Brain Exercises

 

Hi, this is John Pepper!

 

Have you ever heard the saying,

 

If you don’t use it, you lose it?

 

This is very true! Whether ‘it’ is your body or your brain:

 

Within seven days of use, muscles start to atrophy.

 

With the brain, whatever brain cells are not used regularly, soon get used for other purposes, when the brain is looking to open new pathways.

 

So, if we don’t regularly refer back to stored memories, they tend to be wiped out.

 

The best way to remember anything is to continually repeat what you want to remember. You did that as a child and it worked then! If you want to remember something that happened, you just have to play it back, in your mind, and the more you do that, the better your memory will be. If you repeat what you saw, or what happened, to other people, the more permanent that memory will be in the future.

 

It is very important to keep your brain active. One of the ways I did this was by writing computer programs. Later, as this became too easy, I started doing other activities, such as Su Doku puzzles. I had to increase the difficulty level as the puzzles got easier, until I got to the really difficult ones. At that stage I could not do all of them, but it is the trying that matters, not the fact that I could not do some of them.

 

You can train your memory in lots of different ways; a very effective means of doing this is through your computer, accessing websites, like www.lumonosity.com, or www.positscience.com, or else try  speed-reading or playing chess. I purchased a brain exercise program from positscience.com and after a month, I had done all the exercises and my scores had gone up really well. I could not believe how bad I was, at the beginning, but at the end, I could remember six different instructions properly. That was a huge improvement from when I started, when I battled to remember even two every time.

 

Parkinson's disease is not a body problem, although it might appear to be. It’s a brain problem, which causes many bodily problems.

 

You must concentrate on your brain and keep it sharp.

 

You can teach an old dog new tricks. You are never too old to learn. When you get older you tend to keep telling yourself that you are too old to learn anything new, and consequently, avoid lots of great learning opportunities.

 

We learn most from our mistakes -

 

SO! Go and make them...

 

As a result of the social circumstances, into which I was born in 1934, I did not get much formal education, so you might be tempted into believing that I must be less clever than many of you, reading this now. I failed high school and didn't even go to college. However, I did get a fair amount of informal education, by home study and through my extensive and successful business career.

 

I did learn a lot from reading up on as much Parkinson's disease research as I could, after I was diagnosed. I read all the issues of SPRING Times, which is the quarterly journal of the Special Parkinson’s Research Interest Group in Great Britain. I also read the weekly newsletter published by the Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation in Washington State, USA. I have extensively applied, what I have learned, to the way I live, and have made many mistakes, in my attempts to improve my quality of life.

 

I hate making mistakes ...

 

But without them, I would have been toast... I wouldn't have reversed my Parkinson's disease one little bit.

 

I tell my family that I no longer have a memory, I now have a Forgettery! I’m used to forgetting lots of things.

 

How did I sort this one out?  How can you do it...

 

ñ    through making extensive notes on things I want to remember,

ñ    using my mobile phone, for appointments and reminders

ñ    setting up email reminders

 

Get your grandchildren to teach you how to use this technology! Or would this embarrass you?

They can operate all these new gadgets, because nobody has ever told them that they don’t know how to operate them!

 

Since my diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, in 1992, I have learned to paint, and have painted lots of beautiful pictures over the last four years.

 

I have also made a CD of some of my favourite songs, which I have been singing over the past fifty years, mainly to old people in retirement villages. I found that they could not run very fast and they were not too fussy about who came to entertain them. They loved to join-in with me, and they enjoyed my naughty stories. My CD’s will not reach the top twenty, or even get onto anybody’s charts, but they were not made for sale. My CD's will be there, for my children and my grandchildren, hopefully to listen to one day, giving them pleasure in hearing my voice; especially when I am just a distant memory. They will also have my books and some beautiful paintings. Isn’t that an achievement for an ordinary fellow like me?

 

I now wish that I had even one of these articles or other representations of my parents, made by them, many years ago!

 

Regrets?

 

We regret most, those things that we have not done, way more than the things that we have done.

 

You will never regret doing as much as you can, with your brain!

 

John Pepper