farmdoc's blog post number 435

The Brain That Changes Itself. This is the fourth time in the past nine Farmdoc’s Blog posts I’ve mentioned this wonderful book that I began reading 12 days ago. Which tells you I think it’s an amazing book. An important book. And a book that’ll change the way I’ll live my life: what I will do (more exercise; more new skill challenges, including learning the banjo, fingers arthritis permitting) and what I won’t do (sitting all day on my bum, working). Challenging mental activities (i.e. those requiring genuine concentration) prolong the life of brain cells, and promote the creation of new ones). And aerobic activity ditto, perhaps by increasing brain oxygenation. Whilst the age range 35-55 is the peak of creativity in most fields, people in their sixties and seventies, though they work at a slower speed, are as productive as they were in their twenties. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, taught himself ancient Greek in old age. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim Museum at age 90. At age 78 Benjamin Franklin invented bifocal spectacles. When cellist Pablo Casals was 91-years-old, a student asked him ‘Master, why do you continue to practise?’ Casals replied: ‘Because I am making progress’. Who couldn’t love a book that includes these words and sentiments? Don’t answer that – it’s a rhetorical question.