It’s hard not to get freaked out by memory loss. Does that frighteningly mean we are sliding down that abyss into dementia, most of us would be reluctantly enquiring? As it turns out it all depends on what we are trying to remember. Short term memory for names peaks at the age of twenty-two, for faces at thirty but for vocabulary we hit our straps at fifty and possibly even sixty-five. Some experts reassuringly indicate that there is no age at which we excel at all cognitive tasks if we ever achieve that at all. In other words our brains remain receptive to the expansive effects of ongoing mental challenges and if we want to enhance the benefits of doing these the best way to achieve this as we get older is to undertake a number of tasks simultaneously.
Research tells us that learning three news skills at once, like a new language, a musical instrument and drawing leads to not only greater proficiency in all of these but also better memory. Science also informs us that the best attitude to take along to this undertaking is the notion that we cannot do today we may be able to acquire tomorrow if we have patience and commitment.