Many of the relationships you work hard to develop heavily rely on your ability to recall details. Memory loss is not a forgone conclusion for anyone! This article offers several tips that can help to sharpen your memory.
Properly employed, mnemonics can be of tremendous aid in improving your memory. Mnemonic devices are a great way to recall something. You take a bit of information and pair it with an everyday item or word, which creates a correlation that helps you better remember the information.
Pay close attention to help sharpen your memory. You may be allowing distractions and racing thoughts to get the best of your memory and consume your attention. It is important to clear your thoughts and concentrate on what is going on around you. Keep your goals and topic in mind and take notes if you have to.
Write sticky notes to help yourself remember to complete tasks. Make sure you place them in places you will look at frequently, for example next to your computer. These notes will help you remember important tasks and information.
Memory Loss
Memory loss is possibly the most tragic occurrence for an elderly person. Prescription medication is often used to help fight off signs of memory loss and dementia.
Teaching other people will increase your own memory. For instance, if you want to remember the time you taught your son to swim, tell the story more often. If you want to remember how to play the piano, teach your grandkids. The memory will become more vivid, and remain in your memory for a longer time.
Learning new things is an important lifelong activity, not just something you do in school. When you don’t learn anything new, the part of your brain that controls memory isn’t being used. Unless you keep your mind sharp, you may find it more difficult to recall information when you need it.
Try not to doubt yourself. A lot of people believe that as someone gets older, their memory starts to wane. That isn’t necessarily true. Making the assumption that you will eventually lose your memory can make it a reality. Others may tell you you’re forgetful, but question their intentions and don’t listen to them! Just believing that your memory is still good can help it greatly.
A good way to remember things that you hear or that you’re told is to actually put the information into words of your own. Think of it as rewriting someone else’s work. This way you can recall info easier. It’s very difficult for individuals to memorize any words that they don’t really understand.
Use planners and calendars. Jot everything you need to remember on your planner or calendar. Build a schedule and keep an eye on it daily. Writing these things down and looking at them will help your mind. You will have less to remember, and in the event that you can’t recall something, you will have a place to refer to.
To supplement your memory, try to rehearse or relate what you want to remember with things you already know. If you learn to tag new pieces of short term memory information onto existing long term memories, you will have an easier time of recollection. You may even be able to accelerate the rate at which you are able to commit new information to permanent memory.
Make a lot of healthy relationships in your life if you need to prevent memory loss. Research indicates that interacting with close friends and family members, even for no more than three or four hours per week, stimulates the areas of your brain associated with storing memories.
As you study, your memory can be improved by setting up a schedule that’s consistent. Stick to this schedule as you learn information through several sessions. Doing this gives you a chance to process everything you’ve read, so that your brain will be able to retain what you’ve learned. Research has demonstrated that the people who use this strategy can remember what they’ve learned much better than the people who tried to learn it all in a cram session.
Think about making a memory tree. This works particularly well for complex subjects. Form the trunk of the tree with the main facts. Then work to branch “limbs” of important details off of what you’ve already committed to memory. Tiny details can be seen as leaves sprouting from branches of more general knowledge. Organizing the information in this way can really benefit recall speed and accuracy.
Learn more than the minimum that you need on any one topic. You can remember information easier when you learn as much as possible about it. For instance, in order to remember the definition of a particular term, study a more detailed explanation of its meaning.
Relate new material to something you already know. As you’re reading new material and are attempting to retain it, it helps a lot if you can relate new material to other things that you’re already familiar with. Linking the new item to other items in your information network allows you to bootstrap recall by leveraging previously learned information.
If you have a large quantity of information you need to remember, organize things in related categories rather than studying random clusters of information. Research studies have shown that there is a greater likelihood of the subject being retained into your memory when organizing yourself in this way.
People laugh at the idea of forgetting birthdays or anniversaries, but it isn’t so funny when you’re the one who has forgotten them. These minor instances may be the beginning of your memory fading away. Apply what you have learned in this article to slow down this process and recall the memories you have lost.