New Middle Aged Group – Brain Games

I find it hard to believe that some of us as we approach our fifties and sixties are having difficulty engaging our brains. I always thought it was a matter of use it or lose it. Is it possible that some of us have been spending too much time with our brains in a state of disengagement?

Perhaps the problem is that some of us have nothing worthwhile to think about any more. Maybe the difficulty is that we can find almost all the answers to our questions on Google, and there is no longer any need to think independently. Maybe it is because we think that herbal supplements will exercise our brains for us without any effort on our part.

I’ve got a great idea, why don’t we invent a game that requires us to think independently again. Let’s start by agreeing to calculate our restaurant tips in our heads without benefit of pocket calculators by doubling the bill and placing a decimal point after the first digit as the tip. An example would be a $40 dining bill doubled would equal $80 or an $8.00 tip. Come on let’s be generous for a change. You can round off if you want.

Now that you have gotten the idea, how about you thinking up all the little daily actions you now do by computer or calculator that you could do in your head. That’s it; you are starting to think again. Isn’t it amazing, you are using your brain? Before you know it you will be remembering your home telephone number without benefit of speed dial. Be sure you have properly trained your brain before you try this last brain game. I wouldn’t want you calling you girlfriend or boyfriend by mistake when you meant to call your wife or your husband. If you are single it really doesn’t matter what you remember. The telephone number of the person you met in the bar last night is probably the hot line number for the IRS. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to play brain games.

I think that some of us in our fifties or sixties have a real advantage when trying to exercise our brains because this is the type of thing we had to do on a regular basis when we were younger, before speed dialing or speed dating, Google, and other mind numbing supports were available.

You remember the days when pulling out a pocket calculator to figure the tip on a dinner bill was considered a no, no, don’t you? We have real life experience training in handling situations like this with nothing but our own brains to rely on.

Maybe that’s why we are staying younger longer. Maybe that’s why we are part of the new middle-aged group. Maybe having a little more faith in our own abilities and in God, will provide us with the ultimate brain game.


Arthur Levine is a freelance writer who concentrates on helping people in their fifties and sixties (Members of the New Middle Aged Group. To find out more about the New Middle Aged Group please access http://newmiddleagedgroup.blogspot.com