I find music and getting involved in radio discussions (talking to myself) helps to keep other parts of the brain active, although just recently I have started getting replies from the voices in me head so thats a bit worrying. 
Oh and excesive ■■■■■■■■■■■■ is great for triggering the old synapses to fire, well thats my excuse…
With auto boxes cruise control other helpful advances and sitting at 40 on S/C roads the brain isn’t being used enough to keep it active.
Driving a truck has really been dumbed down over the years, even the use of satnav has stopped the brain working because we don’t even have to think what route we need to take, a drop in the speed of the vehicle doesn’t help, flying about flat out on the edge doing 60 or even 70 at 38 tonnes with a manual gearbox, or even a twin splitter would have the brain working overtime, especially if that’s on a A road like the A75, but drop that speed down to just over 50 or 40 and the brain also slows down, along with reaction times, probably explains a lot of the accidents caused by school boy errors these days!
I’m 50 this year, and been driving trucks for 26 years, and can totally agree with brain going to mush driving trucks these days.
Doing a couple of hundred miles on my motorbike on a week end really gets the brain working and feel more alive and alert after doing that, than after a 9 hr drive on straight boring roads.
Although advancing years undoubtedly take their toll on your mental agility (my old dad, now 80, is a shadow of his former razor-sharp self), fatigue and multi-tasking overload does have a tendency to convert the grey stuff into a porridge-like consistency. I find that come Friday, I constantly have to scour the cab for misplaced pens, glasses, notebook, phone etc., which I had in front of me 30 seconds previously. I also tend to overshoot my required turn/stop more than usual, and have to find a suitable turnaround place. I left the yard for home the other day and then realised that Id left my tacho card in the head unit, and had to turn back after 50 yards to retrieve it. I put all these things down to good old fashioned tiredness, and the sheer volume of simple little tasks that you have to juggle in your head each and every day. Filling in my timesheet yesterday tea-time took every last grain of my remaining concentration! Joking aside, simple calming measures such as low-level meditation techniques can really help to empty the mind of all the accumulated crap amassed through the week, and although I havent done this for some years now, I am seriously considering taking it up again.
I also intend to have a major lazyass day today, to recharge my batteries and chill out. Too much graft will even finish off a shirehorse, so itll sure as hell knock us sideways. Trying to achieve a work/life balance is always tricky, but its key to your general health and wellbeing, and should never be abandoned as a lost cause, or overlooked.
■■■■■■■:
I also intend to have a major lazyass day today, to recharge my batteries and chill out. Too much graft will even finish off a shirehorse, so itll sure as hell knock us sideways. Trying to achieve a work/life balance is always tricky, but its key to your general health and wellbeing, and should never be abandoned as a lost cause, or overlooked.
+1
Miners used to have a life-expectancy of 40, and not just because of tunnel collapses, the physical slog did it.
Mental strain - thinking around the need to satisfy all the rules - is just as tough on your head. I let the satnav take me and if I go past my turn, it redirects me or I will choose to turn round. Rather than indicate and slam the anchors on inches before… 
or cut across three lanes of traffic on a roundabout… I just sit back and chalk up another Darwin Award in those situations…
I got an ipad app for Sudoko and do an “easy” puzzle each evening. Keeps the cogs turning over.
Older people do not decline mentally with age, it just takes them longer to recall facts because they have more information in their brains, scientists believe.
Much like a computer struggles as the hard drive gets full up, so too do humans take longer to access information, it has been suggested.
Researchers say this slowing down it is not the same as cognitive decline.
“The human brain works more slowly in old age,” said Dr. Michael Ramscar, “but only because we have stored more information over time.
“The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more.”
It can happen. It’s not a good thing either, because it leads to an overall reduction in sharpness, which is even less desirable. I find the doccumentary and discussion programmes on Radio 4 quite stimulating, especially in the wee small hours. That and plenty of tea 
we now live in dumbed down britain, no longer are we allowed too think for ourselves in case we find out the truth and turn great britain into mutiny Britain
Radio 4. Podcasts. Listened to some good podcasts by Michael sandel called the public philosopher. On iTunes. Pretty interesting.
I found my brain turning to mush by being surrounded by a lot of the caustic attitudes, ■■■■■■ and blinding and macho willy waving that you find in rdcs, warehouses etc. That’s why I went in and out of those places with saying as little as possible to people. Where I worked the was a small bunch of great colleagues amongst the mass who were great to shoot the breeze with and natter but unfortunately only saw them briefly at beginning of the day. Was a welcome change when you bumped into each other at tips.
Freight Dog:
Radio 4. Podcasts. Listened to some good podcasts by Michael sandel called the public philosopher. On iTunes. Pretty interesting.
Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox is a good one but there hasn’t been a new one for a while now.
Cheers for that, I’ll check those out.
truckman020:
sing to yourself,works for me
but I only know two tunes. One is God Save the queen and the other one isn’t
Like a few others I’m now into podcasts. Got fed up with phone ins on the radio which highlighted the brick like intelligence of some of the population as well as agendas by various media which seems to swing with the change of the wind.