Dear LPG,

I was looking around the internet the recently and I found some pretty depressing news for us oldies.  It is often said that there are very few generic questions that you cannot find some kind of answer to if you spend a couple of minutes on the internet.  

The depressing news that I found is the answer to the question of at what age our brains are functioning at optimum capacity, and what I found did not have a lot to say about where we are up to once we have retired.  Apparently our brain power is on the decline once we have reached the age of 45.  This is when the average brain starts slowing down, and that news has to leave a lot of us oldies feeling a little worried about where you go from there. 

Perhaps it is a case of putting too much stuff in there these days.  It is no wonder that our minds are on the decline so early in life.   We have hardly arrived in this world before our parents start trying to teach us things.  The basics are challenging enough (how to eat, sleep and that crying doesn’t always help you to get what you want), and we have hardly learnt those lessons before its time for school.  They disguise it as play at first but (how to read and write, basic maths and all the other various subjects involved) are hard work in themselves.    Once you have learned the technicalities of whatever profession you have chosen, there is learning how to teach your own little ones the ways of the world combined with making sure that they have food to eat and a home to grow up in.  I also think learning to get along with the people around you can often be a lesson in itself. Let’s face it, science tells us that our brains are functioning even while we are sleeping.

I don’t really think we need anyone to tell us that by the time we get to retirement our brains surely need a rest.  Especially if we have not taken the time to do much to give it the interim rest it could have done with throughout all those previous years of work.

The good news is that I also found some advice on how to give your brain a bit more rest and, though a lot of it may well be advice you have heard before, it might be good to review your brain resting habits.  

As it appears to be generally accepted that when you get to retirement your brain is well past its sell by date, I suggest that we all take a good look at just how kind we are being to what is left of our long-suffering hard-working brains and check just how much R and R we are allowing them.

JN Surrey 

JN offers some information to support the bad news… 

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… and some ideas as to what we can do about it… 

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