Helping your hippocampus

[SusanJ]

Turn off your GPS, and get lost sometimes.

Ditch the GPS. It’s ruining your brain.

Here's the Nature article he references.

Having just moved to a new city, my hippocampus is getting a major workout!

[TheresaB]

I've been told to get lost before. Gosh I had no idea they were actually trying to help me.

[circular]

I've been told to get lost before. Gosh I had no idea they were actually trying to help me.

[Creekside]

I do pretty well getting lost when I travel...but here on the Front Range, anytime I see the mountains I know which way is west!

[NF52]

Having watched students who are legally blind learn how to navigate by mental maps, I am in awe of the capacity to do that. However, in rush-hour D.C. or Boston traffic, I don't want to have to access my hippocampus when construction has blown a hole in my mental map. Those folks in London weren't contending with double-decker buses in their virtual exercise.

[thjj]

This is good for me as I have a bad sense of direction (also runs in the family). Nevertheless, I have never owned a GPS but always use maps because:

• I love maps
  I feel like using a map improves my sense of direction (wires my brain, so to speak)

[WhatNext]

Having gotten horribly lost many times throughout my life, having Google Maps on my phone has felt life-changing. That said, I realized a while back that I've become so dependent on it that in spite of having driven to my son's in-laws' house MANY times I still wasn't confident I could get there without navigation. I've started trying to be mindful of the route and making a memory challenge of it. Not saying I'll turn off the navigation though, just in case. I live in the DC metro area and you never know when something is going to roll over on the Beltway and you're going to need an escape route.

WhatNext

[thjj]

Having gotten horribly lost many times throughout my life, having Google Maps on my phone has felt life-changing. That said, I realized a while back that I've become so dependent on it that in spite of having driven to my son's in-laws' house MANY times I still wasn't confident I could get there without navigation. I've started trying to be mindful of the route and making a memory challenge of it. Not saying I'll turn off the navigation though, just in case. I live in the DC metro area and you never know when something is going to roll over on the Beltway and you're going to need an escape route.

WhatNext

I know what you mean by becoming dependent on your gps. I think it was several years ago on the news, there was a group of women in an suv who weren't paying attention to the road but entirely on their gps, that they ended up literally driving into a lake!

[floramaria]

I love this line from the Washington Post article : And by turning our attention to the physical landscape that sustains and connects us, we can nourish “topophilia,” a sense of attachment and love for place.
I am now adding topophilia to my list of favorite new words!
I have always loved getting off well-known trails, exploring and finding new routes when I am hiking. Good to know that I am improving my hippocampus and nourishing my topophilia as well as having fun.

[mike]

I am now adding topophilia to my list of favorite new words!

I thought that was just an elevation map of Philly...