Questions trigger thought and keep us intellectually active. Helps to overcome stress and avoid premature aging. Recent discoveries in neurology and Brain Plasticity offer effective activities to control aging and mental deterioration.
At age 81, I act and look years younger. Perhaps attributable to never dwelling on troubling pasts and go-no-where activities. Focusing my outlook generations ahead to keep me mentally active. I think my entire life has been one long series of queries.
Retirement may allow us a well deserved rest. But failure to exercise the mind is a pathway to Alzheimer's. The successful and wealthy who worked hard to reach retirement, cannot be complacent. Choosing to relax and stop learning. Uninterested in attempting new and additional mental activities. Leaving brains dormant, occupied with nothing but superficial pleasures, entertainment and familiar, mindless activities.
Competing for recognition promotes effort to do better in areas such as golf and ball games. But they require no brain exercise, making them prone to ailments of the elderly.
"Why?" is a powerful motivator of thought processes. Questions trigger thought. Anl activity impelling deep thought and learning. Brain plasticity, the neurological activities which develop brain strengths respond to active interest through enquiry. Interest in the new, the strange and the seemingly impossible induce inclinations to delve deeply into special subjects. Exercising the brain, holding back, even delaying deterioration. It is as simple as that.
In aerobics there are exercises we can do to keep the brain active. Chess is among the best activities that tax the brain and encourage innovation and creativity. Other forms, including puzzles are not as effective because the answers are already set. Chess is better because it requires very thoughtful manipulation or creativity to avoid being checkmated.
The world's people suffer from a host of dire needs to which we need effective answers. Instead of temporary fixes we must exercise promising strategies for permanent correction. Strategies that allow no going back. The billions currently expended on famine, devastation and poverty are generally aimed at alleviation. Temporary relief. Band aids are NOT permanent correction so the disease goes merrily on.
As we age we tend to lose interest in new developments and turn to to memories of familiar times instead. The kind of happy memory that is brought to mind by a chance word, a passing scene, a tender look, a gentle hand, a note, a tune, a song. Taking us back in our hearts and minds to happier times. Obsessive regrets, hate and ghosts of the past are not memories that we should nurture. Worries like that do nothing for us. They merely cause deep stress and premature aging.
Highly active minds can resist deterioration, even curatively recover damaged brain functions and avoid dreaded Alzheimer's. Retirement homes are commendably comfortable and offer excellent care and medical attention to Senior needs. But, they fail in catering to the needs of seniors, risking deterioration and possibly dementia and Alzheimer's.
The elderly, most prone to brain dysfunction, find books, software, and care programs too difficult to follow. It is really not necessary that they do. They only need to understand the difference between activities that are familiar and commonplace and those that require the exercising of query and creative thought..
Learning to play musical instruments, to dance and even computing can be very beneficial through necessary exercising of the brain. Chess remains the only indoor activity that will always be a mindful exercise. Problem solving is also an activity that can never become commonplace because it is selfless.
We cannot change the way an individual wants to think. Each one follows a pathway he or she feels will lead to self-satisfaction. That expectation is the key to change individual outlooks. Caregivers in senior homes can help seniors think. Giving them real life related problems to solve competition between groups. Using support think tanks to assist in parallel development of new ideas. Asking questions and finding answers to corporate, organizational, economic and industrial problems.
We do not have to decline along with the years as we ride around on Mother Earth as it orbits the Sun. The years do not age us, our choices and excesses do. We age fastest when our concern for others stop and we have nothing to dwell on except our past disappointments.
We can come alive, overcome pressures and avoid Alzheimer's. Continue to question until the answers stop prompting new queries. Only the selfless, the respectful and forward thinking will understand this. Unlike the body, our brain remains actively enquiring and self-renewing during our entire lifetime.
We can take years off our aging, looks, feelings and our outlook on the world. We can go into the future, use time and our inherent powers to our advantage. We can build new and exciting futures. The unimaginative and sheep-like will only repeat their daily existence. Each year a little older, each month just getting by, each day no different than the last. Is that living?
The most powerful deterrent to our progress is our obsession with bad memories, regrets and ghosts from our past. Unhappy and regretful events we use to excuse our negativity. It is essential that we end any preoccupation or obsession with the past. Losing the regrets, the disappointments, the liabilities that stress and age us, make us unhappy and depress all around us.
We can stop dwelling on the past and halt our aging. We can seek out, question and challenge everything we encounter. We can lose our Ego and look forward to everything new in the Universe and revel in each new day as it comes.
