Mind Games

As my family and I made our way through a pretty intense board game tonight, I began not only thinking about answering the questions correctly to win the game but also about life. My grandparents were playing with us, which made me realize how important it is to keep your mind going as you age. If you suddenly stop challenging yourself with new information and discontinue acquiring new knowledge, you lose mental skills as easily as you forget how to ride a bike or swim. Just because your brain works mentally and not physically does not mean you aren’t capable of losing aspects you discontinue to exercise. The halting of the usage of the mind I think really affects an elderly person’s development of diseases. Getting a disease as you age is inevitably since our bodies are deteriorating but, the speed of this development can be decreased, in my opinion, by simply playing a game of sudoku daily or, like we do with our grandparents, play a board game every other night. Even though they are not aware of the help, it does help to keep their minds healthy. Some of the smallest things in life can make the biggest difference such as this concept. Just doing a little bit of mental exercise daily will create vast improvements then doing none. Aside from playing board games, we also ask them to recall information from when they were younger. This is not only fun to listen to but it allows their photographic memory to kick in. I think the reason they are able to still live by themselves is because of their persecverance to keep their minds thinking.