I think it's pretty much agreed upon that as we age it's important to "exercise" our brains. There are many ways to do this: attempt another language, play bridge, learn to play a musical instrument, take a different route to the store or to work each day. I enjoy working jigsaw puzzles when time allows for it. Life's been too busy for that in recent months, but there are a few "brain exercises" that I always make time for. My local paper carries three daily puzzles that some folks would consider time-wasters, but I look at as ways to enhance my brain power.
I begin with the daily crossword puzzle, which is a simple one. Created by Thomas Joseph, it rarely takes me more than ten minutes to complete. If I'm really feeling daring, I work it using my left hand. (I'm right handed) There is one a little more difficult in the state-wide paper my husband reads, but I'd rather do the easy one and still have time for the other two puzzles. On rare occasions I will work the more challenging Los Angeles Times puzzle which appears in my Sunday paper. If my husband and I take a road trip on a Sunday, I'll take it to work in the car. (Yes, I'm one of those lucky people that can read while riding in a car.)
I next move to the cryptoquote. It's all about looking for patterns that appear in words and grammar. Sometimes the author of the quote is what gives it away. (look for anonymous, source obscure, source unknown, or some country's proverb) Also, if you do these enough, you'll start to recognize a lot of the folks who are quoted. I can't always work the cryptoquote. If nothing jumps out at me I move on to my last puzzle and come back to it later. Even that doesn't always work and it just goes unsolved.
The final puzzle I work is the sudoku. The version in my paper is called Conceptis Sudoku and starts the week easy, getting more difficult as the week progresses. I challenge myself on Mondays to work the puzzle without making any notations in the process. As the puzzles get harder, though, I have to makes notes. By the end of the week, I don't always complete them. If I find I've made an error or I just plain get stuck, I won't slave over it. I think one of my pet peeves is when folks claim they won't try sudoku because they "don't do math". It has nothing to do with math. The numbers could just as easily be substituted with the first nine letters of the alphabet. It's all about logic.
So..... that's how I try to spend about a half hour of my day. I find it relaxing. Hopefully it's doing my brain some good in the process!
- Kelly
- Making my way through the ups and downs of life, holding fast to my favorite Bible verse: "For we walk by faith, not by sight." ~2 Corinthians 5:7. I began blogging in earnest at Yahoo360 on October 24, 2005. (briefly using LiveJournal and blog-city prior to that) In June 2008 I moved to Blogger. I'm now at WordPress where I hope to remain.
6 comments:
I don't like Sudoku. I do, however, play Scrabble or do a crossword puzzle almost daily, often, several.
I also have to brush up on all the new ways to teach math, etc. since I work in the elementary schools.
Use it or lose it. :)
Cryptoquote sounds like fun. I can't do sudoku but I do like other puzzles, especially crosswords though I'm not too good with anagrams. Reading, however is my main 'brain work-out' for the day.
I like wordfind puzzles and crossword puzzles. Yes, brains need exercise, too. Of course, all that reading I do has to help. Blessings!
These are my daily puzzles...
1. How to get in the building with my large iced coffee, purse, bag of work, while holding out my scan card and talking on my cell phone.
2. How to stop myself from text messaging when I am driving and being hit from all sides with text messages (generally from my crazy female friends about so you think you can dance from the night before).
3. How to serve myself dinner when my salacious son has misplaced every fork in the house.
God, I'd love a sudoku or lively game of scrabble!!
Good exercises.
But when you are done, how do you give your mind a shower?
I do the crossword some days and the jumble most days. Never could get into the cryptoquote. My mother did the crossword in both papers and the big one on Sunday. She did the Jumble and cryptoquote too. I know Soduku is not really about numbers but if she had just seen the numbers she would have balked.
With the shrinking newspaper, these are some of the treasures that I am afraid are slowly dying.
As to the crossword, have you heard of oneacross.com? It's kind of like cheating but once you've exhausted the dictionary, thesaurus and whatever other resources you use for the harder puzzles, it's really great.
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