Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

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georgew
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by georgew »

An eighty-five year old in my writers' group has just completed an Honours degree in Humanities and Creative writing......it's his third University degree. :?
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

I have a few different places where I leave my bike when I go into town

Never yet forgotten where it was
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oldmanonabike
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by oldmanonabike »

Read this Forum
I'm not getting older,just gaining more experience
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moultoneer
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by moultoneer »

I do the puzzles in my daily paper, which is a digital edition and arrives on an ipad.

Every Wednesday I go to a bus museum and join others in restoring old vehicles, and have picked up many new skills, including driving buses.

There are plenty of opportunities for all kinds of voluntary work, depending on your interests.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Wir geben Rätsel auf ...

... und das nicht erst seit gestern, denn seit über 50 Jahren dreht sich bei uns alles um Rätsel und Denksportaufgaben. Unser Familienunternehmen wurde 1964 gegründet und beliefert heute bereits in zweiter Generation namhafte Zeitschriftenredaktionen, Tageszeitungen, Buchverlage und Werbeagenturen in Deutschland, Österreich und in der Schweiz.

Zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt suchen wir Verstärkung für unsere Rätselredaktion. Tätigkeitsschwerpunkt ist die redaktionelle Betreuung von Rätselteilen in Publikumszeitschriften, von Rätselheften und -büchern, u. a.:
- Erstellung von (Kreuzwort-)rätseln
- Schreiben von begleitenden Texten
- intensive Internetrecherche

Folgende Anforderungen stellen wir an die Bewerber:
- Interesse an (Kreuzwort-)Rätseln und deren Inhalten
- sehr guter Umgang mit der deutschen Sprache in Wort und Schrift
- sehr gute Allgemeinbildung
- sicherer Umgang mit MS Windows und/oder Apple Mac OS X, dem Internet und den klassischen Office-Programmen
- Teamfähigkeit


Thus could be a good one to keep the brain active: part-time job creating crosswords and other puzzles. In German

Yet another *hidden* job that one might not have thought of :)
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Cyril Haearn
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

ferrit worrier wrote:My Father is 89 and he's relatively active. A cabinet maker by trade, he was complaining that he'd not got a lot to do last year so we bought him timber and ply wood for a baseboard and track and points. a few years ago he'd been given a "Train set" which had sat in the box. His brain is now full of wiring point motors and sections of track. he only spends about half an hour at a time on it but it gets him out of his chair and moving about. and gives us ideas for Christmas presents i.e. coaches and wagons etc.

I retired in July 2016 got a part time job working for an undertaker. and it's not all local work. I've been to Chester, Wigan, Northampton, Northwhich, Plymouth. and a few other places. I've got the old Landy which is playing up at the moment :roll: I'm off today so
I've got the carb off in bits found some clag blocking a jet so fingers crossed. Then I've got a large model railway in the loft, that keeps me busy at odd times.

How I had time to work full time I'll never know.

Retire and enjoy life, don't forget this is not a rehearsal this is what you get, make the most of it and have fun.


Seems an interesting varied job for retirement, is it mentally taxing, do you have to deal with bereaved people? I imagine there are two different groups: those who have lost an old person, and those who have suddenly lost a young person, is that right? Plus those who have lost a young person through illness maybe

I like model railways too, going to an exhibition tomorrow, some of the layouts are made of modules, each member builds one or more module at home, once a year they are combined into an enormous layout
Teamwork +1!
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Bonefishblues
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by Bonefishblues »

I'm more focused on being alive to retire :D
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Mick F
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by Mick F »

Friend of ours of many years had a stroke sometime on Monday.
His wife came home from work, chatted briefly to him whilst he was fiddling with the the TV remote.
He'd cooked and every thing was ready, so she went in the kitchen to finish off.
He was still fiddling with the remote, and muttering.
She realised something was amiss and called their son who came round, took one look at him and called an ambulance.
He couldn't speak or articulate, he was lost and confused, and he couldn't swallow.

We went to see him in hospital yesterday (Thursday) and he was ok and bright. He was swallowing by then thank goodness, and he could fully understand everything ............... but couldn't articulate or speak or even write.

By all accounts, he's making a good recovery and 24hrs is a long time, and very gently and slowly the brain recovers and re-programmes itself. We hear he could be out of hospital later today but he needs some speech therapy.

This man is intelligent, lively, fit and healthy. He reads and is very much into English history plus takes much interest in current affairs. He has a busy social life and is a well-known character locally. He's in his late 60s. I'd love to think he'll be back to where he was before his stroke, but somehow I doubt he will fully recover.

There, but for the Grace of God go I ................. and all of us.
Mick F. Cornwall
Bonefishblues
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by Bonefishblues »

Mick F wrote:
There, but for the Grace of God go I ................. and all of us.

Indeed, I saw the worst end of that vicious condition with my Step Mother, who (mercifully, in many respects) passed away recently after a long and merciless deterioration after her initial stroke. The youngest and most vital of our 5 parents previous to this.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

I read an article about memory

Apparently one has a communicative memory until 60-70 (remembers things in ones own life)

Later a cultural (media) memory develops and one remembers external events *instead*

My examples 1. harvesting potatoes with grandpa
2. how we won the football world cup in 1966

Anyone disagree or agree?
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thirdcrank
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by thirdcrank »

Cyril Haearn wrote: ... Anyone disagree or agree?


I don't understand the point you are making. :?

I do remember the 1966 Word Cup Final. I had a Summer holiday job selling ice cream from a van in Bradford. Streets deserted during the match but a roaring trade at half-time and even better once Ken Wolstenholme had uttered those now-famous words. (I'm 72 BTW.)
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661-Pete
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by 661-Pete »

Memories, memories! How do they work? I don't agree that personal recollections 'fade out' as one reaches one's 60s. Not for me anyway.

At 67, I can remember a whole gamut of personal incidents in my life, going back to when I was about four or five years old. Nothing really from earlier than that. Obviously the further back I go, the fewer and more widely-spaced the memories - and some of them have a duration of only a few seconds - a single remark that was made to me, or that I made, remembered in isolation.

What I can't do, is string together these events into a continuous life history. Nor can I be sure of the order in which incidents occurred. This could have been significant in some instances. For example, I recall my father reprimanding me severely after one of my schoolfriends informed him of my allegedly having hit a teacher at primary school. I remember the words my father used, the threats he made.

I also recall throwing a tantrum, in class, when that same teacher inadvertantly spoilt my work during an Art lesson. But I have no recollection of ever having perpetrated an assault on a teacher. If I did so, it has totally slipped my memory. Nor do I know in what order these two incidents happened. I would have been about seven at the time. Of course, my classmate's snitching could have been malicious. Did I say schoolfriend? :twisted:

I also remember plenty of external events but from somewhat later in life - as I was approaching teens. Before then I recall little of public affairs. The fact that we didn't have a TV until I was about ten, may have had something to do with it...
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity.
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
--- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
thirdcrank
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by thirdcrank »

My earliest memory to which I can put a date was being at home with my father when my mother went into hospital when my younger brother was born: I was 2 years and 9 months. From that time, I also remember going to the hospital with my grandmother. I have a memory of the hospital grounds. I always doubted whether this was a genuine memory but the first time I went back - as an adult - it was pretty much as I remembered it.

Obviously, not everything is remembered, but I think that childhood memories don't just fade away. On the contrary, I think the most recent stuff is most vulnerable. I saw this with my late mother as the tide of her memory gradually receded until she remembered only her childhood, which had been pretty harsh. In her final year, (singular) when she went into a residential home aged 94, they tried some amateur therapy and asked me to take in any photograph albums I had. My mother soon changed from a quite serene old lady to a very angry one, eg smashing her hand so hard on a table she was badly bruised. It was only later that I realised that the memories which were being revived were of unhappiness, such as a regular punishment with a leather belt.

As for memories of public events, for most people these must be secondhand ie, through TV etc. Before we had a telly, we used to go to the cinema quite a lot and in those days it was Pathé News. The first news item I remember clearly from that source was The Flying Enterprise which seemed to go on for weeks, but was not so long as that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Flying_Enterprise

I also believe that you remember the unusual rather than the mundane; that also must make earlier memories more significant as there's so much more "new" going on. Later in life, there's not much you've not seen before.
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al_yrpal
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by al_yrpal »

Lot of folk seem to be very worried about brain fade and do things like crosswords sudoku and puzzles to stave off dementia. I have no interest in such things because I dont enjoy them and see them as a waste of time.
My interests, apart from cycling are painting pictures, creative woodwork, the outdoors, classic vehicles, travelling, theatre and music. I suppose all these things exercise your brain in different ways. I believe you keep your brain sharp and stay younger by by deliberately doing new things, listening to new music, enjoying new experiences and doing new things that you find challenging.
Its all too easy to listen only to the music of your youth, dress old, do tne same old things and go to the same old places but that to me is boring. Cycling fits in well, it makes your body 10 years younger than it actually is so they say. That must have an effect on your brain too.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
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Re: Keeping your brain alive in retirement - what do you do?

Post by rjb »

ferrit worrier wrote:
I retired in July 2016 got a part time job working for an undertaker. and it's not all local work. I've been to Chester, Wigan, Northampton, Northwhich, Plymouth. and a few other places. I've got the old Landy which is playing up at the moment :roll: I'm off today so
I've got the carb off in bits found some clag blocking a jet so fingers crossed. Then I've got a large model railway in the loft, that keeps me busy at odd times.

How I had time to work full time I'll never know.

Retire and enjoy life, don't forget this is not a rehearsal this is what you get, make the most of it and have fun.


Are you planning for LEJOG again :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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