Healthy Living
TRAIN YOUR BRAIN

ARE YOU USING YOUR BRAIN TO ITS FULL POTENTIAL? TRY OUR BRAIN SHARPENERS AND WATCH YOUR MEMORY GROW.

Keep on losing your train of thought mid-sentence, where you left your keys or even what you went upstairs for? Don’t worry - you may be having a senior moment but you are not about to lose your marbles. We all start to forget things as we age, say the experts. When asked to memorise a list of 75 words read out five times, the average 18-year-old scores 54, the 45-year-old, 47 and the 65-year-old, just 37.

And the reason? No-one knows for sure but it’s thought most memory problems are due to poor concentration, lack of motivation, anxiety or stress rather than loss of brain cells. Add to this the fact that as we grow older our circulation tends to slow down, meaning less oxygen reaches our brain cells, and it is not surprising that we may not be quite so on the ball as we were as teenagers.

HOW BRAIN SMART ARE YOU?

Start to boost your mental powers by answering yes or no to the questions below to assess just how on the ball you are:

• Do you ever forget what you went upstairs for?
• Can you remember telephone numbers?
• Do you find you can’t remember things as well as you used to?
• Do you find it hard to concentrate?
• Do you find you forget a person’s name the moment after you’ve been introduced?
• Have you ever missed an appointment because you forgot it?
• Do you have to write arrangements down the minute you make them for fear of forgetting them?
• Have you ever forgotten the name of someone you know well?
• Do you frequently lose your car keys?
• Have you ever forgotten what you were saying mid-sentence?
• Have you ever put something in the oven and forgotten to take it out?
• Have you ever said you’d do something for someone else and then completely forgotten to do it?

If you answered yes to more than three questions now’s the time to start to train your brain. Here’s some brain sharpeners to help you ‘use it rather than lose it’!

BRAIN SHARPENERS

• Do a mental exercise every day – crossword, Sudoko, word search or quiz.
• When doing your finances, ditch the calculator. Use your brain instead.
• Take up new activities – gardening, knitting, anything active involving eye and hand co-ordination.
• Stretch your brain with chess, bridge or anything that pushes you that little bit further.
• Work for as long as you can. Studies have shown that people who have plenty of friends, especially at work, do significantly better in memory and concentration tests than those who don’t.
• If you keep on losing things like your keys try keeping them in the same place e.g. a bowl or hook by the door.
• Think of something visual to help you remember names. For example for someone called Patience imagine someone playing cards.
• If something is on the tip of your tongue, go through the alphabet or think of a context or related item as a prompt.

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