Mental Restart

I hate restarting my computer, if only because I dislike opening Chrome and pulling up all of the sites I typically scan during the day.  Clicking a few extra buttons? Not hard. Remembering what I thought was important? Extremely difficult.  Though I suppose the restart is necessary for my brain as well as my computer - I rely too much on the ease of eternally open windows, Siri's driving directions, one-click purchases on Amazon.

So perhaps it's good that some of us are hitting the road again to that most cherished of water polo tournament destinations - Albuquerque. The packing, cleaning, pet arrangements and school excuses keep me running like Rex would run from a rat. Hopefully the extra activity will rinse my mental synapses and clear the plaque that builds up from daily routine.

Lovely and easy though routine may be, it's apparently bad for our brains. A friend relayed that the key to a healthy brain was "changing it up" - going to a new place or to an old place by a new direction, learning a language, meeting new people, "doing one thing every day that scares you" as Eleanor Roosevelt suggested.

If that's the case then all of our hustle and bustle is keeping my brain finely tuned - at least until it bursts a gasket, springs a leak, or heads for the hills.