Why Use-It-Or-Lose-It?

Why “Use-It-Or-Lose-It”, Can Buy You More Years

You are going to live into your 90s, if you don’t get run down by a municipal bus. We want them to be healthy, fun, & productive years.
So what? We want to avoid Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

• Here’s the latest research of baby-easy additions to your life to win the game of longevity.

• 1. Use a spice in your food that is common in Indian Curry dishes. “Tumeric” is the spice that contains the essential ingredient, “Curcumin”. It is also sold as an additive in pill-form.

• 2. The leading Alzheimer organization said, in 2012, Curcumin is an Anti-Oxidant that fights cell damaging Free Radicals. The root of the Curacuma longa plant is also an Anti-Inflammatory.

• 3. Here we go again, another “cure” of the week. The United Nations World Statistics has no ax to grind. They list India as the country with the lowest rate of Alzheimer’s Disease. Cancer and heart disease are of reduced incidence in their population.

• Call Curcumin a Vitamin, but you may want to go online and review the benefits of adding it to your diet. It has a history as a drug of Four-Thousand years.

• 4. Extra-Virgin-Olive-Oil. This comes from the first pressing of the olives, and it taste delicious on salads, bread, on fish.

• Let’s get human: Jeanne Calment, of France, lived to age 122. Yes, it was documented by the French authorities, and confirmed by Guiness Book of Records. Born in 1875, in Arles, France, and died there in 1997, she was the oldest human on record.

• She recommend three dietary supplements: Extra-Virgin-Olive Oil on everything except milk. Wait, Calment even rubbed it on her skin. Second, she ate two-pounds of DARK, Bitter-Sweet chocolate weekly. Google chocolate: it’s really good for you.

• Third, Calment drank Port wine, produced in Portugal, with lunch and dinner, and for recreation. Can’t hurt, right?
Maybe it’s a “placebo”, like a sugar pill or water injection?
Who cares if it produces positive longevity results? Test it.
• 5. Use-It-Or-Lose-It refers to your brain. Did you know that from age 29, our brain begins to shrink? We don’t notice it for decades, but brain shrinkage affects our working memory, and learning.

• Playing Chess, Bridge, doing crossword puzzles, even playing along with Jeopardy on TV, as a life-long activity, causes “Cognitive Reserve.” It can help avoid Alz and other forms of dementia. Who says so? Neuroscientists and the Alzheimer’s Disease organization.

• 6. If you do learning exercises, activating your memory, it keeps your grey-matter alive and kicking, your neurotransmitters firing, and creates “Synaptic-Connections, in Neural-Networks.”

• Peg and Link System:

• Write this down: numbers 1-12, and next to each digit, a Picture substitute for the numbers.

• 1. is a Candle. 2. Swan’s Neck 3. Tripod 4. Sailboat 5. Hand.

• 6. Golf club 7. Hockey Stick 8. Snowman 9. Tennis Racquet
10. Hen. Those are your Pegs to hang what we want to place into
working memory. What’s 11? A HEN blowing out a candle.
12. A HEN fighting with a SWAN.

• 7. Goal to remember the first ten (10) U.S. Presidents in order.
Why? It’s a memory exercise, and a fun game

• 1. George Washington. 2. John Adams 3. Thomas Jefferson.
• 4. James Madison. 5. James Monroe. 6. John Quincy Adams.
• 7. Andy Jackson. 8. Martin Van Buren. 9. William Henry Harrison.
• 10. John Tyler. 11. James Knox Polk 12. Zachery Taylor.

• 8. Let’s LINK the PEG words for numbers together with some ACTION with each President.

• Example: One (1) is a CANDLE, and we link it with an action with the word, phrase or name we want to remember. Close your eyes, and imagine, mentally visualize, G. Washington blowing out the CANDLES on his birthday.

• Two (2) is a Swan, and we Link it with J. Adams. The second Prez is plucking the feathers from a Swan.

• Three (3) is a Tripod. The third Prez, T. Jefferson is shooting pictures with his camera on a tripod of the White House.

• Four (4) is a Sail (boat). The fourth Prez, J. Madison, is on the Potomac River steering his sailboat.

• Five (5) is a Hand. The fifth Prez, J. Monroe, is shaking hands with Marilyn Monroe.

• Six (6) is a Golf Club. The six Prez, J. Quincy Adams, is daydreaming of playing golf on the White House lawn.

• Seven (7) is a Hockey Stick. The seventh Prez, A. Jackson, is
Playing Hockey with a team of Canadians visiting the White House.

• Eight (8) is a Snowman. The eighth Prez, Martin Van Buren, is moving a “Bureau” with a horse-driven “Van”.

• Nine (9) is a Tennis Racquet. The ninth Prez, W.H. Harrison, is playing a round of tennis on the White House lawn with his wife,
and “Harry” and his “Son.”

• Ten (10) is a HEN. The tenth Prez, John Tyler, is chopping the head off a Hen, for cooking. He is “Tying” the Hen’s legs together.

• Eleven (11) is a HEN, blowing out a “Candle”. The eleventh Prez,
James Knox Polk, is holding-the-candle the HEN is blowing-out.
He gives a strong POKE to the HEN.

• Twelve (12) is a HEN, in a cock-fight with a SWAN. The twelfth Prez, Zachery Taylor, is sewing (tailor) a sweat-shirt for his pet HEN.
As you know there are 44 Presidents, but the first dozen is a good start. Consider completing the rest of the list.
For Brainiacs: these exercises cause a THICKENING of your Anterior Cingulate and Cerebral Cortex. So what?
Normal aging causes a SHRINKING of your brain. Would it be a nice experience to avoid ALZ and other forms of dementia in your Senior years? Do a Mind Experiment, and if it works, USE-IT!
See ya,
Copyright © 2012, H. Bernard Wechsler
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