A Need for Mental Exercise

When I was a kid I used to love doing the word find puzzles. I would get my pencil, scan the words, and circle the answers with hardly a hesitation. I could see words backwards on the diagonal as easily as I could spot them forward across. I was sure if there was a contest somewhere I would have won it hands down. Of course, the teen years changed all that and I forgot about doing the puzzles until about a month ago. Since I spend an awful lot of time alone, and I am getting up in age, and I find myself wandering to a room and then haven't a clue why I went there, I figured that I needed some mental exercise. I bought a bathroom word find puzzler and I have been doing one a day since. You can imagine the horror at finding that it took about an hour for me to find 44 words the first time I did it... after all I was a champ. I have been slowly getting better, but I must admit I have some distractions that I didn't have back in the day. I have to wear reading glasses and since I never wore glasses before, they are constantly slipping down, not to mention that if I move my head a certain way the page blurs and I lose my place. Secondly, as a kid, the word finds were fair... no letter could be used more than once. The word find I have makes you use letters from words already found... not really fair for a messy circler like me. Lastly, I think my right brain has completely taken over, as the only way I seem to find the words now is by nonchalantly scanning around, and usually when I'm scanning for a word, I will found something else on the list instead... it's kinda creepy. As a kid I had a method. I would hone in on the the rarest letter in the word and then search all the letters around it. I also used the board and it's layout to see what spots looked empty... but those tricks don't work anymore. Although I never cheat... even if I have to sit there in humiliation for an hour... sometimes I feel like it, and then I feel guilty for even thinking about cheating. So much extraneous thinking occurs while searching for the words, I'm wondering if I might have a focus problem. I could go on with excuses, but the grown up in me needs to admit that I've grown rusty and I'm no longer a word find champion... and I'm still a poor loser.