Exercise for the mind

Watching The Brain Fitness Program on public television (which is the only television I get, since I don’t subscribe to cable or satellite T.V., and the PBS station is the only one my rabbit ears pick up), I learn that the secret to keeping the brain, i.e., the mind, in good shape as one ages is, basically, learning. And more than learning new information, learning new skills, learning, and performing, new tasks.

Exactly what most of us resist doing, as we age. I’ve had to learn to do many new things in my current job and, I fear, have more often hated it than not. Actually, I’ve never been crazy about learning how to do things, though I have always loved learning new information. Technology, especially, has been the source of endless frustration and hissy-fits on my part, though I have done what I had to do, because one does. But according to the brain fitness experts, it is exactly this kind of attempt to master new tasks that maintains the brain’s neuroplasticity, which is needed to keep one not only mentally astute, but engaged in life, hopeful, even cheerful.

I can see this. I have watched myself becoming less and less engaged over the past few years, less and less inclined to put myself out at all, in order to do something. I found myself a cozy, comfortable little house, where all the irritants of previous domiciles had pretty much disappeared, and I didn’t want to leave it to go “do things.” Granted, the main reason I do so little these days is lack of discretionary funds, along with the lack of someone to accompany me, and a distressing lack of physical energy, both mentioned in earlier Notes. But stirred into the mix is a lack of interest.

It would seem that what is happening is my brain is getting stiff, along with the rest of my body. Loosening it up – or maintaining its plasticity, as the experts on the T.V. program kept saying – would presumably help to loosen up the rest of me, would help me regain some of my youthful enthusiasm and adventurous spirit. I should add that if somebody said come on, let’s go to Italy, or Nepal, or Finland (even with the America-inspired school shootings they’ve had lately), or western Canada, or Montana, or you-name-it, I would be ready in a shot. There is still nothing I would rather do than travel. But...just to give you one small example...I had registered to attend a meeting sponsored by the Maine Democratic Party in Lewiston last night. Angus King, a former governor of Maine, was going to talk about Barak Obama’s energy policy (one of the women I work with said ‘Barak Obama doesn’t have an energy policy,’ but that’s what I wanted to find out). Wednesday is the day of the week I am able to leave work earlier. I could have come home, taken a little nap, gotten up and had a bite to eat, made the 40-minute drive to downtown Lewiston for the meeting at 7, gotten home 9-ish. But it didn’t happen. Once I was home I just couldn’t make myself go out again, couldn’t face those two 40-minute drives, one after dark (when I don’t see well). I took a three-hour nap instead. This is not being engaged.

This is despite all that wrestling with technology I've been doing for the past couple of years. So maybe you have to be interested in the tasks you're learning, for it to be really beneficial? Maybe I need to take up...step dancing? Skeet-shooting? Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance?