Improving The Quality Of Your Life

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When young, you can abuse two things:

1. Your body;
2. Your mind.

Abusing your body usually results in pretty nasty health problems when its youth starts wearing off.

Abusing your mind on the other hand, through constant thinking and study, has very pleasant results in time. You won’t be one of those using the “I’m old, my memory isn’t as good” excuse at 65. You won’t forget why you’re holding a toothbrush in your hand, or that your birthday is five months from today. No memory loss at old age sounds too good to be true? Read on.

Holbrook Jackson (1874 - 1948)  a British journalist, writer and publisher, recognised as one of the leading bibliophiles of his time, maintains on the matter of studies and old age:

No labour in the world is like unto study, for no other labour is less dependent upon the rise and fall of bodily condition; and, although learning is not quickly got, there are ripe wits and scholarly capacities among men of all physical degrees, whilst for those of advancing years study is of unsurpassed advantage, both for enjoyment and as a preventative of mental decay. Old men retain their intellects well enough, said Cicero, then on the full tide of his own vigorous old age, if only they keep their minds active and fully employed; [De Senectate, 22, tr. E. S. Shuckburgh, 38] and Dr. Johnson holds the same opinion: There must be a diseased mind, he said, where there is a failure of memory at seventy. [Life, ed. Hill, iii, 191] Cato (so Cicero tells us) was a tireless student in old age; when past sixty he composed the seventh book of his Origins, collected and revised his speeches, wrote a treatise on augural, pontifical, and civil law, and studied Greek to keep his memory in working order; he held that such studies were the training grounds of the mind, and prophylactics against consciousness of old age.

~ Holbrook Jackson - The Anatomy of Bibliomania (free full text!)

Constant study is one possible way of avoiding unpleasantries such as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and depression, while keeping a good memory capacity. A lazier more comfy way would be waiting for science to advance enough and allow an emulation of the same process - but this option isn’t sure to be available, let alone in time for us to use it.

I’ve noticed that people tend to get mentally lazy as they age. Their jobs usually tire them out and they lose their appetite for thought and creative action, being content with what other people and the media think and do for them. It is at that point that their mental abilities start to decline, and the quality of their lives usually follows this descending trend. And that is a sad depressing picture, considering that old age can be a perfectly creative, functional stage of life, if only the mind was constantly kept challenged over the years.

The American Academy of Neurology released a study (February 17th, 2009) saying that participating in certain mental activities may delay or prevent memory loss.

“This study is exciting because it demonstrates that aging does not need to be a passive process. By simply engaging in cognitive exercise, you can protect against future memory loss,” said study author Yonas Geda, MD, MSc, a neuropsychiatrist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology.”

The study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 61st Annual Meeting in Seattle, April 25 to May 2, 2009.

Don’t let your old age be an age of memory loss. Keep thinking, keep your mind alive! When playing with the brain, it’s a case of use it or lose it, so use it.