Getting Paid to Play

Those people out there who know me personally knows that I love what I do for a living. I have often told people that I feel really fortunate to find something that essentially keeps me young and vibrant. I love studying the brain and the behavior it directs. This may sound boring to some but to me I feel like I've won the lotto!

One of fun things I get to do is develop new brain exercises that target particular areas of the brain (This is helpful when the patient has focal deficits and only needs to target a particular cognitive domain such as verbal memory).

The tasks that I come up with are game based. That means that instead of doing boring repetitive cognitive exercises my patients get to play a variety of games that are chosen based on their deficit (damaged brain processes).

Sometimes I come across a game that seems so outwardly simple that when I stop to take a closer neuropsychological look I realize that this game is a power gym for the brain. For example, games that require multiple actions being conducted tend to exercise the frontal lobes or executive functions (think higher order functions such as multitasking and abstract reasoning skills). If time is involved, then add in mental processing speed.

I can go on and on about which games are the best to improve fixed or divided attention, verbal and visual memory, visuospatial abilities, etc. I will also come up with assignments that are game based such as juggling (this is good for integration of left and right side, visual perceptual, proproception, balance, hand eye coordination and it realives stress).

Quality of life is directly related to how you feel about your job. If you love what you do you will be a more happy individual. Life is way too short to waste it on feeling miserable.

I encourage all of you who are unhappy with what you do to make a commitment to find what you're good at and begin to persue it. It's never too late to die happy!