Psych

Covid has made it hard to get out of the house the last year, but now that restrictions are being lifted most people will be out in public more. When you are out at a restaurant or at the mall with friends, how easily could you point to the nearest exit or to the nearest automated external defibrillator(AED)? On your drive to and from work, how aware are you of the roads and establishments along your route? These all fall into the category of situational awareness and it is something that I am working on doing this year. 

It seems a little ridiculous at first; how often do emergencies really happen? Most of us probably haven’t had to use an AED on someone or needed to get out of a building in a hurry but awareness of your surroundings has more immediate benefits as well. By paying attention to the small details around you, you are beginning to retrain your brain. You will find that you are able to notice small details and remembering things like your shopping list will become easier. Wired had a good video on this topic where they interviewed a retired Navy SEAL and he explained how situational awareness can improve your day to day life as well as in the event of an emergency.

Not only does it help you in your day to day life, but when an emergency does happen you will be significantly more prepared. When you train your brain to be rehearsing what you will do if there is an emergency, when that emergency happens you can skip right to acting. If someone suddenly has a heart attack in front of you, maybe you already know where the nearest AED is. Maybe you are trained in CPR and you know that you need to start compressions and start directing others to be doing what needs to be done. In situations like this seconds matter, and being prepared can be the difference between whether the person makes it or not. 

My wife and I have been watching Psych the past few weeks and first of all I want to recommend the show to everyone. It is a fantastic show, the writing is great and all the actors do a great job. It has quickly become one of my favorite shows and I am sad that we are nearing the end. 

This ties into this idea because the main character's father taught him since he was a kid to be paying attention to the small details. This led him to have an incredibly good memory. I am not sure if he has a photographic memory or not but science has shown that this kind of active perception does in fact increase your memory.

Mental engagement is something that I feel I have been lacking as an adult. One of the benefits of school is that we have a source of mental engagement. We are, generally speaking, constantly being challenged while we are in school. I know after graduating from college I didn’t maintain this mental exercise. 

My days are all the same for the most part. I wake up, go to work, come home, and then go to bed. Obviously there is some stuff between that like watching TV with my wife and playing video games, but that doesn’t really exercise the brain. This lack of mental engagement got me into a slump. I found it incredibly hard to remember anything and my focus was severely limited. Since I started the blog, those things have improved a little. I can feel that my brain is working in a different way and I am hoping this situation awareness exercises also improve my cognitive ability. 

I am also trying to get back into Sudoku puzzles. I used to love doing them as a child and recently I saw a video on YouTube by Cracking the Cryptic about a Sudoku that had additional constraints and was meant to be a challenge. Something about it just grabbed me and I couldn’t stop trying to solve it. It was something that was genuinely challenging and I wanted to figure it out. A few hours and a few mistakes later, I finally was able to solve it and it was a really satisfying experience to have set out to complete this challenge and actually been able to do it. You can find the puzzle here, the instructions are on the YouTube video above.

That was really the moment that I realized most people probably don’t have things in life to challenge them mentally. Most of us, myself included, have jobs that are very structured. You have a set responsibility that you have to complete and that is that. Even if I am problem solving at work, it is generally the same type of situation. There isn’t variety, my brain just goes through the same process. 

I am hoping that this becomes the start of something bigger. I want to start challenging myself more. Not only is it fun, but it has also been shown that mental engagement helps offset certain mental conditions when you start getting older. Since I want to live for a very, very, very long time that is pretty important to me, but that is a topic for another day. 

I hope this has been helpful and you were able to take something away from this. Let me know if you try to tackle the Sudoku puzzle and how it goes for you! Do you have any suggestions on how we can get more mentally engaged? Leave them in the comments below or send me an email! See you next week!