Since completing my education, I’ve noticed a decrease in mentally stimulating activities in my daily life. For this reason I’ve been experiencing a sense of cognitive decline, feeling like my mind isn’t being challenged or engaged as much as it used to be. I’m looking for ways to stimulate my brain back. I’m interested in exploring activities that can help, such as reading, puzzles, games, and other intellectually stimulating stuff. Could you recommend some engaging and challenging options to help me get started? Thanks a lot
I got into doing nature photography over the pandemic as a way to get out of the house, and it’s been amazing for my mental health. It forced me to get out and just live in the moment really paying attention to the environment around me. I’ve realized how little we notice of the world around us normally. I’ve also found martial arts are a similar experience in a sense that you’re really just focused on the moment and forget about everything else you’ve been thinking about.
I’d really love to get into that, especially bird photography as it’s been fun to try to learn bird calls and try to spot them. Nature really recharges the brain in a way nothing else can. Esp for those of us who are goal oriented or always feeling the need to be accomplishing something, being out in nature helps us drop all the expectations and distractions.
You find a particular part of nature you enjoy photographing? I’m a botany nerd myself so I love to photograph macro flowers. But I’ve got some friends into birding too, much more difficult.
I started with plants, but moved on to birds and occasional critters like chipmunks. Birds definitely take a bit of patience to get nice shots I find. I post some of my stuff on here https://pixelfed.social/Yogthos
Nice, those are some good bird pics. I like the coloration and little red flourishes on the woodpeckers.
Around me we get a lot of nut hatches, and titmouses which are my fav. They have little mohawks, and are quirky, but brave, as I’ve seen them do david and goliath standoffs with much bigger birds like crows. Not my pic but here’s one