National Train Your Brain Day

National Train Your Brain Day.

I know what you're thinking. What will he think of next? The fact is that today is National Train Your Brain Day. What kind of topic for discussion is that? It's a kind of no brainer if you'll forgive the unintended pun. More of a brainwave. Oh, alright then this is one of those perhaps insignificant days when nothing of any real interest will be taking place apart  of course from those vexing issues that really do wind us up from time to time such as Brexit, Donald Trump's leg measurements and Theresa May's innovative dancing routines.

Yes indeed. Today is National Train Your Brain Day whereby a whole nation of crossword puzzle enthusiasts, Sudoko zealots, word game fans and those who are simply partial to the most complicated  mathematical equations sit down together, stare thoughtfully into their respective books or pieces of paper and wonder exactly what goes through the cerebral senses when the brain and mind clock on for another shift at the coal face on a daily basis.

So what, you may be interested to know, goes on in that grey matter of ours when we're confronted with seemingly insoluble problems that require intensive thinking and cool calculation. Isn't it interesting how the human brain takes on board so much information during the day that by the end of it, a sense of mental exhaustion probably sets in without any of us being remotely conscious of it?

Back in the 1980s there was the famous Rubik's Cube, a fascinating object that looked like a cube and had different colours on it, driving most of us to the verge of drink and sleepless nights. The Rubik's Cube required us to match up four squares on a cube without drifting into a state of complete agitation and anger. At the time though we thought it was one of those passing toy fads that would meet the same fate as any other infuriating novelty that would drive us around the bend.

But for ages the whole of world was tormented, challenged, angered and outraged by the Rubik's Cube, an object of hate, enjoyment in some quarters and then contempt by others when you just couldn't work out why it was taking an inordinate amount of time to sort it out . So it was that one day we consigned it to the dustbin of history, obliterated it from our crowded brain and just stuck to crossword puzzles.

For a while the thought of twisting around reds, blues, greens and yellows to their appropriate places must have seemed an insane waste of a day because you were never likely to achieve anything of substance by twiddling with a crazy toy that didn't really seem to prove anything. Even the Hungarian inventor got ever so slightly cross with himself at his complete inability to solve his own creation. Or so we were led to believe at the time.

For many though perhaps the most satisfying of brain challenges would have to be The Times cryptic crossword. Now here was something to get your teeth into. The Times cryptic crossword has sent most of our brightest minds into both the coldest of sweats and reaching for a Thesaurus. The fact is that the Times crossword can be completed and many a mind, both deeply contemplative and serious of thought, has found there was nothing to it and proudly owned up to the fact that it had taken them no time at all. Simple really they will tell you.

But the Times crossword would have to be much cleverer, thought provoking and cunning than the conventional and simple tea time break crossword. It sets up those obscure and convoluted statements and remarkable plays on words that look as though they were designed for professors and scientists. Suddenly, training the brain takes on a whole new meaning. This is brain training on the most gigantic scale.

Coming right up to the present day though and one brain training puzzle has gripped the world in a way that few have been able to do for quite some time. It's called Sudoko and it's a mathematical conundrum that leaves some of us desperately begging for enlightenment. For the best part of an eternity it has left me in a dizzying state of incomprehension. Maths just wasn't my thing, not my forte as they say. Sudoko, although seemingly logical and straightforward to the mind of a mathematician, is just beyond me. Maybe now this is the time though to try harder and concentrate but at the moment the inclination is not there.

For the moment though this could be the time to reflect on how much we take the brain for granted. All of those brain teasers and puzzles are all very well but is it really necessary to stress ourselves out over the most trivial questions and imponderables? Do we really have to convince ourselves that when it comes to crossword puzzles we should treat them as some inoffensive fun where it no longer matters whether you can actually solve them or not?

Still, the next time you begin to pepper questions at the most influential part of the human anatomy you may be interested to know that perhaps the brain is a delicate and vulnerable mechanism that only responds to you favourably when it knows that you're posing it inquiries that it can answer at the snap of the finger. Oh, if only I could begin to understand the Times Crossword. Still, there's always Sudoko. On second thoughts maybe not.