Tuesday, February 17, 2009

#29 Exercise Boosted by Aging Memory

It's amazing that I'm not emaciated from all the exercise I get just running up and down the stairs in my house. I've always needed to get things from the second and third floors, but this excessive exercise is a somewhat new phenomena. I've been in my three story home for the past 13 years, but it's only in the last year or two that my memory is beginning to go.... leading to this new "exercise routine". What I've realized is that since my late 30s I've been spending almost all my time trying to keep my physical body from aging and that I forgot my mental organ.

I read a blog the other day where the writer shared how her ability to focus isn't the best and that she may leave one room to go get something from another room only to start doing something else and return back to the original room without getting what she left to get in the first place. I'm exhausted just writing this and I think maybe she lives in a single story house because she didn't make one complaint about her knees.

Anyway, here's a perfect example of my aging brain. I'm getting ready to take my daughter to the orthodontist and decide that I want to bring my book. When I head upstairs to my night table to get said book, I see that nobody has brought the laundry basket up, so I do so. I carry it into my room and notice that one of my son's electronic gadgets is lying on top of the clothing so I take it down the hall to his room. I tell him that I'm leaving with his sister and that he shouldn't forget to feed and play with the dog. I open my daughter's bedroom door and almost faint from the mess and tell her to clean up and be ready in 15 minutes. I then proceed back to my room to put away the clothing. I finish that and decide that since I have a few minutes I'll go to the third floor to inspect the kid's play room [where I found a plate of 3 day old pizza last week] and notice that there are no towels in the bathroom up there. I run downstairs to the linen closet and back up to the third floor to put the towels in the bathroom. I tidy up the third floor and go back to my room to get the laundry basket to bring back downstairs. I put the basket in the laundry room and realize that I've left my cell phone on my bed. I run back up, get the phone and off my daughter and I go to the orthodontist... without my book. See what I mean? I sat in the dentist's office reading the same People Magazine I had read earlier in the week [at a different kid's appointment] instead of reading The Devil in the White City, which is a wonderful history about the building of the Chicago Worlds Fair - something that would really massage my brain. Oh yeah, and I have a book on my iphone, but I didn't have my headphones, which I had meant to put back in my car the other day, but forgot to do when I put them down on the kitchen counter to answer the phone.

I guess I'm not really complaining about the amount of exercise I'm getting. All that climbing and running is burning calories, working on my quads and helping lift those sagging butt muscles. However, I think it's my sagging memory muscle that disturbs me. I'd like to believe it's as my blogger friend says, "her inability to focus", that is causing my new exercise regime, but I've never had that problem and so I think not.

So, to improve upon my memory lapses, I'm going to increase my brain exercises. I already do crossword puzzles and computer word games and read copious numbers of books per month, but obviously more is needed. From now on when I don't know what a word means, I'm going to look it up. From now on when I don't understand a mathematical problem my children ask me, I'm going to stoke those old memories back into the current data base. From now on when I can't figure out the crossword and leave it for my husband to fill in, I'm going to persevere. From now on when I'm running up and down those stairs, I'm going to push even harder and faster. Perhaps I'll even leave some free weights at the bottom of each landing so that I get the full bang for the buck or ask Marc to chase me.... or not.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yup...sounds just like what I do. I love, though, that you're not going to leave a crossword undone. I hadn't thought about my propensity to do that. "Oh, this is hard," and so I give up. No more! Heck, I'll do them as I'm climbing the stairs for the millionth time during the day.

I thought of you this morning as I went to charge my cell phone. I had to stop at the linen closet and get out a box of Kleenex and check the TP supply, grab a workout towel for later, and pick up the laundry basket to throw downstairs. I somehow managed to actually get my cell phone plugged in after putting away recipes in the kitchen and making myself a note to make soup :)

And...leaving handweights at the bottom of the stairs is an excellent idea :)

Bobbie's Babbles said...

After what I ate this weekend I'm going to have to do a stair marathon!!!