Ten-Finger Exercises

Anyone feeling forgetful?

Appetizer ...with apologies to "Invalid Item"  where Kimchi has a full course menu! Take a look!

First, on a homey note: the birdhouse hanging in a white pine outside my window is supposed to be for chickadees. That's what the Audobon Society said when I bought it. Earlier this spring I saw two big starlings trying to negotiate a deal with three or four sparrows. One cold day I even saw a pair of chickadees take the tour, one sitting out on the limb all fluffed up while the Mrs. peeked inside. Today, the wrens are busily stuffing it with dry grass, and I see a piece hanging out the side already. I'm disappointed. I don't think they'll ruin the neighborhood like the starlings would, but I was so in hopes of some little chickadees. It's probably illegal to put out a sign saying, Only Chickadees Allowed.

Entree

I turned on my car radio this morning, on my way to a hospice call, and got into the middle of a discussion on National Public Radio about memory. Cathryn Jakobson Ramin was being interviewed about the topic of memory loss and her new book, Carved in Sand: When Attention Fades and Memory Fails in Midlife.

As a journalist, she had always relied on an accurate memory and fast recall to do her job. When she crossed into middle age, she was dismayed by the changes her brain was undergoing. She couldn’t remember names, dates and facts. She was plagued with insomnia. Even though she was told these changes were normal, she said they were unacceptable. To research the subject, she put herself through many tests and clinical trials, and ultimately was able to make significant improvements in her mental abilities.

One of the common problems she found is fear. We are afraid, when we have increasing difficulty remembering names, or finding our keys, that we have started down the slippery slope of losing our minds. We are afraid of losing our identity and our grip on life. That anxiety, naturally, compounds itself.

Clinical psychologist Harriet Lerner, author of The Dance of Anger, says, “Forgetting becomes globalized.” It’s no longer just about forgetting a phone number you just had in your hand; it’s about “the prospect of rapid mental deterioration.” Although we seldom feel the effects of it, our acuity actually begins to decrease after it peaks in our mid twenties.

The more people ruminate on the loss, the more they catastrophize it, the less productive sleep they get. Pretty soon it isn’t about not being able to remember our pin numbers and passwords, it’s whether we can hold onto our jobs, make our mortgage payments, not wake up in the poor house or the ‘memory care’ facility.

Ramin went on to talk about Alzheimer’s and the very real threat it poses, not only to those genetically predisposed but also to all people who live long enough. Money for research has been cut this year, for the first time. If we can find a way to reverse the process early enough, we might be able to greatly improve the quality of those extra years we’ve been granted by way of other medical advances.

A caller said that she owned an answering service, and began having increasing difficulty allowing herself enough sleep at night. One of the things Ramin said in response that particularly interested me is that sleep is a time when we dump all the irrelevant material out of our brains. Without that chance to forget what Suzy wore to the office yesterday, and what size shoes Peter said he wore, etc., how can we expect to remember the important things?

She talked about anti-oxidants, and the role they play in mental health, and many other things, like getting good sleep, aerobic exercise, and exercise for the brain.

Unfortunately, I had arrived at my appointment site by then and did not hear the rest of the conversation, but I think I’ll buy the book.

To read more about the subject:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9650307


What? No dessert?

Oops, I forgot to bake one.