Diet & Life Style Info

Our last post discussed baby boomers and exercise. Our theme was get moving, regardless of what kind of exercise it was, just get moving. This post is about exercising the brain, which needs to be challenged and exercised as well. Admittedly, doing physical exercise will help your brain and give it lots of oxygen. This is a good thing for everyone and we strongly encourage the whole “get moving” notion.

But you also need to focus on the brain to keep it alert and capable of getting your through the day, recalling events and names and avoiding the onset of short term memory loss.  Physical exercise is great , but it is not enough.  You need to do things that are going to make you think, make you remember things and to help you solve problems. We all slow down as the years drag on and so we must do something to stay alert.

What Kinds of Things Can we Do to Exercise the Brain

There many things that people can do to help them stay alert. The worst thing you can do is to allow yourself to vegetate.  Here is a short sample list of  possible suggestions. If you have ideas why not also leave us comments to provide additional assistance to some of our readers.

• Continue working – also helps with your budget
• Volunteer
• Take the lead at work or volunteering – solve problems
• Do Crosswords
• Take on large complex projects
• Read, Write and build blogs on the internet
• Go back to school

These items admittedly are a bit general and obvious, so we know there are lots more. The point is you have to work at it and you have to challenge yourself too. Don’t go easy on yourself, in fact push yourself mentally beyond the limits.

Be Careful of Stress

You can over due the challenge part of this activity.  For example, if you take on a job and it is giving you everything you were looking for in terms of challenge, learning, social , extra money but the stress level is too much, it may be time to move onto something else or reduce your workload. Stress can also cause damage to your body and shorten your life.

Even volunteering can be stressful. Many times I have heard that volunteers start out with a couple of hours a week and gradually it increases to almost a full time job, without pay and many times without a lot of thanks. In fact many volunteers find that they have lots of people to tell them what to do and how to do it and not enough actual workers.

Either don’t let yourself fall into this kind of situation or if you find that it has happened and causing a lot of stress, back out. Sure you will get complaints, but push back and ask why these same people are not offering more. You are retired and looking for a full and satisfying long term life, not another stress filled job. Thats why you retired in the first place.

Well that’s all we have to say on this subject, comments are welcome.

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