All my life I struggled with a poor memory, which made it hard passing examinations. At University I managed to pass 108 engineering exams, which was pure hell.

When I turned 50 I noticed I started to find it even more difficult to remember people’s names. My lapses of memory were becoming more frequent, forgetting appointments and where I put my keys and wallet.

I wondered if I was on a down hill slide to total forgetfulness, confusion and even Alzheimer’s.

Now I’ve never accepted things as they appear until I learn more about what’s puzzling me. This lapse of memory business certainly puzzled me and I must admit troubled me.

Thanks to the Internet and a few books, I started to find out how the brain works.

Reading about how we develop our brains as children and how some people develop and improve their brainpower as adults was absolutely fascinating.

I discovered research that showed that an aging person could generate new brain cells and activate new pathways to receive and send information around our brains.

While I was researching how the brain works, I was re-reading Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within. Robbins is one of America’s leading experts in the psychology of change. Robbins had a segment in his book about neuro-assocation. He says, “I cannot emphasize strongly enough, that what you link pain and pleasure to will shape your destiny.”

In other words, if you associate over-eating with obesity strongly enough, over eating-becomes a painful exercise.

This association, if done often, will trigger automatically a painful memory when you head for the refrigerator or pantry and probably will stop you consuming too much food.

What is going on here?

Basically you are forming new memories about food and retrieving them from your memory at will without thinking about them.

Or to put it another way, you are using a very simple exercise called neuro-association, which is associating an emotion, behaviour or a person with a particular event, place, smell, sound and even taste.

Recently I was taken to the Chinese equivalent of McDonalds. The restaurant was very clean, with the food pre-prepared and presented well. However, fast food outlets have a reputation for high fat and calorie foods and ‘super’ meals. For a person like me with Type 2 Diabetes such meals are life-sapping.

I associated the Chinese restaurant with destroying my quality of life. I definitely remember the name of the restaurant and will never go there again.

Now you could do exactly the same with remembering people’s names, create an association.

I’ve met “Peter” socially two or three times over the last 12 months. He looks like a British TV comedian of 70’s, called Benny Hill. Associating Peter with Benny allows me to recall Peter’s name in a flash.

Neuro association is just one of the ways you can remember things, places and people.

So here’s the good news - you can improve your brainpower and mental fitness at any age.

If you use your brain in new ways you can grow new brain cells, improve the brain’s pathways and maintain mental fitness for much longer than you think.

“Scientific research and evidence clearly shows that the brain doesn’t have to go into steep decline as we get older,” said Dr Lawrence Katz, Professor of Neurobiology at the Duke University Medical Centre.

Dr Katz developed 83 deceptively simple mental exercises he calls “Neurobics”, which help prevent memory loss and increases mental fitness. They are fun and can be done anywhere and anytime.

One of the many ways Dr Katz recommends you can improve your brainpower is to accept new and exciting challenges.

That’s why I’m learning to play the guitar at the age of 45 plus. Now I won’t be the world’s greatest guitarist, but that doesn’t matter

Learning to play a musical instrument is fun and learning to read music is like learning a new language, which stimulates new pathways in my brain. Being able to learn musical chords takes practice and patience, but when you get things right, the feeling you get from small musical achievements is just fantastic. I just love those moments. They’re great.

Coordinating fingers while strumming or picking the guitar and pressing the steel strings on the neck of the guitar to produce a tune requires my brain to work in new and exciting ways. Learning to play and read music opens up new pathways in the brain, while growing new brain cells. That’s why I call my electric guitar my mental fitness machine.

Other people have done thing differently to create fantastic mature age mental fitness.

“May” took up painting in her early 80’s after her life-long partner died. May, who had never painted before, lived in a small apartment, so she decided to paint miniature landscapes, as the equipment required is not very big.

Within a year she held an exhibition and her whole collection was sold. Over the years her fame spread overseas and her paintings are sought after in New York. May also wrote her first book in her 80’s and walks up incredibly steep hills everyday to keep physically fit.

A 60 plus aeronautical engineer decided to become a psychologist and went back to University. ‘Ken’ completed his degree within three years. He now is in his 70’s and counsels mature age people. He addresses conference and travels regularly around Australia and overseas.

There are many more examples of 45 plus people attempting things that they have never done. They are alert, full of energy and fun to be with. If you wan to have fun you have to be fun.

Most existing memory programs don’t use the five senses to stimulate memory and build new pathways to stimulate the brain.

However you don’t have to take on big challenges to stay mentally fit, like learning to paint, go back to university or learn a musical instrument.

Dr Katz’s book “Keep Your Brain Alive “ outlines 83 Neurobic exercises that have the same affect as taking on a big challenge.

With a little knowledge, a few mental exercises based on everyday activities that involve all your senses you can become mentally fit beyond your imagination.

I wish I’d known about Neurobics years ago it would have saved a lot of stress.