From Health magazine
You can’t find your glasses (they’re on your head), you forgot the morning staff meeting (it was an hour ago), and the kids are safely at school (but their lunches are still on the kitchen counter). Oh well, when you’re crazy-busy, exhausted, or valiantly multitasking from morning till night, something’s gotta give—and it’s usually your memory. Not to worry: A little memory loss is perfectly normal once you hit middle age, says Martha Weinman Lear, author of the forthcoming book Where Did I Leave My Glasses? The What, When, and Why of Normal Memory Loss. But, guess what? You don’t have to put up with it. Our 10 memory-boosting tricks will have you remembering where you parked the car in no time.
Keep track of your to-do’s
The trick: Play a mind game.
When you plan your day, tie everything together through creative visualization, sort of like telling yourself a story that draws from your appointments and errands. It may sound hokey, but it works, says Scott Hagwood, a memory contest champ and author of Memory Power: You Can Develop a Great Memory—America’s Grand Master Shows You How. “Say you have to remember to buy milk and also take your son to the dentist. You can link those tasks together by imagining your son drinking a glass of milk, and seeing the milk wash over his teeth, depositing calcium,” Hagwood says.
Ace a presentation
The trick: Stop and smell the roses.
In a recent German study, some students sniffed a rose scent as they matched pairs of cards and then were exposed to the scent again as they slept; other students didn’t get to sniff anything. When they woke up, the rose-sniffers were better at recalling the cards they had matched. To sharpen your own wits, try spraying a favorite fragrance on your sheets the night before you give that big presentation.
Remember names
The trick: Exercise your eyes.
Before you walk into your next cocktail party, move your eyes back and forth horizontally for 30 seconds. Yeah, you might look weird, but British researchers say the exercise can help you retain words (including names) you’re about to hear. The horizontal movement makes the brain’s hemispheres interact, and that’s important in memory retrieval, the experts say.
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Comments (7)
I tried to print this article on Memory, but only
the first page printed. Is it my printer doing this?
Usually it does not do this.
Read this and memorize
Memory: What’s going on when you frequently just lose the word you were about to say. Sometimes it comes in a little while, and sometimes hours, days ….or never
I think card games, I like duplicate bridge. Sudoki puzzles, I do Ma Jong on the internet and duplicate when I am not playing at the club here. Right now my exercise is limited but i do do some exercises in bed befor I get up in the morning. I am 80 now and still going strong.
I speak both French and English and have since I was a child, but lately I’ll be speaking English and only the French word will come. This hasn’t always happened, but just in the last year or two. I’m 50 and I was just wondering if this was an age problem common to other bilinguals.
I have a difficult time to remember names, I feel just like Sue”s comment, the name will come to me eventually sometimes the next day, I’m 74 years old, is this a sign of dememtia or alzeimer????
5 years ago I was hit by a drunk driver while walking in a mall parking lot, anmnd suffered a TBI.( traumatic brain injury) my memory was greatly affected, but its my visual memory. My audible memory is fine. I recognize people if they say something if they don’t I’ve got no idea. So i could use some help thanks,
Amy