It's all in your mind

I believe wholeheartedly in exercise -- both for the body and for the mind.

There's already a booming industry for the exercising the body -- we as a society spend $16 billion a year on health club memberships, not to mention what we spend on all the attendant gear and stuff that goes along with having a physically active lifestyle.

Now there's a growing industry for mental fitness. According to a recent article in the New York Times, products like computer software to spur brain activity are being gobbled up by Baby Boomers who are concerned about losing their mental acuity as they lose their hair, teeth, eyesight and hearing. The so-called neurosoftware market was worth $225 million in 2007, according to the Times article, and is expected to grow as Boomers advance in age. The Times estimate it could be a $2 billion industry by 2015.

Boomers, who have always thought of themselves as forever young, are realizing that their bodies and possibly their minds will break down over time. And they will not go gently into the night. Still believing we are as invincible at 60 or 70 as we were at 20 or 30, we will kick and scream and whine and try just about any means possible to hold off or delay the inevitability of aging.

You can understand why. Most of us at around 50 start to joke about our senior moments -- like forgetting where the car keys are, or forgetting a telephone number that we've dialed a bazillion times before. But our worry is that the senior moments might portend something more serious -- senior hours, days or years of dementia or Alzheimer's.

You know the moments.

The Times article offered a few of anecdotes: A 47-year-old woman misplaced her cellphone, only to find it in her refrigerator freezer when she went to make dinner. Or the 51-year-old woman who drove to work in her car but took the bus home after work after forgetting that she'd driven in. Or the 61-year-old man in the FedEx store who, while filling out the forms, could not remember his home address.

We might chuckle at these anecdotes, but most of us have "moments" of our own. One time coming back from skiing by myself, I went north onto a highway when I should have been traveling south. I was well on my way to Canada before realizing I'd made a wrong turn.

We worry that what's funny now might not be so funny later.

The Times has this telling quote from Nancy Ceridwyn, director of educational initiatives at the American Society on Aging: "It's probably one of the most frightening aspects of the changes we undergo as we age. Our memories are who we are. And if we lose our memories we lose that groundedness of who we are."

So Boomers are running with evidence that suggests brain exercises will help maintain mental fitness, or, as the Times article points out, help keep "the plasticity of the brain."

Nintendo has something called Brain Age 2 of math and memory exercises (originally devised for a youngster). There is "cognitive behavioral training" software. Beyond that, some Boomers are going to their doctors to ask for medical tests to determine if they already have the early stages or are at risk for Alzheimer's.

I'll stick with my crossword puzzles, thank you very much. For the record, my favorite is the Friday puzzle in the Wall Street Journal. But I'll take on all comers. I like the challenge; I like working the puzzles as much as my morning workouts at the YMCA.

Crosswords have served my mother well over the years. She may not want me revealing her exact age, but she's into her 80s and still chugging along quite nicely as she tackles her daily puzzles. We should all be so fortunate.