A Certain Unrelenting Optimism

Photo by alan cleaver

Crossword puzzles remind me of my mom in happier days before her struggle with Parkinson's disease and her descent into confusion.  I remember, too, the laughter that punctuated that long slide.  Laughter marking battles won even as we lost the war.  Comic relief.  Tender humor.  Alternative to tears.
Not that Mom ever had much time for crossword puzzles with a husband and 13 children to care for.  During a very lean time in our family's life,  the Des Moines Register published "Prizeword Pete."  By solving a seemingly simple puzzle, you could get a lot of money.  Enough money, it seemed to me, to solve all our problems.
"Look at this," she said to me, holding out the Sunday paper page.  We pored over it together, then, certain that we had it right, we sent it to the paper.  What a week that was!  Would the good news come by phone or mail?  Be announced in the next Sunday's paper?
The puzzle was a trick, the clues red herrings.  Nobody won.  Mom was undaunted.  "Look, there's a new puzzle.  We can try again."
The experience cultivated the crossword puzzle gene in me--and a certain, unrelenting optimism.  Mom's experience in her later years has cultivated my interest in brain function.

Crossword Puzzle Challenge Enough?

So what about those crossword puzzles?  Does doing them help maintain mental acuity?  I'd like to think so. I inherited the crossword puzzle gene from both sides of my family and have been doing these puzzles ever since I learned to read. 
Which means that there are well-worn pathways in my brain for figuring out words that lead to other words that reveal quips and quotes and sundry other themes.  Which means that, for me, crossword puzzles don't meet the requirements for a novel, challenging activity that builds new pathways. 
I'm challenging my brain with soduku, which has had the added benefit of sending me to search engines for help figuring out how to solve them.  I found this site useful: http://www.sudokucentral.com/how-to-solve-sudoku.  Using search engines has been found useful for 'brain training'.  Type 'how to solve soduku' into your favorite search engine and investigate several sites to find the one most helpful to you!
From a scientific point of view, the jury is still out on whether doing puzzles and games helps maintain brain function.  There's agreement, though, that it can't hurt and it's better than doing nothing.

Brain Training Program

As promised, here's my list of principles for brain training and what I'm doing with them:
1.  Don't forget the basics:  exercise, nutrition, safety.  Until a couple of years ago, I got up in all
     weather and walked outside at 4:30 almost every morning.   The aerobic exercise finally saturated my brain with enough oxygen to recognize that this was risky behavior--a realization helped along by a home invasion that occurred along my walking route.  Now my morning routine includes exercise videos by Leslie Sansone or Debbie Rocker or a session with wii fit.  Here's a sample of Leslie Sansone:  Go to  http://www.realage.com/videos/?bclid=5030523001 .  Select the walking videos to the right of the screen.
2.  In addition to exercising your body, exercise your brain.  Challenge your brain by learning something new, by doing something outside your comfort zone, by kicking familiar activities up a notch.  Brain games, like those mentioned in the last post are a fine addition as long as you vary them to exercise multiple brain functions.  One I like is http://hubpages.com/hub/Brain-Fitness-Exersizes  In addition to the exercises, there are some good principles listed.  Learning new computer programs is frequently mentioned as good for making new neurons, as is learning a foreign language.

Brain Games

Image by Alejandro Peters

Things that make you go hmmm

• Article on the Medscape Nursing site: Brain Fitness Games Improve Delayed Memory in Elderly Adults
  Pam Harrison reports a study showing that playing the Dakim  Brainfitness computerized program improved certain types of memory in elderly adults who played the game consistently for 6 months.  She quotes Dr Gary Small , a source I trust, as stating that the results are encouraging.  I went to Dakim.com, sampled some interesting games, and checked out their company blog--also interesting.  The price is daunting--$2299.00 plus $19.99 a month.
• A recent e mail from Prevention  http://www.brainpowergameplan.com/uof/brainpowergameplan/   suggests you can improve all aspects of your brain functioning up to 78% in just four weeks.  Cost of book is four installments of $6.50 each plus shipping and handling.
• Claims I've noticed in several sources that making small changes, such as brushing your teeth with your non dominant hand will improve aspects of brain functioning.
• A common belief among my friends that doing crossword puzzles will preserve your brain function. 

From what I've read, there's good science supporting the idea that exercising your brain will improve its functioning.  Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to reorganize itself by creating new neural connections throughout life, and it's the concept behind brain training.  In the next post, I'll list some general principles to take advantage of neuroplasticity and what I'm choosing to do about them.

Miracles

An important milestone for Collin.  Over the last few days, the medical staff have freed him from most of the tubes and wires that tethered him to the ICU.  The word on the street here, Mom posts on Caring Bridge, is that we're leaving the ICU for the regular floor.  The tone of the post is jubilant, and just a little tinged with dread.  Her little butterfly is emerging from his cocoon, but what if his wings are still wet?  Collin's textbook recovery, so different from his earlier procedures with their seemingly endless complications, has her waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Don't stop praying yet! 
Is Collin's recovery a triumph of medical science or some other kind of miracle?  Have we stormed heaven and been heard?  I believe that something in the universe responds to us, that there's a power for good that we can use to influence the course of events.  I don't think it's a God that answers prayers according to some arbitrary criteria.
Maybe it works this way.  A single drop of water has to hit hard and long to make an impact on a rock.  A lot of us focusing together on the same goal can unleash a torrent to lift that rock right up and float it away.  Thank you Caring Bridge for bringing us together.  I found a website that's trying to prove a similar notion:  http://www.theintentionexperiment.com/

Kirtan Kriya

The practice of meditation has beckoned  me with promises of rewards for body, mind and spirit.   Until recently, despite my best efforts, the rewards have proved elusive.  Make your mind still like the mountain.  Breathe.  Listen to the silence speak.  My mind is more like the anthill than the mountain, with thoughts that skitter off in all directions.
Discouraged, I looked to yoga as an alternate path to inner stillness.  The path led straight to a meditation I can actually do--Kirtan Kriya.  It courts inner peace through a series of finger movements and musical chanting.  A google search will produce a wealth of information and instructions.  I like the presentation at feelgoodgirl.com/kirtankriya.  In addition to a brief explanation, the site incorporates a great video introduction.
I barely got started with daily practice when synchronicity stepped in to kick the whole experience up a notch.  A friend gave me the book, How God Changes Your Brain (2009, Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Robert Waldman.)  Early into the book, the authors report on a study of a meditation practice that can improve memory by at least 10% and is one of the best ways to exercise the brain--Kirtan Kriya!
I followed their suggestions on making the meditation your own, and now substitue other phrases for part of the sa-ta-na-ma chant.  Phrases such as loving kindness, being wellness, abundant life.

Fontan Circulation

My large family is joined in prayer with others in the Caring Bridge website community as we follow the progress of my  nephew's young son.  Guide the hearts and hands and minds of those who care for him O Lord.  He's had what's called a Fontan procedure, the last stop on a trail of heart surgeries to reroute his circulation.  His Mom's and his Dad's hearts have had their circulation rerouted too.  Mom says her heart now walks around outside her body. 
Bryan and Marcie, now Collin's Mom and Dad.  I have a mental picture of them during their courting days, snapped as they arrive at a family picnic looking all sun kissed and carefree.  Here comes Ken and Barbie, calls one of their cousins.  With a smile, Bryan snags a cold beer and toasts the group.  Marcie's dressed in a coral top and khaki shorts, and her long, blonde hair is pulled back by a matching coral scarf, some gauzy material looped into a bow.
After a fairy tale wedding they settle into married life and Collin is born by c-section following an uneventful pregnancy.  After they meet and greet him, baby goes to the nursery and they celebrate with calls and e-mails to friends and family.  He's here and he's beautiful!
Their pediatrician sticks his head in.  I'm sure it's nothing, but he seems a little dusky.  I'm going to have another doc take a look.  He smiles reassuringly.
The new pediatrician isn't smiling.  His heart needs to be checked out.  I think he needs to be seen by Mayo.  Stunned, they ask how soon they'll need to take him there.  They're coming here.  By helicopter.  Now.
That was four years ago.  Four years of joy and worry and triumphs and sleepless nights.  If the fontan can be done, blood with a better path to his lungs will pink his cheeks and lips, and each beat of his heart will send more oxygen to power little arms and legs that long to keep up with other kids. Your gift of abundant life heals and sustains him. He is renewed and restored by your Son's holy presence and the working of the Holy Spirit in his life. 
The surgery is over, but he's not out of the woods.  Keep praying!
As I get older, it's harder for me to understand why some little ones and their families have to go through so much.  I remember an image from The Blood of the Lamb (1961), by Peter DeVries. Anguishing over the death of his child, the protagonist speaks of the question why as a fish hook in the human heart. 
There's a new entry in Marcie's Caring Bridge journal.  Collin is doing well!  To those of us who read her journal, who witness their journey, the postings are an occasion of grace.