Don't Stop

This past fall, I was seriously worried about the state of my brain's well being.

Granted, I was in the middle of some pretty intense transitional job stress at the time ... but when I sat down and wrote exactly what concerned me my symptoms were not new. I could look back and see that my brain-power had been slowly but surely slowing down over a substantial time span.

I was not only confused about what month we were in ... but the season. At one point I almost called someone who issued me a cheque. I was certain that they had accidentally dated it August 2nd when it should have been February 8th. I thought long and hard about it. Walked away and came back to it. I was at the point where I was beginning to look up the phone number that I would have to call to have the cheque reissued, when I all of a sudden realized that it was actually August. Not February.

My ability to speak coherently was faltering. I was coming out completely wrong and inappropriate words. I preferred writing over speaking because I had time to collect the proper vocabulary before communicating it.

I was getting to the point where I was irritating friends and family with my forgetfulness. Verbal conversations were hard for me to recall; I found that I was beginning to rely on the ability to reread an email to assist my memory. There was one entire conversation that left my consciousness for a spell. It did come back, but I needed to quite literally pry it out of the recesses of my mind.

I was taking classes and finding it harder to keep up with the class &/or retain the information that I just learned in order to write an exam.

My brain-to-hand/body messages were becoming very sluggish. I was dropping things. I found myself standing still and 'tipping over'.

I was losing my ability to multi-task. I couldn't keep two concurrent instructions in my head at one time.

I was overwhelmed by input and my inability to keep up. To say that I was scared is a little bit of an understatement.

I was overwhelmed with new-job-stresses. I was in a state of inner panic and turmoil. I was sobbing uncontrollably at inopportune moments. It was not a good place to be.

I had no choice but to continue to forge ahead and keep moving in a forward direction. I needed a job and I had to bulldoze my way through all of this. Thankfully, that worked for me.

Fast forward to today.

I am not only surviving at my present job ... I am starting to show signs of thriving.

I have not only retained that which I have been taught, but I have relearned the art of thinking on my feet. The wider a person's knowledge base is, the easier it is to look beyond the obvious and see a solution.

Tunnel vision and learning a brand new job are synonymous in my mind. You do truly have to zero in on what you have just learned  to try and make your way through a new situation.

You can't have an overwhelming amount of new information tossed at you at one time. You need to start with the basics and layer new data onto what you have learned. The layering effect enhances what you have just learned and adds to that. When you are doing a job that you could do in your sleep, you sometimes forget how long it took you to get to that point.

The more you know, the more you can do on auto pilot ... leaving your mind open to the ability to multi task. You not only gain the ability to layer new information, but additional tasks onto that which you are beginning to do automatically.

When your brain starts working at full speed, it starts to feel like a well oiled machine. Parts that had been inactive start firing back to life.

I have found the words that I need are now usually on the tip of my tongue. I amaze myself with my (returned) co-ordination. The neurons firing within my brain allowing me the ability to think on my feet also seem to have heightened my reflexes. I still drop things ... but man! You should see the way I'm catching them before they hit the ground!

My recall is back to where I expect it to be. If I am not mistaken, I believe my son even commented on how this has improved.

In retrospect I can see that not fully utilizing my brain for an ongoing period had hampered my ability to jump into new situations and survive. Dare I add the fact that I am also not getting any younger into that equation?

I am fortunate. My brain needed to be dusted off, exercised and lubricated a bit before it was ready to kick back into action.

What if ...

What if this had been a degenerative issue where it wasn't as simple as that? What if my ability to recall and remember was cumulative and it became progressively worse over a long period of time? What if my ability to learn was seriously impaired? What if the messages that my brain sent to my body got slower and did not recover with use?

I am grateful for a situation which brought this to light. What if ... I had continued to go down a path where I under-used my brain and my body to a state where it couldn't be revived so easily?

Don't stop learning. Don't stop moving. Don't stop ... you just never know how easy it may be to re-start again. That may not be the end all answer for a degenerative condition ... but it certainly can't hurt to keep one's brain and body active. Learning, moving, 'doing' and being around people enhances your life. Just keep moving ...