3. Exercise!!!... Say What???
I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to find college classes so easy that I was able to maintain a 4.0 grade point average. Plus, this second time around I was working and a single parent with two small children. How was it possible?? College the first time I had no other responsibilities, college was my only job and it wasn't easy. One can argue any number of factors why it was easier the second time around, but the most obvious one is that my gray matter definitely improved with time. (I returned a third time at 50 to earn my MFA.. still a piece of cake.)
I'm sure also, that if one talked with any "senior citizen" returning to college after retirement, there would be some similar shared experiences. After speaking to the older college types, then talk to a couch potato of the same age range and notice the difference in their general attitudes.
Another interesting "mental" experience I had was when my son bought me a video game for Christmas called Tetris. Tetris, like any video game, requires a great deal of hand-eye coordination, and quick thinking. I won't go into gory detail about how agonizingly terrible I was in the beginning. Suffice it to tell you that with daily practice and dedication I eventually completed all eighty two levels. My son was so proud of me that he wanted to take my picture with the final Tetris score and send it into Ninendo Magazine. As proud as I was with this achievement I was mortified to think of seeing myself pictured in a video magazine for teens.
A few more footnotes to this video game playing is that it also helped to improve my son's dyslexia considerably. There have also been some experiments using video games in senior citizen's retirement homes. Those who played video games routinely began to show marked improvements in their physical as well as mental abilities. Go figure.
These examples of exercising the brain are pretty obvious ones... they are the more simple types of exercise. There is another form that takes a great deal more conscious effort and perseverance against all odds. I am referring to changing one's old brain washing, old attitudes, habitual take-for-granted type of thinking... truly challenging one's self to expand the mind.
You know how we each have all these personal do's and don'ts, little rules we
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