the coil, feeds it through rollers, over a table of rollers and into the maw of the great blanking press. Every time it cycles, it makes a noise comparable to a rifle shot.
But wait, there's more.
The blanks get taken away by a shuttle that zooms in and out of the back end of the press, catching the blanks as they fall from the dies. Then they are delivered to a set of magnetic rolls which deposit them onto pallets.
Of course, there's skeleton left over, the scrap steel which is still part of the coil, but it has big holes in it. that gets fed along into a shear press, which cuts the skeleton into managable bits, which fall into a basement conveyor which delivers it to scrap bins outside.
There are many things to learn in order to get this whole process to work. And many things to learn in order to prevent it from not working. And many things to learn in order to get it working when you missed something and didn't prevent it from not working.
Most of those things are unplesent. Unplesent things can be good teachers.
When I was learning that job-- the most I had to learn since getting out of Q.A., I felt engaged and alive. My reading comprehension at home was better, my ability to deal with life's anxieties better.
When I do the job I've been doing for the past month or so, where the problems are all solved and the only skills required of me are to physically move the parts, I have felt rather stupid. Very stupid. Slow. In fact, I was in some important problem solving yesterday afternoon, and Rebecca West had to step in and rescue me a couple times as my head swam.
I read the thread on jets in space last night, and was really depressed because I know I had good comprehension of cosmology at one time, but it just seemed too heavy for my brain to lift last night.
That blanking press sounds interesting! I've had a variety of jobs in my lifetime, I guess one of the most challenging was working in Manpower and Immigration Canada in the 1970s during a time of high unemployment, and when Trudeau was PM. Our office was the newly-created Local Initiatives Program, I was one of the first hired for that job, and 'brainstorming' with the team leader was a regular feature. I guess that happens in every department of government, how to function better, how best to organise, and so on. But this was hectic, because unemployment was so high - we encouraged new ideas for make-work projects, basically anything that would put people to work would be considered for government funding. I was in my low 20's at the time and this was my first crack at a professional job, and the pressure was intense. But it was also fun, and I got to know some great people as a consequence. Being under that much pressure was incredibly stimulating for me.