By Debbie Acklin
I didn't think much about it at first. I would be listening to someone and find that my mind would wander a bit from time to time. Suddenly, I would realize that there was an awkward silence. The other person was waiting for a response and I had no idea what they had said. It was very embarrassing.
I didn't think much about it at first. I would be listening to someone and find that my mind would wander a bit from time to time. Suddenly, I would realize that there was an awkward silence. The other person was waiting for a response and I had no idea what they had said. It was very embarrassing.
After apologizing several times for "zoning out" during a conversation, I realized that I needed to do something about this problem of mine. It was like I had developed attention deficit disorder. One day I accidently stumbled down the right road to a solution.
I was sitting in a doctor's office, flipping through the reading material, when I came across one of those word search books. It was the kind where there is a grid of letters on each page with words hidden within the grid. You had to find the words by searching the grid. I was completely engrossed in one of these puzzles when I was called back to see the doctor. Wow! I had focused on something so completely that my name had to be called more than once.
After the visit, I went to a local bookstore and picked up several of these word search puzzle books. There were many variations on locating the words in the puzzle, but I found I enjoyed them all. In the beginning, I just started with the first word in the list, then searched the grid until I found it. This was very time consuming.
Having worked through an entire book, I began to develop tricks to find the words. I would group words that began with the same letter and search for them all at once. This speeded up my search since it reduced my passes through the grid. Then I realized that some letters were easier for me to spot than others. For instance, I can spot O, U, M, W, C, I, and L easily. So I began to group words that contained these letters.
Of course, there were several different types of puzzles. I could not use my new tricks to solve them all, but I developed other techniques for these. The important thing was that I was giving each puzzle my full attention. I was focused. I never left a puzzle undone. I always completed it before I put down my pencil. I never looked up answers in the back of the book. I stuck with it until I solved it.
One day I picked up a book to work a puzzle and something interesting occurred. I found that I could just look at the puzzle and the words would almost leap off the page at me. I found them quickly, zipping right through the puzzle. It startled me a little. I tried another one with the same result. I realized that I had trained my mind to recognize the patterns that made up common words. I began to notice that I was more focused on conversations. There were no more of those awkward silences. I felt happier and more confident.
I also realized that in the old days I had sometimes read the same line in a book several times before I focused enough to actually retain what I had just read. That seldom happened anymore. It was true. You can teach an old dog new tricks!
I thought back to younger days when I would sit and practice the piano for hours at a time. Then one day, I realized I could play the songs without the sheet music in front of me. I had not deliberately memorized the piece. My hands had been trained, from repetition, to move over the right sequence of keys.
I began to remember how constant practice in sports had improved my game. I had trophies for shooting from the free throw line in basketball because I practiced the shot hundreds of times. I could hit the basket in my sleep. I could put a ball in exactly the same place over a tennis net for the same reason. Repetition.
Somehow, I had lost sight of that simple lesson that so many teachers and coaches had instilled in me for years. Practice makes perfect. I don't do word searches as much as I used to. I have moved on to simple video games. When I master one, seeing the pattern or the path to winning repetitively, I move on to something else.
I plan to keep building those neural pathways in this old brain of mine, always searching for new challenges. Hopefully, it will serve me well for many years to come.
I was sitting in a doctor's office, flipping through the reading material, when I came across one of those word search books. It was the kind where there is a grid of letters on each page with words hidden within the grid. You had to find the words by searching the grid. I was completely engrossed in one of these puzzles when I was called back to see the doctor. Wow! I had focused on something so completely that my name had to be called more than once.
After the visit, I went to a local bookstore and picked up several of these word search puzzle books. There were many variations on locating the words in the puzzle, but I found I enjoyed them all. In the beginning, I just started with the first word in the list, then searched the grid until I found it. This was very time consuming.
Having worked through an entire book, I began to develop tricks to find the words. I would group words that began with the same letter and search for them all at once. This speeded up my search since it reduced my passes through the grid. Then I realized that some letters were easier for me to spot than others. For instance, I can spot O, U, M, W, C, I, and L easily. So I began to group words that contained these letters.
Of course, there were several different types of puzzles. I could not use my new tricks to solve them all, but I developed other techniques for these. The important thing was that I was giving each puzzle my full attention. I was focused. I never left a puzzle undone. I always completed it before I put down my pencil. I never looked up answers in the back of the book. I stuck with it until I solved it.
One day I picked up a book to work a puzzle and something interesting occurred. I found that I could just look at the puzzle and the words would almost leap off the page at me. I found them quickly, zipping right through the puzzle. It startled me a little. I tried another one with the same result. I realized that I had trained my mind to recognize the patterns that made up common words. I began to notice that I was more focused on conversations. There were no more of those awkward silences. I felt happier and more confident.
I also realized that in the old days I had sometimes read the same line in a book several times before I focused enough to actually retain what I had just read. That seldom happened anymore. It was true. You can teach an old dog new tricks!
I thought back to younger days when I would sit and practice the piano for hours at a time. Then one day, I realized I could play the songs without the sheet music in front of me. I had not deliberately memorized the piece. My hands had been trained, from repetition, to move over the right sequence of keys.
I began to remember how constant practice in sports had improved my game. I had trophies for shooting from the free throw line in basketball because I practiced the shot hundreds of times. I could hit the basket in my sleep. I could put a ball in exactly the same place over a tennis net for the same reason. Repetition.
Somehow, I had lost sight of that simple lesson that so many teachers and coaches had instilled in me for years. Practice makes perfect. I don't do word searches as much as I used to. I have moved on to simple video games. When I master one, seeing the pattern or the path to winning repetitively, I move on to something else.
I plan to keep building those neural pathways in this old brain of mine, always searching for new challenges. Hopefully, it will serve me well for many years to come.
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