Aging Brain Workaround

Cancelled the website I tried to set up yesterday. I could not negotiate the instructions. I had a website with MacHighway (itsamac in 1998), and had to let it go when I no longer had current software needed to update the site, 5 or 6 years ago or more. Then a user could still reach one of the founders on the phone. Today, it's chat tech support. One issue is the knowledge base requires a fore-knowledge I don't have (cpanel is what? –your portal to edit the site, and it's a separate login) and the bigger issue is my brain. I'm so upset by this. I had an immediate empathetic reaction to my father's frustration which may be the source of his rage. So we talked about it. We commiserated. He said he's been trying to come up with the word for not being able to pay a mortgage for 2 days. And he cannot keep in his head the name of the town my sister lives in. Talking about it made us both feel better. I made a joke - foreclosure and Fraser (the town my sister lives in) both start with F, so perhaps his brain has offloaded that letter. Foreclosure is not in either of our futures, so that word can disappear. More good news: my sister is moving so that town name won't be needed. I don't need a website, so I don't need to fret about my lessened ability to make one work. As our brains are less nimble, we need to ratchet up the rationalization. Or take more yoga classes. Or be more Zen. And gently accept what we cannot change, knowing we're in good company.

A Three Story Life: Navigation

Yesterday Dad yelled down the stairs. "I'm going out to scrape my car." Okay, I thought. What's that about? He was leaving for the dentist in half an hour. Practicing observe and let it go, I took note and moved on to other tasks. A thought drifted into focus. Maybe this reportage is about bearings. I fell a couple weeks ago. Afterward my left brain got caught up in analyzing what happened. It was a new surprising event and I mentally gnawed on it to get its flavor. I lost my bearings. Spinning out, my father calls it. What Dad was doing when he gave me his location was using me like a star in a sea of change. At first it seemed I was a sextant, but that's a tool - there are still x and y points to locate in order to use a tool for navigation. We have physical locomotion needs: how far away is the ground? How close that step? And we have psychological placement needs. Establishing behaviors that define our physiologic borders. Scott has lost sense of where his body ends and the rest of the world starts. We don't know how he feels about this. Dad knows how it feels, and although he cannot communicate it any more than Scott can, he sets his internal sextant to coordinate the points he can recognize. If I know where he is, then he feels less at sea. I become either a point on the horizon or the north star. It's an awesome role, and I will respect the assignment with humility and reverence, and think of it as an opportunity for growth. And this awareness is a marker to watch for this in other seniors, and hopefully, to remember to use it myself.

My Aging Brain

Reading "The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain" by Barbara Strauch. I got this book from the library in self-defense, having read an NPR article titled "Middle-Aged Brains Are Already Past Their Prime" It's a smart-alecky article, poking snide fun into a future that the youngish author won't find so cutesy in a few years. In the last paragraph, he mentions Strauch's book. Ah ha! Reprieve! To cool my decrepit past-prime brain, I'm reading the book. Perhaps I'm overeager to discover my brain isn't the moldering lump of gooey broken synapses I sometimes think it is, but I like what I'm reading. The older brain skips a groove now and again. Putting the car keys in the refrigerator and the library book in the laundry basket is part of growing up. But research is beginning to reveal that the older brain is better at some tasks than the young brain. Spatial relations, problem solving, discernment improve with age. Middle-aged brains choose happy over negative emotion. It's a choice the brain makes. The older brain is less neurotic, the amygdala twins are not eagerly sending out danger messages. The middle-aged brain is calmer. Older adults use more of their brains, and use both hemispheres. Improvement in judgment function is an active and dynamic process. Financial decision-making is markedly improved. Cognitive ability may actually increase through middle age, with less striking results much later, in geriatric neuroscience. Absent disease or dementia, I'm looking forward to more research that indicates a spry brain even then. But just in case, I drew this name tag so I remember at least my own name. I feel better knowing that when I have to say I'm sorry I don't remember your name, chances are good the other person didn't remember mine either.

How Do We Learn?

I was interested in how I don't learn, why I am having difficulty absorbing new information, and am forgetting knowledge I had. Or used to know I had. And I have radiating pain. I am learning what this may mean, but I do not understand it yet. Is the pain in my brain? Blockage, dis-ease, stress. So I'm awake, confused and in pain. How do I understand what to do? What's my plan? Go back to bed is a choice. Read is a choice. Find out what I can take control of is a plan. Take a walk is a plan, but it's raining. I chose the Great Gadgety Google. "How do we learn." And I took a test (I love tests) and found that I am scattered in how I learn. Metacognition (learning to learn) showed up. Make a plan. Step 1 - how did I used to learn? Copy/paste. I memorized everything. Except music. Whatever worked then still works today as it tested as my likeliest method to gain knowledge. Close to it is Linguistic, and Body/Kinesthetic. I'll ask my teaching/learning friends what these mean. Does Linguistic mean I learn by talking, or learn by listening? Or both? How do I train my aging brain? Step 4 is to abandon paths that do not lead to success. I will never be a brain expert; don't want to, so I can move along! Feel free to pursue this knowledge further. I'm going to take a walk in the rain. Maybe I'll learn something new. Originally posted May 10, 2011.