Learning new skills to keep our brain cells working, reports say, help us as we age.
In many households within our circle, we encounter retired men and women who are ready to take on new challenges. Some opt for conventional jobs — akin to what they were doing last; some venture into a completely new field because they had always wanted to see what it was like; some volunteer for social service; some learn another language; and some single-mindedly devote themselves to relaxing after a lifetime of hectic work schedules.
In our family of several retirees, however, things do not always go smoothly as we pursue these high-minded goals.
It started when two of the retired souls decided to take on the challenge of learning musical instruments. Always involved in music groups and choirs, a senior great-aunt decided it was time to learn the keyboard and let the tunes flow straight from her mind to her hands.
To keep her company, the recently retired male of the household took up the guitar, hoping that it would not be too late for him to have an admiring female audience fawning over him — as used to happen way back in the 1970s with his guitar strumming cousins and friends. For good measure, he also chose to learn the intricacies of a foreign language. Who knows? Maybe he could carry that guitar with him and wow listeners on another continent ...
The third person in the house decided that the best way to make the environment learner-friendly was to make herself scarce while the others went about their lessons and their practice sessions.
But as the commitment of the others to their lessons ramped up and she could see their eyes getting brighter, their gait becoming bouncier, and the conversation going from mundane to stimulating, she realised that she had better get cracking and do something about her own memory skills ... She couldn’t allow them to get better at everything else they did while she slid downhill, could she?
Hey, hadn’t she read all kinds of tips to sharpen memory recently? If only she could remember where ... Ah, there it was — in the day’s newspaper, which she had flipped through half-an-hour ago, just before breakfast!
She pored over the recommendations of experts and marked those that worked for her and crossed off those that didn’t:
n Adequate rest: Not happening — a good sleep was becoming pretty elusive nowadays with all that music at odd hours of the day and night.
n A diet rich in antioxidants: Uh-oh, she’d have to spend more time planning meals and it was unlikely to happen
n Brain stimulating puzzles like Sudoku and crosswords — doubtful. Too often, words and figures got mixed up in her head
n Recalling memorable incidents, events and dates from the past: Now this sounded tailor made, ideal for her! Maybe she would make do with just one recommendation and forget about the rest.
After all, hadn’t she always had a head for dates? She could, for example, effortlessly launch into a blow-by-blow account of her first date with her then spouse-to-be, when he had fumbled in his pocket for his purse and come out empty-handed ...
And didn’t she have an excellent filing system in her memory for all those incidents where minor injustices were committed and major failures to live up to marital vows occurred? She could regurgitate all of them in seconds, with year and month correct (often day and date as well), who else was present, what he said, the tone in which it was delivered ...
But would such an uncanny ability to recall detail help her — or any one of us — as we grow older and seek to get wiser?
Should she — and we — instead look for ways to forget?
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
