In the appendix of his excellent book, Successful Aging, Daniel J. Levitin suggests ten strategies for rejuvenating your brain.
- Don’t stop being engaged with meaningful work. I recently have been delighted to be invited by a British Columbia software developer, Mike Colin Nelson, to join a private Facebook group of WordPress bloggers from across the world in helping him improve a plugin PRINT MY BLOG (see my screen cast below or learn about the plugin here). My involvement in that project has rejuvenated me.
- Look forward. Don’t look back. Reminiscing doesn’t promote health. There really is so much beauty in the world; life is too short to dwell on or live in the past. I have never returned to Howland High School, Oberlin College, or The Ohio State University and only infrequently to Carroll.
- Exercise. Preferably in nature. Leo the Great Pyrenees guarantees that.
- Embrace a moderate lifestyle with healthy practices. I am dull!
- Keep your social circle exciting and new. How can I not be invigorated by weekly Zoom virtual sessions with these former Carroll employees (Thank, Kay Kenealy for making this happen) and the new friends I am making by participating in the private Facebook PRINT MY BLOG group!
- Spend time with people younger than you. Bless the children in my life and the former students who stay in touch..
- See your doctor regularly but not obsessively.Though I had two health scares subsequent to retirement, the issues are under control and I have the accumulated wisdom of my weekly Zoom virtual “therapy group” when we have what Dick O’Farrell playfully refers to as our “organ recital” as we discuss health issues:)
- Don’t think of yourself as old but take prudent precautions.I no longer try to do the things my twenty-somethings do!
- Appreciate your cognitive strengths of pattern recognition, crystallized intelligence, accumulated knowledge, and wisdom. Having been a college/university teacher for over four decades and an intentional learner throughout my life, I still have a joy of learning and considerable confidence in some of my highly developed talents.
- Promote cognitive health through doing new things.I have a notebook of ten projects I want to pursue – many of them I have never tried before.
Let’s suppose, now that you decided that you would like to have a more permanent copy of this blog piece. Here is a screencast I made earlier using my Mom’s iMac and the 2020 version of Camtasia’s screen casting software which I had never used. I shared this with my Facebook private group earlier today.
Feedback is welcome.
