I realised that tonight I have been playing Scrabble and Spider Solitaire (online) as well as doing a Sudoku puzzle in the newspaper. I do at least some of these activities every day, partly because I enjoy the challenge and partly to use parts of my brain that do not get a workout in my routines activities at work and home.
What about you? How do you exercise your brain?
organised castle 
Like you, I play scrabble and another word game online most days. I also love puzzles of all kinds, especially sudoku and cryptic crosswords. I subscribed to two puzzle magazines for years and only recently, due to a decrease in income, closed both. I hadn’t really realised how important they were to my health until I received one of the magazines as a surprise gift from my daughter yesterday. It immediately lifted my spirits which have been very low for quite a long time. I am now thinking I should renew the subscriptions.
Pat, your mental health is important so it sounds as though finding space in the budget might be worthwhile. Alternatively, perhaps you could request a subscription as a recurring gift.
Take care. 🙂
Sudoku is my favorite, followed by Freecell and Solataire. Also I think sewing makes your brain work, thinking of ways to get better results from the project you are doing. It’s so important to keep old grey cells healthy.
Sewing is like many activities – it certainly keeps you thinking. Variety is the key.
I do the occasional psychology study on Amazon’s mechanical turk. A friend of mine in grad school who wrote psych studies felt that the study wasn’t done well if it wasn’t a good workout for your brain! It’s been a great way to learn about myself, and also to earn a pittance of money, which never hurts.