DH wants us to go Left Handed. HELP.

[PetulaClarkMementoMori]

Not sure if this is the correct thread, but here goes....

My DH and I have been together for over 30 years and, as we're getting on we've both become more aware of and conscious to avoid what I suppose is called Cognitive decline.

I enjoy crosswords and reading, so I think I'm at least using my brain daily. DH has never bothered much with what he ( Mostly jokingly ) calls 'Book-Learning'. Anyway, all of a sudden he's become an 'expert'. He told me he'd read an article ( Although I suspect he means he's seen a two- minute video on Tok Tok ) which claims using your left hand for tasks that you would normally use your right hand for can stave off cognitive decline and now he thinks this is a miracle cure-all.
And, of course, he's become obsessed, everything has to be done left-handed, and if he see's me using my right hand, he booms 'Left!'. I can be chopping vegetables or opening a jar of coffee and I'll suddenly hear 'Left!' in my earhole. I've told him it's annoying, but he's as stubborn as a goat that's been struck by lightning.
Yesterday he spent over two hours repairing the lawnmower left-handed and somehow thinks it's turned him into bloody Einstein in a cloth cap.
I've tried suggesting some 'alternatives', as I read that learning a new language is effective. I've always fancied trying Portuguese, or even Hausa or Finnish. But I suspect trying to entice him with any of this will be met with the equivalent of 'Foreign Muck', and it will be the Moussaka situation all over again.
Honestly, I could scream. I know men get fixated, especially as they get older but this is honestly too much. I'm no Carol Vorderman so can someone explain whether there's any truth in his claims of Neural-plasticity in the brain?
I really need to get some answers because if I keep hearing 'Left!' I may well go hard right! In fact, the other day whilst driving he started rabbitting Left! Left! and it was only when I realised that he was pointing to the entrance to the Garden Centre, that I heeded what he was saying.
So, is there any truth to it? And is anyone else's aging husband going as mad as an Aardwark at an all you can eat Ant-Buffet?
I better go, I can hear him rumaging in the airing cupboard and if he see's me typing with two hands it'll be all she wrote. Literally!

this absolutely

Well I am left handed, but since I live in a right handed world much of my life I have had to learn and deal with doing things right handed.

Sadly I don’t think it has improved my cognitive abilities, still can’t do crosswords .

Meant to say OP you could always tell him to try driving on the RH side of the road for a change. That should give his little grey cells a bit of a work out.

I'm weird, I realised at about 14 that I use my left hand for some tasks even though I would say I'm right handed. I can't use a knife in my left hand to peel, slice butter etc I tend to lead with my left foot on steps and I can't pour comfortably from a jug, kettle etc with my right hand! There is a name for me that I can't remember.

😂😂

Well as I brought it up (so to speak) any news on moussaka?

Tell him getting obsessed about a subject or task is definitely a sign of cognitive decline (true story, google it) and suggest an appointment with the GP for an assessment. That should shut him up.

I don't know how you haven't chucked a meat cleaver at his head yet -with your left hand of course.

As someone who had to become temporarily left handed after an operation on my right hand, I think this is overrated! It drove me mad and everything took twice as long. I didn’t notice any particular benefits!

He's clearly suffering from cognitive decline (dementia )

I’m left handed and I feel that there’s a revolution coming … this thread is actually very funny but also your DH sounds a bit unhinged saying left in your ear all the time 🤣

I worked in dementia for many years. Honestly it's a lottery. I have had clients running multinational companies, surgeons, solicitors, professors develop dementia as well as Rab c Nesbitt types, who've never read a book or had an original thought in their whole lives. One thing I have seen over and over with my clients is those who have had a traumatic life event and then within 6 to 12 months develop dementia. My advice is keep active, live for the day and try not to kill your husband and bury him under the patio for being so annoying 😆

But it isn't writing with your left hand that would stave off a dementia @waitinginwonderland!!

In your case, if it works at all, you would need to write with your right hand, and, where safe to do so, do some of your other tasks with your left hand.

The whole point of these exercises for the brain, is to make the cogs in our brains whirl both faster, and more efficiently. Which is, of course, in order to hopefully help our brains to stay healthy and working at their optimum levels.

In other words, we may decide to learn new strategies to stave off the inevitable decline in our cognition, that would happen if we were to stay alive for ever increasing lengths of time, but with no other changes applied or experienced.

So it is the changes, the differences, to our minds activities that should facilitate the slowing down of any decline, and therefore, hopefully delaying the onset of any dementia diagnoses.

I’m quite good with my cleaning my teeth with my left had as I broke my right arm as a child - I might use it tonight!

Psilocybin mushrooms also promote neuroplasticity and are freely available in Welsh fields. Just saying 😜

Same here! So not just you 😊

It sounded to me like the same poster as the one about the Sil called Tilly ...

It will challenge your brain but there is no research to show that it prevents dementia or severe cognitive decline.

Its best if men can be ambidextrous wankers, lest they end up with one bicep noticeably larger than the other, over time.

Does the same rule apply to arse wiping?

Thats a much less vigorous activity and so probably doesnt put the same demand on muscles!

its no good if you are good at it. The whole point of the theory...and it is only a theory....is that doing something you don't normally do or doing something you normally do but not in the way you normally do it.....like parkour with sex.

I defer to your superior knowledge of such things.

oh its easier than that to delay the diagnosis - just don't go to the doctor.

Hi @Callalilly2016, using one's left hand sometimes is just a 'tool' among many other 'tools' to help keep our brains fit and active. If you enjoy crosswords then do crosswords, and use them from different sources, and different levels of activity.

One of my choices to try to keep my brain ticking over, is that I partake in the New York Times Wordle challenge nearly every day. I think it has beome quite a bit harder as they run out of new 5 letter words to use. One of their most recent word challenges - that I failed - was a word that I would defy at least 80% of wordlers (?) to choose because they actually knew what it meant. My husband actually got it right on a 'phew' because he gave up and just tried what he thought was a made up word, but it worked!

The other 'thing' that I do now, is that I am learning a new language online. However, my main reason for learning it is because we have had the blessing of a native speaker of that language join our family, and although they speak English brilliantly, I thought it would be nice for me to learn their language. Hopefully, my practising and learning a different language is also helping my brain to keep on ticking over efficiently!

So, it is almost anything that stimulates our brains naturally - not by taking drugs - that can help us delay, or even seem to stop us getting a dementia. However, in reality, if we don't die with a dementia, it will almost certainly be because we were able to put off any serious decline by enough, that it hasn't taken hold by the time we die.

Eating, physical exercise - as well as the mental exercises - keeping as healthy as possible, and enjoying life, are also important if we want to maintain our optimal health both physically and mentally.

the Viking word for "ambidextrous" translates as "shifty" and was greatly admired because it meant you could fight with your weapon in either hand.

I had a stroke 3 years ago and had to learn to do everything with my left hand. I'm excellent with scissors, a pen, a knife and brushing my teeth now... and even wiping my arse!

But no, your husband is a cock.