Keeping our brains active

I was shocked at how useless I was playing Pairs with my four year old GS so I think I’ll practise with DH, although he’s probably as bad as me

Word puzzles and lots of different crafts keep me busy. Along with being lucky enough to be able to get out and socialise with friends family and various clubs.

Keep working at a job that you enjoy and that excites the mind. Have abstract discussions that make you reconsider. Talk to a variety of people from different background and circumstances. Read.

Aveline

*Riverwalk*- I'm free!!

I might take you up on that as we are one down!

Riverwalk- I'm free!!

Reading, including reading music, thinking, talking to my friends and my lively-minded fifty-something offspring. I also write a lot.

Walk the dogs 4 times a day, (exercise calms), cycling, wordle, nerdle, altering recipes to fit our diet, read news.

Mollygo

LRavenscroft
You mentioned mental arithmetic so I thought I’d mention puzzles like Kakuro. For instant practice you might like the new Duolingo Math. Has all sorts of mental arithmetic on there, starting with basics.

Ah, that sounds very interesting. I will look it up. Thanks.

I walk every day,play table tennis regularly, am an avid bridge player( play most days!) ,read and do the daily wordle. I too forget words and have to use alternatives!

I play bridge but I'm not that bright!

Thank you for the reminder - I've just emailed the three people I play with to see if they are free next week.

Farzanah, I agree that exercise is vital - and any social interaction/group projects - along with crosswords, evil sudoku, any mental challenge and lots of reading!

Silverlining here’s a link to the original Wordle. Quite a few GNetters play it daily.

www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html

It seems to me that the brightest and most active people I know are keen bridge players. There are games going every day in one place or another. It all seems very sociable and I've had some lovely times playing in various ladies' fours (the best bit being the teas!). Unfortunately, I'm really bad at bridge so don't get asked often!

Greyduster If the numbers in Sudoko were replaced by letters ( A=1, B=2, etc) would you like them better? You could use your Codeword skills to first replace the given Sudoko numbers with letters, then fill the empty slots with the rest of the letters, in the appropriate places. Two puzzles in one!

Or pics of different animals for each number, or shapes or colours - anything, really. Sudoko isn't about numbers as numbers, just a logic puzzle, all about what goes where.

silverlining I just type in 'New York Times Wordle' and the grid comes up.

I am 73, my husband is 76. We try to keep our minds active. We do Wordle, crosswords. We attend our weekly pub quiz. Occasionally we win and often come in the top three. There are usually a lot of teams, some with 8-10 members and some using their phones to cheat. We are a team of two. So far we are doing OK. 🤞

I enjoy sudoku books but would like to do more to keep my brain active . I have just googled wordle etc but such a lot online and woukd appreciate any advice as don’t know where best to start. I don’t know one from another or which site might be best fir a newby.
Any advice much appreciated.

Oh- and gransnet, talking in cyberspace!

Duolingo, either a language or maths.

Wordle, Words With Friends (online Scrabble), learning Gaelic with the DuoLingo app, reading (mostly non fiction).

My recipe is much rthe same as Redhead56's. A lot of intellectual activity, being active in organisations that I belong to. My main interest is Archaeology, I am on the committee of our local society, I am also running a project for the local village society - and I read a lot.

I must confess tthat games of any kind, paper, computer or board, hold no attractions for me whatsoever. I would rather read a book and I am never without my KIndle.

I also agree about exercise. I have ADHD, so I am bouncing around all the time, around the house, walking and gardening. DH tells m that even when I sit down, I fidget and jiggle all the time.

Since the beginning of the pandemic I've been doing maths tuition with my four teenage grandchildren. I always liked maths but some of it is stuff I've not done for sixty years.

I must admit I am struggling a bit now as the oldest is doing A level maths. I have to get her to send me the topic in advance so I can try to get my head round it before doing it with her.

I do the codeword and the non cryptic crossword in the paper every day, and the general knowledge ditto when there is one. Yes, OP, I do find words that I know I know (IYSWIM) eluding me - today it was ‘white herons’ (egrets) but it came back to me. I find that if I stop trying hard to remember them, they usually do.
And I do find now with code words, that I remember rather better that e.g. 24 was M, than I did when I started doing them, some years ago now.

One thing that I do think helped ‘ze little grey cells’ was taking up the piano again (from a very low base and after a 50 year gap!) after I retired. Starting from hardly being able to sight read at all, the improvement was slow but eventually substantial - as my brain forged all those new pathways.

So that instead of seeing a simple chord on the page and having to think, Er, that’s a C and an F sharp - I would recognise and play it without having to think at all. New brain short cut from eyes to brain to fingers!

LRavenscroft
You mentioned mental arithmetic so I thought I’d mention puzzles like Kakuro. For instant practice you might like the new Duolingo Math. Has all sorts of mental arithmetic on there, starting with basics.

I write long rambling emails to folks who probably wish I’d keep them shorter, have a go at Wordle every day, have Codewords on my iPad and buy small books of crossword puzzles that aren’t in any way demanding but are useful for filling the odd five minutes. I gave up with cryptic ones; have to admit I can’t get my head round them at all, or anything involving numbers which puts sudoku on a back burner! When DD was staying with me recently we played a lot of Bananagrams. When I am released from house arrest and can get back in my car I intend to join the book group at our local library.