Doing the unexpected!

We said good-bye to Aunty Ada yesterday - bless her!

Funerals always provide that unique behavioural dilemna - mourning for the loved one that we've lost - whilst trying not to over-enjoy the fun of meeting up with cousins we've not seen since the last funeral. Given the ironic sense of humour enjoyed by our lot it's always a particular struggle. Yesterday wasn't a problem though. Ada's wicked sense of humour was soon in everyone's minds ...even the vicar's during the eulogy.
Looking around at my cousins I was reminded that Ada was the last of the previous generation. We are the "silverbacks" now. And as I chatted with cousins, nephews and nieces I sensed another unusual behavioural trait amongst us which I'm sure  is again unique to families at funerals. We began chatting about life today in that understated slightly disappointed way that you do. Then inevitably we started to reminisce over the great times when we were all much younger. 
And as we rolled back the years ...chins lifted .....voices rose ....eyes widened ...shoulders  straightened ...hands waved energetically ...feet jigged around.   The "silverbacks" were kids again!
There is a lot of evidence suggesting that enviroment and circumstance pre-dispose us to adopt an appropriate behaviour and demeanour.  That as we mature within our family and workgroup, we calm down, become less assertive, less ambitious. Because that is what is expected!
Then suddenly something triggers a change - like the recollections of the cousins - and we shed about 30 years of demeanour!
Psychologist Ellen Langer's famous 1979 research study at Harvard, recreated in a recent BBC TV programme showed how people could "lose years off their life" by being kept within a recreated retro-time environment.
The "engineering" explanation for this seems to be that as we stop doing things certain areas of our brain network become disconnected.  But only disconnected - and there are some widely endorsed remedies for restablishing those networks.

• Physical exercise, anything from walking to working out.
• Mental exercise maybe from your favourite on-line game.
• Then there are remedies that exercise the creative and learning areas such as painting or writing.
• If you're up for it why not get both and learn something physical like Tai Chi or Salsa - highly recommended!
• But if you're really serious about reconnecting those networks and firing up those neurons.  Go for the best remedy of all. 
• Get yourself out of that demeanour dulling, stress generating, decline inducing job you're in and change careers   - come on OnWeGo ...do the unexpected!