This happened only yesterday. Despite taking the help of sticky
notes to help me remember them, I was not able to remember
passwords, the titles of a couple of books and the fact that I had
to take a pair of trousers with me. This set me worrying and I have
since taken note of the suggestions on HowStuffWorks to improve my
memory. I wish to review some of the methods or tips mentioned
there and though I cannot guarantee that all of them will surely
help you, they are definitely worth trying out. You can look at
them and decide on a combination of some of them depending on the
lifestyle you are currently leading.
So here goes.
Alcohol has this strange property of making you feel good for
that moment and you really feel you are on top of the world. It
does help you forget your troubles and worries but that feeling is
pretty temporary. Once you are back to your senses, you begin to
wonder how and why you did some of the things you did and may also
start forgetting things gradually. It can thus have a deleterious
effect on your memory.
The positive news is that drinking occasionally may be useful
and some research has indicated that moderate drinkers tend to have
better memory and have been able to perform better when subjected
to certain memory tests. Their cognitive abilities have also been
found to be even better than non drinkers and those who drink
heavily.
Not many are aware that prolonged bouts of depression leads to
an increase in the levels of cortisol and that in turn has a pretty
bad effect on the hippocampus or the place that helps you get rid
of short-term memory. This will make it tough for you to remember
new things.
So while it is indeed difficult to shake off depression, it
might be worthwhile to identify the root cause and seek expert help
as well as guidance to help you come out of it through appropriate
remedial measures.
Do not be lazy and avoid physical exercise as that will only
make matters worse and over time as you become a couch potato, you
will begin to experience drastic memory loss problems. The human
brain needs to get its quota of chemicals, proper blood supply and
other nutrients and that can happen only when the body is active.
When you exercise and this need not be power lifting or heavy
weight lifting exercises. You only need to walk briskly daily for
about half an hour or do some floor exercises or aerobics to ensure
that you sweat enough and allow the release of endorphins. These
feel good chemicals directly impacts your memory retention ability
and hectic physical exercise ensures that the flow of blood to the
brain is regular and consistent. When the blood flow is consistent,
the supply of oxygen is also good and that keeps the memory cells
active. Exercise is beneficial for your whole body.
The methods suggested in HowStuffWorks for the visualization
process would seem a bit odd but the idea is to understand the
concept and how it can benefit you.
Suppose you position your eyeglasses on a dining table. Now you
should imagine that these eyeglasses are actually eating the food
on the table. Your brain will now park the image in its bank. This
should help you in future remember where you had kept your
eyeglasses as the image of your eyeglasses eating food is something
very unusual and therefore you are unlikely to forget it.
This suggestion appears to be a very obvious one but you would
be surprised as to how many people are not able to follow this
simple tip. People tend to just hear and not listen since they are
easily distracted by something or the other that happens around
them. For instance, if you are watching TV and also listening to
what your friend is saying, it is likely that your brain would not
be able to recall everything that your pal mentioned. However, if
you had paid undivided attention to him, it is more than likely
that you would be able to recount what he told you with greater
accuracy.
All of us do face this problem of not being able to recall
certain names – first or last. That is because we have tried to
memorize them without linking those words to anything similar. If
you are able to do this, you will find that the chances of you
forgetting names will go down drastically. All you have to do is
link a particular word with a similar sounding word. For instance
somebody with a last name of Purdy can be linked to pretty. It may
appear to be quite ridiculous but can be very useful.
Another technique which helps is lumping words or numbers in
particular together. For example if you have a problem with
remembering telephone numbers, then you can try to remember those
numbers in chunks. These are better stored by your brain and you
would be able to recall them much sooner than bigger strings of
information. You may also add specific words to the string for
added effect and better recollection ability.
This person was known to use a method called loci or the
technique of associating locations to information he wanted to
remember. Hannibal Lecter would visualize the look of the location
and picturize objects placed within the location in order to make
it convenient for him to remember stuff. You too can similarly
associate the look of a home or street to associate those with the
information you wish to remember.
You need to make better use of the environment around you and be
aware of the things lying around to help you memorize or remember
tasks. You will have to deliberately place those objects within
sight as well. For instance, if you wish to make a copy of
something onto a CD, then you can keep the blank one on your table
so that the next time you see it, you will remember that you
intended to take a copy.
They say that practice makes perfect. So if you wish to remember
a telephone number then you need to keep repeating the number as
often as you can so that your brain is able to store it. You can
test it by trying to recall the number after some time and if you
are still not able to recollect, it means you need to repeat it
some more times till you get it right.
The above methods are sure to be of great help to you
and you only need to give them some time to produce the desired
results.
