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So what can I do to keep my brain from atrophy?

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I'm not a neurologist LDO, but I don't think that learning new things is even that important in re: to brain not atrophying. I think the important thing is just to keep your mind working. Doing crosswords, random math in your head (i.e. just adding numbers you see as you drive along or whatever), sudokus, whatever. I think anything you have to actually devote some real thought/logic to will keep your brain from going to mush.


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I am surprised by the lack of neurologists on this forum. I have taken enough courses to comment. Your statement is mostly accurate. Crossword puzzles count too, and in fact I believe have specifically been studied wrt Alzheimer's. To solve the clue you need to grab a memory and form a new association for it.

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I think another big key is just being curious about things in general, and thinking about why things are the way they are. Some of the students I have just make me sad because they don't question anything. They just want answers. I honestly think if I went through a whole school year and just taught completely random equations that made no sense, that 90% of my kids would just take it to be the truth and not even verify that what I was teaching them had any basis in truth.


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But learning this way has its place too if you don't want to reinvent the wheel. In fact, I think the reason kids learn faster is because they DON'T view their instructor with a critical eye. My dad, with his Master's degree in math, can't learn poker, because every friggin time I tell him a poker concept, if I tell him that it came from a book, he starts saying that there are a lot of bad books out there, and then he starts working the probabilities for himself in his head. I'm lucky if I can get through one concept, and I'm lucky if he even remembers what it was when we get done working through the probabilities.

As for where that leaves creative insight, I always find that my most creative insights come from misunderstanding things. The most surefire way to have an insight, though, is to combine two different fields. There's almost a formula to it.