Two Memory Games to Play as You Age
[SOURCE: Pixabay.com]
Women are beautiful creatures. We’re also born multitaskers who
need more sleep than men to regenerate our complex brains . We’re also more likely to live longer than ever before. Women live, on average five percent longer, often outliving our partners. This can, unfortunately, make us more vulnerable to the cognitive declines of the aging process and all of the issues and complications that come from that.
It’s understood that older women, especially those living alone and over the age of 65, are
more likely to fall victim to various scams frauds . Common scams and frauds can include everything from financial scams to identity theft. Other dangers of mental decline can also include medication forgetfulness and other mistakes that
sometimes require an in-home health aide to monitor .
To combat these dangers, and protect ourselves from scammers aiming to take advantage of our declines in mental functioning, it’s important to keep our minds fresh and agile. Here are two easy games you can put together and play regularly to help combat the common cognitive decline of the aging process.
Games
Face and name flash cards
If you are like a lot of people, it can be difficult to remember faces and names after only meeting a person once. This can be embarrassing, and even dangerous as well. To combat this, work to employ special name and face recognition exercises that will help you beat this condition. Making even a bit of extra effort can help you remember names and faces so much easier.
To play this game make you will need to make yourself a set of flashcards with names and faces on them.
Making the cards:
1. Gather 24 blank flash cards.
2. Cut out 12 heads and/or faces from magazines.
3. Type your write out 12 fake names on a piece of paper. Write or type each name twice and cut out the names.
4. To assemble your cards, make 12 cards that have both the name and face and 12 cards with just the name. Glue the names and faces to the cards.
5. When you’re finished you should have 12 pairs of cards, one card with a name and face and one card with a matching name.
To play the game:
1.Turn all the cards upside down and mix them up
2.Make sure you don’t’ know where any specific pairs are
3.Take turns turning over cards and saying the name out loud.
4.At you turn over face cards, try to make up a story or association that helps you remember the name and face together. (For example, if you turn over a card with a woman with dark hair that you named “Sofia” you can think to yourself, “Sofia is like Sophia Loren, they both have gorgeous dark hair.”)
5.Continue playing by matching cards and removing them from play once matched.
With this memory game, not only do you have to remember the name and face you have to remember where the card is on the table as well! This is a great game to boost both short and long-term memory.
If played frequently, and with new cards that you make, this game can improve your memory and speed of recall by leaps and bounds.
Stories of stuff
This is a great game to play in a group but it can also be played individually as well. This game involves making up elaborate stories to help you remember a string of items on a table and recall them quickly. The technique of making up stories to remember a list of items is a great way to stretch and grow your brain while having fun as well.
How to prepare:
To play the game you’ll need a few dozen regular household items. Items can include things like car keys, fruit, veggies, keys, soap dispensers, or anything else you have lying around. Gather the items on the table and begin your story.
How to play:
Taking the first four items (let’s say that as part of your items you have a can of beans, a grocery bag, some car keys, and a cell phone) here is how your made up story might sound:
1. Jessica went to the store to buy some black beans…
2. As she was checking out, the clerk asked her if she wanted a paper or plastic bag, she opted for a paper bag so she could do a craft project with it later…
3. When she got to her car to put her groceries away, she realized she had locked her keys in the car…
4. Thankfully, she had her cell phone with her so she was able to call AAA to help her unlock her car and get her keys…and so on…
Once you’ve made up a long story about the items on the table, put all the items aside out of sight. Try to make a list of all the items that were there, using the story to help you recall what items you had on the table.
See how many items you can remember and keep track of your time as well. Try to improve both the amount of time it takes you to make a story for all the items, and the amount of time it takes you to recall the full list. Ty to beat your own previous time each time you play!
Other ways to boost brainpower
In addition to the games above, there are other great ways to boost our brainpower and stay fit and healthy. These habits include activities that you might not specifically expect to aid in memory and retention. Physical activities like yoga and meditation have been proven to boost memory and mental powers.
While these activities are great for our brains they have the added benefit of helping reduce stress, reduce backaches, improve mood, and increase balance and strength as well – all which can lead to better quality of living, enduring happiness, and healthier relationships.
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255253 - 2023-07-19 08:55:40