After I turned 45, my memory skills began to fade. I could not recall things as fast as before. This is common at age 45. Fortunately, the Web has helped me compensate in my writing. Wiki is a wonder.
A recent study reveals that there is a tremendous payoff for simple mental exercising. The Washington Post (Dec. 20, 2006) reports on mental exercise vs. physical.
If anything, the study suggests, there is a bigger payoff to mental exercise, because the brief training sessions seemed to confer enormous benefits as many as five years later. That would be as if someone went to the gym Monday through Friday for the first two weeks of the new year, did no exercise for five years, and still saw significant physical benefits in 2012. . . .The study group was for people age 65 and older. Some were in their nineties.Each of the groups being trained had 10 sessions, each lasting an hour to 75 minutes, and each session presented progressively more challenging problems. Compared with the control group, those who got memory training did 75 percent better on memory tasks five years later, those who got the reasoning training did 40 percent better on reasoning tasks, and those who got the speed training did 300 percent better than the control group.
There was a warning that applies to me.
To reap the benefits, [Sherri] Willis said, people need to get outside their comfort zones. For someone who likes to solve crossword puzzles, it is important to make sure the puzzles get harder with time -- or to start playing chess. Someone who hates to play games, she said, should find something else that stretches the mind.
I hate games. I hate puzzles. I also hate learning a new piece of software. But I'll do the latter if there is a big enough benefit. I hope that's enough.
My tip: Learn a new program this year. It can be freeware. Master it. Put it to use.
Then do it again next year.
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