Mental workouts just as essential as physical ones

"Use it or lose it" applies to the brain, too.

As we get older, we tend to avoid challenges. We've experimented and we know what works for us. We resist new ways to do things especially if the old way works.

Learning is hard work, whether it's finding a new route to work or discovering how to use a new piece of technology.

Don't succumb to lazy brain syndrome. The brain that receives regular intellectual stimulation is a fitter and stronger brain.

Pascale Michelon of the Washington University (St. Louis) psychology department has written about cognitive brain reserves, the capacity of the brain to resist the effects of aging, dementia and even Alzheimer's disease.

To build up these reserves one needs regular intellectual stimulation to increase the density of the connections between brain cells.

In his book, "Healthy Aging," Andrew Weil suggests rigorous brain workouts. Specifically, he suggests thinking of the things that really frustrate you and pushing past the frustration to learn more in those areas.

Weil suggests reprogramming your computer or learning a new language as possible learning projects in this category.

Why should you take on such grief?

"I am not at all convinced that cognitive decline is an inevitable consequence of aging," Weil said. "Rather, I think most people simply do not give themselves the kinds of mental challenges that brains need to retain their functionality."

Besides maintaining brain health for its own sake, there are other good reasons to learn something new every day.

Learning improves emotional well-being. When you're involved in a learning project, you're thinking outside of yourself.

Learning is social, whether you are relating to the clever mind of the person who devised the crossword puzzle you're working on or the other members in a book discussion group.

Learning provides self-confidence. If you keep up with the news via newspapers, magazines, TV, or online news, you have something to contribute to a conversation at the gym about the recent earthquake, for example.

Similarly, your knowledge makes you a more interesting person. Your new interest in gardening might be just the conversation-starter needed to make a new friend who also shares a passion for gardening.

Opportunities for learning abound! Visit your library on a regular basis and make a pact with yourself that you will dip into all 10 of the Dewey Decimal System classes on a regular basis. When you think of it, Dewey's elegant arrangement of all knowledge in 10 classes each beginning with "generalities" would be an easy way to learn about completely new things.

If you are a computer user, subscribe to Wikipedia's "Featured Article" list. Just put the word "Wikipedia" into your browser. It will take you to the Wikipedia home page. After you select a language, the first article is always the featured article.

As I am writing this on Tuesday (April 22), the featured article is about Pearl Jam, an American rock band formed in Seattle in l990. Of course, you can just access Wikipedia every day for the featured article, but you can also subscribe by clicking on the words "by e-mail" at the bottom of the featured article entry on the home page.

I subscribe to "The Writer's Almanac" featuring poems, prose, and literary history delivered to me via e-mail every morning from Garrison Keillor, of "Prairie Home Companion" fame; visit writersalmanac.publicradio.org. Put americanpublic media.publicradio.org/into your browser and select "newsletters" on the left side of the page for a choice of several daily and weekly newsletters.

The idea of the mind as a muscle that needs exercise is not a new one.

Challenge that mind and keep it quick and fresh. It has to last your whole lifetime.