Beating the Brain Drain

I’ve been trying to train my brain.

On the precipice of a whole new decade of life, I find myself checking whether my cerebral cortex is ageing more gracefully than its container, and am looking for new ways to keep the grey matter grey (whilst cleverly disguising those that cover it).

I mean, it’s one thing to accidentally call your child the wrong name in moments of duress, or walk into a room and forget why you're there, but it’s another thing entirely when you walk into your kid’s classroom and can’t recall the name of their teacher! Am I right?

And so, not being able to afford a Nintendo Dsi® with the latest electronic editions being spruiked by Olivia Newton-John et al, I’ve had to resort to the old-fashioned way of doing puzzles with pen and paper. (Note how I am being positive about my level of cleverness by using pen not pencil?!)

I’ve always found it pays to enrich your word power as I digest a particular monthly publication for fellow readers (and to avoid any breach of title copyright, I best whack that little © symbol in here somewhere), I’m not totally clueless when it comes to cryptic crosswords, and I love lateral thinking. But as I reach the age my mum was when I realised that just maybe she knew what she was talking about after all...I am not so sure my kids are similarly convinced. So I better hop to it while they’re still young enough to be satisfied with answers like “Rabbits.” (Oh Bob Fulton, you have a lot to answer for!)

Now I don’t know whether to feel supported or insulted (supported, I think) but my Beloved has also been helping me on my quest to give my wits a workout by bringing home those nifty little mini magazines appropriately entitled “Brain Trainer”. You know the ones, pocket sized (but only for those who wear trench coats all year round, I’d say) with the instant gratification of having the answers in the back for you to check your score upon conclusion and keep track of just how well your brain is being trained. (I am sure that the publisher also fully intended one to use them as a launchpad for your logic if one finds oneself stuck indefinitely on 1 Across.)

I love the way that you can just pick it up and pick out a puzzle to do if you have a few minutes to yourself (hiding in the bathroom from the kids), and just move right along to another one if you find that you really don’t have the time right now to do that particular page (Why yes, that is the real reason, Your Honour). And I love how there’s just so many different ways to make you feel like you really are improving your intelligence (especially when you discover how shoddy a job the editor did by allowing so many mistakes to slip through to print- fancy that)!

But most of all, I love it that these mini mags hold absolutely no interest whatsoever for my children, or my Beloved for that matter, and even if I’m having a day where I can’t quite work out which sister earned how much money for doing what job (as if I care- they are all earning more than me at any rate) I can still retreat to the ensuite and perch upon the porcelain, safe in the knowledge that I will find my little papery personal trainer waiting for me.

And at this stage of my cerebral self-improvement program I'm happy to report that I can actually feel my brain cells importing information and performing such superior mental athleticism that I could well give Herr Einstein (and his hair) a run for his money.So like me, even if you don’t own a Nintendo® you can still strap on your intellectual Nikes™ and start training that brain today. You never know, YOU might find even more mistakes in the magazines than I do! ☺

Jx
©2009