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Posts Tagged ‘Brain’

7 Surreal Pro-Aging Tips

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 14, 2026| Leave a Comment »

It’s been a busy week folks. My lovely Great Niece and her two teens were visiting their Grandmother Kay from Missouri. We went out for barbeque and also did a tour of Nashville’s famous Frist Museum. “Fifty Years of Dreams,” the International Surrealism exhibit is on loan from the Tate in London and was not exactly Kay’s cup of tea. Artists like Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte, and Joan Miró were on display to challenge our usual mode of thinking about art – not as figural representations so much as dreamlike illusions of the subconscious mind.

Last night I had a bizarre dream about a bathtub, maybe I should break out a paintbrush?

Which leads me to the topic of pro-aging. After the past few years, after my nearly fatal fall and osteoporosis diagnosis, I figure I need to reframe the future. I’m not “anti-aging” so much because aging means we’re not dead yet! I read about a 91 year old who is hiking the Appalachian Trail this morning; and I also read a physician’s tips for turning our golden years into super powers. And the first thing the doctor prescribes is:

1: MOVEMENT.  “… muscle is your metabolic reserve. It stores glucose, regulates insulin, and secretes anti-inflammatory signals (called myokines) every time you lift something heavier than your cat.” Our mitochondria are the cells that run our metabolic system and they rely on strength training and cardio fitness. When the weather cooperates, I walk over a mile on the Greenway, and I love lifting my 20+ lb Grandbabies!

2: FEED YOUR BRAIN: “… polyphenols (hello berries), omega-3s (walnuts, flax, chia seeds), fiber (your microbiome says thank you), and glucose in stable, slow-drip doses. Add in plant-based meals, and you reduce neuroinflammation, support neurogenesis, and stabilize your blood sugar.” In other words, limit meat and forget fad diets and GLP 1 shots, it’s not how you look, it’s how are you thinking that counts! We’re eating berries and peaches from the Farmer’s Market these days.

3: STOP RUMINATING: “… older adults who age well develop emotional regulation superpowers, often through something called “positivity bias”. They literally train their brains to spend more time recalling positive memories and interpreting ambiguous events more generously. Instead of recalling those times you were bullied in school, remember that teacher or friend who helped you navigate through a crisis. I like to list my grateful highlights every night before bed.

4: WAKE UP WITH PURPOSE: “Purpose is Prozac for the soul. And unlike Prozac, it increases telomerase activity, the enzyme that protects your telomeres (those caps at the end of your chromosomes that keep your DNA from unraveling like an old phone charger).” If it’s Tuesday, I’m writing! Granted I love a day when Bob and I are free of doctor and PT appointments, but I also love my Mahjongg Thursdays! And I just added water aerobics to a few other days, so take that purpose!

5: CULTIVATE HABITS: “The brain’s prefrontal cortex tires easily. It’s a sprinter, not a marathoner. That’s why the people who age well don’t make a thousand decisions every day. They automate the good stuff.” Routines leave your brain free to do Wordle. I like to say, “Make it like brushing your teeth.” That early morning or post-dinner walk in the neighborhood. Going to bed at the same time every night. Nell used to hug and kiss me goodbye every time I left the house, because, “You never know.”

6: LAUGH MORE: “Humor reduces cortisol, increases immune cell production, and improves vascular function. Laughter literally exercises your vagus nerve, which is like the tuning fork of your nervous system.” Over the years, I find myself saying, “Someday we’ll look back at this and laugh.” Maybe I take the balcony view too often, but supposedly self-deprecating humor is the best of all – it builds resilience. Bob and I crack up about something nearly every day, maybe it’s good for your marriage too?

7: STAY CURIOUS: “Learning new things increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), your brain’s growth fertilizer. Novelty encourages the hippocampus (memory) and prefrontal cortex (decision-making) to keep firing.” Walk away from your comfort zone and try something new. I used to hate any meeting in which somebody said, ” Oh NO, we tried that before and it didn’t work!” You don’t have to learn Chinese, but you can learn to master American Mahjongg. In fact I just won a game for the second time this month!

Many thanks to Dr Laurie Marbas for her insight into aging. https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/the-wisdom-years-7-habits-that-make

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Playing Mahjongg By Myself

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2026| Leave a Comment »

First of all, strike up the band! It’s been 250 years and our country is still standing. We’re a bit bruised by the current occupant of the White House, and maybe our bones are getting brittle, and sure, our friends overseas (and to the north and south) don’t want to play with us anymore, but it’s all good. At least the SCOTUS sometimes still gets it right – every now and then. The New York Times reported yesterday:

“The Supreme Court on Monday declined a request by President Trump to review a $5 million civil judgment against him after a jury found in 2023 that he sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll. The announcement by the justices did not include any reasoning, and no public dissents were noted.”

Hooray for E Jean! She will maybe? get her 5 million; yep, the Justices pretty much said Mr T is a sexual predator, so what? He was found to have done the dirty deed at Bergdorf’s and he’s going to have to pay the fine. Maybe he can sell a few more coins with his head on them? And hold the presses! The Supreme Court just now rejected Mr T’s efforts to end birthright citizenship by a 6 -3 vote! Will wonders never cease.

But this morning I wanted to talk about personal friendships, and gaming. Not the internet type of gaming which is a solo endeavor – the kind where you actually sit down at a table with humans. My husband Bob isn’t competitive. In fact, he hates thinking of anybody losing, because when you win somebody has to lose, right? I used to joke that my husband was the only doctor in these United States who hates golf! He comes by this disinterest naturally.

His Mother, Grandma Ada, also looked askance at games in general. She never retired from her marriage counselor career, helping all the aides in her senior living community navigate love and loss. Whenever asked when she was going to retire, Ada would say, “What am I going to do, sit around and play canasta?”

It’s kind of funny that my sister Kay also has some disdain for games although she’s been known to play a card game called Spit and Malice. Sounds intriguing right? There’s a guy named Bill who would love to rope her into a weekly Bingo game, stay tuned! I used to think only Catholics played Bingo.

My neighbor, N, told me she started playing Mahjongg by herself to get better at learning the 2026 card and figuring out what to discard during the Charleston. She was a little slow in the beginning getting started, wanting to ask our teacher, Robin, for recommendations in the library. Since Robin flew back to NJ for the summer, N and I have been hosting games in our homes and I’ve noticed that she is now faster and surpassing many of us in her level of play!

So I figured I’d give it a shot. My dining table is set up as if four people are playing Mahjongg, but it’s just me. It’s difficult keeping four hands together and trying to stay focused while phones ring and the laundry calls my name. One is the loneliest number.

Did you happen to catch the PBS show “Wired for Connection?” https://pbs.org/show/wired-for-connection?source=social

Stay with me. It’s a fascinating look into the latest science on loneliness and how we humans are social animals. Evidence based, they study the effects of friendship: lower blood pressure: reduced dementia risk; stronger immunity; better sleep; and a longer lifespan. Not bad! And you would not believe the actual health complications that can result from a solitary lifestyle.

I’ve never been a girl gang type. Usually my MO is to have a few close friends and that’s it. Both of my mothers were loners. The Flapper was too busy working to socialize and Nell never learned to drive. We were like two Rapunzels on that hill in Victory Gardens. But since moving to Nashville in my dotage, I’ve acquired a bit of a posse.

There’s a few women who live on my street that are “ride or die” friends. And of course there’s cousin Peg in East Nash. We have the Germantown crew who still consider us friends/neighbors since we survived a tornado together, followed immediately by the pandemic and one near/trip to Italy. There’s always the Big Chill childhood friends who are scattered geographically but still close. And just this past year, I’ve found a whole new group of Mahjongg mavens!

There’s R who gives me a ride in her menopause convertible. There’s A and C, also Jersey girls, and Em a native Nashvillian and a realtor. There’s D who’s in charge of keeping a space for us in the library, and the aforementioned N from the block. And there are more women who cycle in and out depending on their schedules.

So I’m feeling hopeful. We Americans can right this ship! And I’m going to invite a few people over for the Fourth – the holiday that forever changed my family in our Year of Living Dangerously. Because why not celebrate our freedom while we still can?

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Everybody’s Weird

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in love with the Harris-Walz ticket. We are overdue for a female president, and her VP pick reminds me of my own foster father, Daddy Jim. He’s the guy who went to work every day and came home with a tiny surprise for me. He drove me to the swimming pond and the ice cream store after Sunday Mass. He built me a doll house out of popsicle sticks! Jim and Nell literally saved my life after our family’s Year of Living Dangerously.

And some of my earliest memories involve leaving our tiny home in Victory Gardens only to realize that other people are weird: I had lunch with a friend and her mother swept the entire kitchen floor after we finished – Jim cleaned the kitchen floor every Saturday. I slept over at a cousin’s house and the grandfather clock kept me awake all night – there was no clock, no bells chiming the hour and half hour in our house at night. And when my foster parents would take me to Scranton to visit the Flapper, well everything was different! I didn’t have to clean my plate for instance, the Flapper said,

“All the more for us!”

She also used to say, “Everybody has a story,” which is probably why I became a journalist. I wanted to capture all the details, to connect all the dots, maybe because my life felt so disconnected – one family in NJ and another in PA. I have a vivid memory of swinging on a dutch door that was in the Flapper’s kitchen, and when I close my eyes I can see a curly-headed blond girl in saddle shoes hanging on the bottom half of a blue door.

This morning I was surprised to read that 1-4% of the population cannot construct an image in their brain. Could you close your eyes and imagine an apple? Well, if you can’t don’t worry, it’s not a disorder, but it does have a name, aphantasia. I was intrigued. I asked Bob, so he closed his eyes and told me yes, he can see an apple. But I pressed on; really, can you actually see one in your mind’s eye? Well, he said he’s not seeing numbers… And the funny thing is, I couldn’t.

Closing your eyes and remembering something is different from conjuring up an object out of thin air. I started thinking in words about my favorite apple from Jefferson’s orchard, Pink Lady, which made me think about the Bride’s wedding on Carters Mountain. I could certainly picture that day, the chuppah blowing in the wind of my mind… but the apple, a simple red (or pink) apple was eluding me. Maybe it’s just ADHD in my head? Maybe I really am weird!

“That would make it really hard to draw anything,” the Pumpkin told me in the pool.

“But really, everybody’s weird, Nanay says. We all sit on the spectrum between hyperphantasia and aphantasia. It’s not only possible but likely that you have a totally different internal experience from someone you walk by on the street. ‘The world—as we see it, smell it, hear it, think about it—is reconstructed,’ Shomstein says. Even a single shared experience, a thought, a memory, or a simple image of an apple can look and feel shockingly different on the mind’s stage.” https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/08/aphantasia-visual-imagination/679427/?gift=MZkyOCULmn5OA_9_ikIP-3k9e9svpxXbPFSNPM4epew&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Now this would seem self-evident, that everybody has their own unique perception of the world. But you’ve got to admit, that Mr T is becoming more and more delusional. I mean come on, to say that Joe Biden will take back the nomination and that the crowd size for a Harris-Walz rally was a conspiracy generated by AI??? Yesterday he insisted on his media platform that the Michigan airplane hangar crowd “DIDN”T EXIST!” I mean I’m almost starting to feel sorry for the guy. He wants his followers to think the picture is fake, just like a good cult leader.

I bet what the ex-president sees when he closes his eyes is a prison cell. We all dream, and some of us daydream, to create our own reality. And sometimes we design perfect, pearl eternity necklaces – pretty weird stuff!

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It’s All About the Dopamine

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, journal, Public Policy, science, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2018| 2 Comments »

Bob’s car died the other day. Luckily, he was downtown and not on a highway, but we took it as a sign, time to give up the ghost. His Acura has served him pretty well for over 300,030 miles! Our one-car family was about to become whole again, it was time to start car shopping. Imagine that, a new car with all sorts of driver-assist doo-dads.

I have to admit, I’m getting a rush. It’s like that Handmaid said in the very first episode of the Handmaid’s Tale, their ice cream was better than sex. “Real sex.”

Oh, yes last night I finally gave in and signed up for Hulu, just to watch my favorite author’s dystopian nightmare about a land that could treat women like baby-making religious robots. I just had to watch Elizabeth Moss as Offred, after hearing about Justice Kennedy.

You see, for an old school feminist like me, all the latest SCOTUS rulings chipping away at our human rights in favor of some religious zealot’s right was a bit much. Throwing me over the edge was Kennedy’s decision yesterday to retire now,  this summer. Granted he is a Conservative, but he voted like a real “compassionate conservative.” Remember them?

Bob kept telling me not to download Hulu; “It’s going to depress you,” he said. But I subscribe to that other Kennedy motto, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” I wanted the thrill of something just a bit subversive, I needed the dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, it’s the middle manager in our brain that helps move electrical impulses from one neuron to another – dopamine rules that synapse, that space, that rewards our pleasure centers.

Like ice cream.

Like subscribing to The New York Times, or Hulu.

Like buying a new car.

I guess it’s called self-care. In the midst of our current all too real reality Trumpworld show, it’s important not to let despair win. It’s important to do all we can to register new voters, and encourage them to show up this November for midterms. In TN we have until July 3rd to register in order to vote in the midterms, and it’s easy. You just fill out a form and mail it in – every library in the state has them. And I’ve deposited quite a few in our local coffee shop.

So keep your chin up and don’t even bite that hook about civility. If bakers can refuse to serve an LGBTQ couple, and pharmacists can refuse to fill an Rx to terminate a nonviable pregnancy, than We The People can throw the lying press secretary out on her tone deaf ear. Terrorists are killing reporters now, something quite common in an authoritarian state.

It’s happening faster than I ever could have imagined, so support the free press and not Trump entertainment network, where Milo Yiannopoulos can say he was “only kidding” about gunning down journalists.

Get a natural shot of dopamine folks whenever and wherever you can, before abortion becomes criminalized. We’re gonna need to get tough. Here are some badass young scientists from back in their med school days. Let’s get out the VOTE!

anatomy 101

 

 

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