Challenge your brain and improve your working memory!
Train Your Brain
Have you already tried these brainteasers on Twitter?
If not, try them now before looking up the answers!
1. The words below are all anagrams of other words, the initial letters of which form an anagram of another word. What is the answer?
bruise warned please listen veined trance
2. Starting with HATE, change one letter at a time until you have the word LOVE. Each change leaves the other letters in their original places and must result in a proper word. What is the minimum number of steps required to achieve this change?
HATE …. …. ….
LOVE
3. If today is Friday, what is the day that follows the day that comes after the day that precedes the day before yesterday?
4. If you were to spell out the numbers in full, (One, Two, Three, etc), how far would you have to go until you found the letter ‘A’?
5. Another Word Ladder
Change ONE to TWO in seven steps, changing only one letter in each three-letter word.
6. When Bob is twice as old as he is now, he’ll be four times as old as he was six years ago. How old is Bob?
7. Make the following correct with one stroke of the pen: 101010 = 9.50
8. How can you combine eight 8’s to make 1000?
9. Tune up your brain! Can you find a single five-letter word which can be added to each of the following letters to form 5 six-letter words?
10. The maker doesn’t need it, the buyer doesn’t use it and the user uses it without knowing. What is it?
11. Show how one taken away from 19 can give you 20.
12. There are three light seitches downstairs which light up three bulbs in the attic. How can you find out which switch lights up which bulb with only one trip upstairs?
13. A Christmas brain teaser. If snow falls from the sky at the rate of one drop of snow per second, how many drops of snow will fall over one minute?
Come on, you can do it!
Answers: (Don’t look unless you have to!)
1. The answer is ‘ANSWER’: asleep, nectar, silent, wander, envied, rubies.
2. HATE, DATE, DOTE, DOVE, LOVE or HATE, LATE, LAVE, LOVE or HATE HAVE HOVE LOVE.
3. Thursday
4. 1000: one thousand. Unless you in the UK when 101 = one hundred And one.
5. OLE, ALE, AYE, DYE, DOE, TOE, TOO, TWO
6. Bob is twelve (12)
7. 10 T0 10
8. Here’s one way but you might find more? 8+8+8+88+888=1000
9. Bangle, Tangle, Jangle, Mangle, Dangle
10. A coffin!
11. Write 19 in Roman numerals – XIX. Take I away and you are left with XX.
12. Turn on one switch and wait a minute or two. Then turn it off and switch on another light. Go upstairs and you will see one light on, one is still warm to the touch and one is still cold. Now you know which is which!
13. 61 drops of snow. We start counting from the time the first snow drop falls and the moment of time is 0 seconds. At the moment of time of 1 second, we have two drops of snow, and so on. When the moment of time is 60 seconds, we will have had 61 drops of snow.
Avoid multi-tasking. It leads to stress and memory loss.
For weeks you’ve been cramming for this exam and you got up early this morning to make sure that you had remembered everything. A lot hangs on this test – your promotion, for one. You can feel the tension rising but say to yourself, “It’s just exam nerves – it’s good stress”, right? Then, when you look at the first question one that you’ve been expecting, your brain goes blank, the words don’t make sense, and you can’t remember a single fact to write down. Read more…
What’s Normal and What’s Not?
Is this forgetfulness normal?
Many people over the age of 50 (and maybe even younger) experience mild forgetfulness.
Although these are a wake-up call to pay attention to your brain and memory, if the forgetfulness includes:
• Forgetting parts of an experience
• Forgetting where you park the car
• Forgetting events from the distant past
• Forgetting a person’s name, but remembering it later
Then, your memory loss is mild and would be regarded in the ‘normal’ range. It’s worrying though and, in the view of Dr. Allison Lamont, the Memory Doctor, “it’s time to take stock of your lifestyle and memory habits. Memory can be enhanced at this stage.” Read more…
What you eat affects how well you think.
When you were growing up, I’m sure someone told you that you needed to ‘eat your greens’, ‘eat up your vitamins’? It won’t be new to you, then, to find out that there are lots of things in food, including minerals that you need in your body if you are to stay strong and healthy.
Just as your body needs to be in peak condition as you approach your 40’s and 50’s, to have a memory that keeps growing and never lets you down, your brain and neurons need the right foods also. Read more…
What was that word again?
A family meal was in progress and there was lively discussion about the latest neighborhood scandal. Forty-something, Ben J. had taken off with the 18 year-old babysitter. Hilarity prevailed as one after the other of us imagined what might become of the odd couple. Let’s face it, Ben wasn’t exactly slim! Then, because actually nor were most of us, a quotation from the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, started tugging at my brain. Something to do with being able to see ourselves as others see us. I knew it real well … how did it begin?
It was on the tip of my tongue. Do you know, try as I might, I couldn’t remember how that quotation began.
Read more…
The computer opens up the world at any age
All in our family have been amazed when visiting to see their 82 year-old GranPop peering at the computer screen, looking for messages from the family. Not only that, he has discovered the Internet and has been looking up Scottish things from all over the world. What a hoot! While not understanding for a nanosecond how the technology works, GranPop has been thrilled to be able to find out all of the wonderful information that would normally have taken him hours of research at the library. Read more…
I was downtown last week when I bumped into a woman I haven’t seen for ages. We were just outside a coffee shop, and we both had time, so we went inside to enjoy a chat. I’d just sipped my cappuccino and glanced up as Megan began to tell me about an accident her brother had a month or so ago. And I knew exactly what she was going to say! The eeriest feeling came over me as my mind was jumping ahead of her sentences and I only just stopped myself from completing them for her. I haven’t seen Megan for at least two years and I only knew her brother as a little boy when we were all at school together. I couldn’t have known about his accident …… could I? Was this what people call déjà vu?
Read more…
Shopping - one decision after another!
I’ve just come back from the store where I spent nearly two hours trying to decide which skirt to buy. Would you believe it? I narrowed it down to two but then my brain seemed to go completely blank and I couldn’t remember all the items I already owned that would go with each skirt. So, I left the exasperated assistant with the items to put on hold for me until the next day. And, you know, that’s often the best way for those really big decisions! Read more…
Well, this fact a bit of a shock but it is great news for baby boomers. I guess you are wondering if I think you all want to be taxi-drivers but, no, that isn’t it. The really interesting thing about the brains of taxi drivers in a London study, was that the more they needed to learn about the streets and landmarks of London, the larger that area of their brain grew to accommodate all the new learning. Read more…
Never forget again!
Most people want to know how to improve their brain. Trouble is, most want improvement without actually having to do anything! And they want it NOW.
Well, there are some quick fixes that you can do today – and there are hints about some ways of doing things that will give you longer term improvement. No-one has to accept forgetfulness as a way of life, particularly if you are entering your 50’s and 60’s. Read more…
