Comments on Cranky Fitness: Your Brain on Blueberries

Hill? What hill? I don't remember any hill.

2008-09-29T01:19:00.000-04:00

Hill? What hill? I don't remember any hill.

Every single day something happens that I tell mys...

2008-05-27T14:48:00.000-04:00

Every single day something happens that I tell myself will be tomorrows blog...........tomorow blog never comes as its gone in about 10 mins after happening. LOL I will eventually remmeber days even months down the road. Lists, well I wish I could take a pic of my room here note central I tell ya.Balls on the blueberries I eat tons and still forget..............

These comments are so comforting!!I have always be...

2008-05-02T13:04:00.000-04:00

These comments are so comforting!!
I have always been a space cadet. The weird thing is that I remember random phone numbers, names, addresses, etc. but always weird ones like my doctor's middle name or the phone number of the locksmith (who we've only called once). Never the important stuff, like the kid's school, or a distant nephew I'm supposed to know...

Even in high school, I'd lose my keys every couple of months (I still do). I'm sure it only gets worse...

(and Cara, that's hilarious)

This was great, even for us (sorta) young ones. L...

2008-05-01T22:00:00.000-04:00

This was great, even for us (sorta) young ones. Last week, I was driving home, talking to my dad on the phone. I pulled up in front of my house while still chatting. I began to gather my things, purse- check- water bottle-check- phone? I looked around then started mumbling..."where the hell is my cell phone?" to which my 70 year old father answered "uh, Cara?"... so yeah, I hear ya. And how is my dad still so sharp?? no fair! :)

Like misfit says, it's probably just beginning. A...

2008-05-01T18:50:00.000-04:00

Like misfit says, it's probably just beginning. At your age, one of the earliest signs of perimenopause can be memory changes. Especially (and you'll like this one) nouns. Nouns more than one syllable long. Who knew it was hormonal, but some of it is.

And part of it is that we live such habituated lives that we don't "see" ourselves doing what we do every day. But it's so hard to be present all the time.

Just do your best.

I love all these comments--it's making me feel muc...

2008-05-01T14:29:00.000-04:00

I love all these comments--it's making me feel much less like a doof.

And Tori--Hi!!! I have been remiss in my blog rounds, so it's great to see you here. Lumosity, huh? Will have to consider. And guest posts by you would always be welcome!

--Dang, stupid Blogger isn't letting me comment on my own blog unless I change my I.D. Anyone else having this problem???

There's some things i NEVER forget - like EATING. ...

2008-05-01T13:32:00.000-04:00

There's some things i NEVER forget - like EATING. Or where I hid the chocolate.

Lucky for you, Cranky, you have a long term devote...

2008-05-01T12:18:00.000-04:00

Lucky for you, Cranky, you have a long term devoted reader who blogs about exactly this stuff all the time! (Guess you forgot about me, huh? ;) HA! )

It's true though; the brain-slippage starts early, in our freakin twenties. TWENTIES. And lots of things (like stress) make it worse. (Speaking from personal experience, living on Twinkies and Diet Coke is one of those things, too)

Lots of things also help protect and improve our mental function, too - most of them Cranky Fitness suitable. Things like exercise (moderate, no marathons required) a generally decent diet (which can include cupcakes, so long as it also includes good stuff) etc.

But the brain fitness programs (Lumosity is the one I use) REALLY help. I know it seems like just another thing you're supposed to do, but the brain-games are rewarding enough to keep me, my friends, and even my mom motivated to keep up with them. Even when we revert to a diet of Twinkies.

(I'd offer to write a guest post, but I think I just did...)

Tori (formerly known as M.T.)

Ugh.. totally humiliating. An old boyfriend from c...

2008-05-01T11:32:00.000-04:00

Ugh.. totally humiliating. An old boyfriend from college found me on Facebook and it literally took me two days to remember who he was. I still only vaguely remember actually hanging out with him. I know we dated for like 6 weeks, but I don't remember when. How could I lose six whole weeks of my life? I guess it was college...

my memory hasn't been the same since my children w...

2008-05-01T00:14:00.000-04:00

my memory hasn't been the same since my children were born...so i guess i need to pile the blueberries on everything! thanks.

Lethologica - so there's a word for it! I put min...

2008-04-30T21:41:00.000-04:00

Lethologica - so there's a word for it! I put mine down to long-term stress (stress releases cortisol which shrinks the hippocampus, and that supposedly affects short-term memory) and then some physical stuff (the physical stuff is directly correlatable with the memory problems and known to be causal). Being in the middle of a sentence and suddenly not knowing what you were going to say is incredibly frustrating (so is the odd word transposition that sometimes happens when you hear a word you've said and it wasn't what you intended at all, kind of like you accessed the wrong storage location). And there's the fun of people telling you that they've had a particular conversation with you or told you something and you have an absolute blank spot and just have to trust them. Sometimes I can tell when people are talking to me that I'm not latching on to what they're saying and I probably won't remember it - it feels like it's slipping through my mental fingers. I had previously had a fabulous memory, so sometimes my new state of being really gets to me; it's hard to deal with at work and in personal relationships, but I try to keep a sense of humor about it. As a dear friend says "thoughts go in....thoughts go out". (and I'm only 41)

I'm bad with names; it's just horrible! I forget ...

2008-04-30T19:56:00.000-04:00

I'm bad with names; it's just horrible!
I forget people's names, even if I've known them for a while. Faces I can remember, but not so much with names.
I shudder to think what I will be like when I'm older! Lord, help me!

I'm 24, I'm terrible with names, and I do that thi...

2008-04-30T16:45:00.000-04:00

I'm 24, I'm terrible with names, and I do that thing all the time where I go into a room to get something and then can't remember what it was. If I go shopping for more than one specific item, I need to take a list.

But I also have excellent recall for trivia and I can memorize lists of stuff and remember it for years. (In 7th grade our english teacher had us memorize all of the english auxiliary verbs in a specific order, and I still remember them.)

Ummm, what was I gonna say? And does anybody know...

2008-04-30T16:29:00.000-04:00

Ummm, what was I gonna say?

And does anybody know where I left my house keys? Seriously, they've been missing since Sunday.

I think keeping mentally active is more important ...

2008-04-30T15:43:00.000-04:00

I think keeping mentally active is more important that food. The brain feeds on straight glucose, can phytochemicals cross the blood brain barrier? I don't think so. Probably more educated/menally active people eat better and thus the correlation. Skip the blueberries, read a book.

All these people in my club! It's great! ;D Not r...

2008-04-30T14:59:00.000-04:00

All these people in my club! It's great! ;D Not really, but I agree with everyone who said it's a combination of stress and autopilot. And yes, I can vouch for perimenopause as a huge contributor to "brain fog", which will supposedly go away upon completeing that transition, I'm not there yet. It also is not uncommon for women undergoing menopause to become low thyroid, which slows everything down, including thinking. However, I found that I was low thyroid for years, and after 5 months of Levoxyl, I feel like I have my mind back to a large extent. I used to be able to write and actually speak in long, coherent sentences that had a logical, even elegant structure when I was young (I was an English major), but I doubt that will ever come back. What does amaze me is all the memories that are coming back in great detail, and easily.

I mostly feel like my "hard drive" is so full it just has to spin longer to get to where my data is stored. In answer to some questions I have to say wait just a minute and it will come to me, and it usually does. But don't ask me what I had for dinner the night before, and I'm the one who cooks it!

My husband's memory is worse than mine, and my Mom says the reason she never forgets anything is because she writes everything down and looks at her lists!

Yes, Post-Its all OVER the computer keybaord and a few on the monitor, which is a skinny flat screen so not mu real estate there.

Glasses in the freezer is great, I'm usually trying to put the trash in the freezer and the stuff for the freezer in the trash. The stuff for the fridge (a side by side) often necessitates opening the pantry door first and staring into it's depths in dismay, before it gets to the fridge, and of course stuff for the pantry I open the fridge door. My autopilot is out of alignment! I don't feel so bad since my hubby does the same thing.

I shifted my Mom's windshield wipers for years when I would drive her car (floor shift) until I mostly stopped driving the minivan (column shift), now I try to shift the minivan by waving my hand through the air in between the seats!

A daily multi vitamin helps me with overall alertness and energy too.

I suspect you youngsters have electronics and tv induced ADD! All the 'pods, texting, surfing, and brief brief brief communications has trained your brains for short transactions, just IMHO. I watch tv shows for young people and the cuts are like half second images, the longest might be all of 3 or 4 seconds, sometimes it's almost impossible to watch!

I wonder about this, because I'm in my 20s and fee...

2008-04-30T13:39:00.000-04:00

I wonder about this, because I'm in my 20s and feel like my memory is crap, but I have no excuse.

I figure when I hit my 40s, I'll attribute it to old age as well.

It used to be that I could remember without a list...

2008-04-30T13:21:00.000-04:00

It used to be that I could remember without a list. Then as long as I had written the list, I could remember. Now, I can't remember where I put the list! I have a mind like a steel trap, the only problem is, it has rusted shut.

"Would I enter and leave and re-enter and re-leave...

2008-04-30T12:32:00.000-04:00

"Would I enter and leave and re-enter and re-leave and re-re-enter and re-re-leave a room ten times, instead of five, before I finally recalled what I the heck I was looking for?"

But that's me now...eep. I've tried to eat a lot of brain smart foods lately. I like to hink I feel a bit more alert...it may be all placebo effect, but any little bit helps when you have the memory of a goldfish :)

Memory is a funny thing. There are some things tha...

2008-04-30T12:02:00.000-04:00

Memory is a funny thing. There are some things that stick and I have no idea why, other things that I want to remember and make an effort to remember and think to myself that I will remember...I forget. Writing things down is good.

And then there are things that are just such ingrained habits that we don't even pay attention to doing them. It's like you're on automatic pilot.

My husband picks me up in front of my office building every day after work. And every day I put my laptop bag in the back seat before getting into the front seat of the car. We drive home, I get out of the car, retrieve my laptop bag from the back seat and go in the house.

Yesterday, it was raining and the wind was blowing so I jumped into the front seat, laptop bag and all. We got home, and I found myself standing with the rear door open, staring at the back seat, thinking something is not right...Until I realized that my laptop bag was already slung over my shoulder because I had never put it in the back seat to begin with.

Autopilot.

Lists. Lots and lots of lists. My memorys alread...

2008-04-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

Lists. Lots and lots of lists. My memorys already not that great and I'm not even 20! So I make loads of lists and keep them everywhere (of course, this way of doing it backfires occasionally when I stick a list in a book for "safe keeping" and then conveniently forget which book it was that I tucked it into!).

"And Dr. J, you scare me sometimes!"You know Crabb...

2008-04-30T11:57:00.000-04:00

"And Dr. J, you scare me sometimes!"

You know Crabby, I've never lost a patient. Sometimes I forget where I put them, but they show up eventually :-)

Dr. Who? (That's why we wear name tags)

I had something witty to comment, but by the time ...

2008-04-30T11:42:00.000-04:00

I had something witty to comment, but by the time I read everyone elses, I forgot mine :(

I used to lovelovelove the game Memory when I was ...

2008-04-30T11:15:00.000-04:00

I used to lovelovelove the game Memory when I was little and was recently (OK, yesterday) pleasantly surprised to see that I still excel, as I played a Gossip Girl version of it on CLTV's website. (I was procrastinating, eys). In general, I find I forget things when I'm stresses. Then again, in college I was a huge ball of stress and somehow managed to memorize a scary amount of organic chemical equations and structures. SO GLAD I did that! Blah.

I have a friend who is in her early thirties who s...

2008-04-30T10:49:00.000-04:00

I have a friend who is in her early thirties who says she's constantly losing her train of thought - and it's a short train. I told her just wait until you hit your mid to late forties and start going through menopause - you'll lose a couple more cars off that train. It's the complete fog I can't stand. And yes I had a half cup of blueberries in my post workout smoothie this morning. Sigh.