The simplest strategy for remembering to do something in the future does work.
Five memory hacks, including: the power of linking strange memories for better recall.
Boosting your recall is simpler than you think.
Instead of relying on complicated techniques or intense concentration, these five easy memory hacks can help you recall information more effectively.
From reading things out loud to linking them with quirky memories, and even not writing things down, these methods might seem unconventional, but they work.
Simply reading something out loud is the easiest way to boost your memory.
The action of speaking something out loud and hearing yourself say it helps boost long-term memory.
Psychologists call this ‘the production effect’: we remember things better when we read them out loud than when we read silently to ourselves.
Memories that last a lifetime need to be linked to lots of other memories, plus they need to be a bit weird.
Professor Per Sederberg, an expert on memory, thinks the idea of peculiarity is vital to understanding memory:
“You have to build a memory on the scaffolding of what you already know, but then you have to violate the expectations somewhat.
It has to be a little bit weird.”
This ‘scaffolding’ means connections to other memories, and weird memories stand out more.
Clustered recall is the key to remembering what really happened, eyewitness research finds.
This means remembering things from one category at a time.
So, if you were trying to remember what you did last Thursday, start with the location and concentrate on that.
Next, remember everything you can about what you were doing, next what people said, and so on.
The study used the same technique to test people’s memory for a video of a woman being mugged.
Making notes can actually reduce what you remember.
In a reverse of what many people expect, writing down information causes it to be flushed from memory.
We seem to intentionally forget what we write down.
So, be careful what you make a note of, especially if you think you might lose the notes!
Telling someone else a piece of information helps you to remember more.
People in the study who immediately told others a piece of information could remember more later and they remembered it for longer.
Trying to explain the information to someone else can be tiring, but the effort is worth it.
How to reduce memories of negative events.
How to reduce memories of negative events.
Consciously trying to suppress emotions helps people forget bad memories, research finds.
People in the study found it harder to recall a negative image a week later if they were told to suppress it.
The study’s authors also tested a form of implicit or unconscious suppression.
This involves suggesting to someone that they should forget a negative memory.
The results showed this also worked, but was not as powerful as explicitly trying to suppress a negative memory.
Professor Sanda Dolcos, who led the study, said:
“Our interest in conducting this study started with a desire to identify alternative ways to help people with depression.
Friends and family of depressed people often say, ‘Get yourself together and control your emotions,’ but this is not so easy.
That’s why we are interested in implicit, or unconscious, emotional suppression.”
Brain scans revealed that emotional suppression reduced activity in the amygdala, an area of the brain critical for emotional processing.
People reported finding the negative images less troubling when they were told to suppress their emotions.
Mr Yuta Katsumi, the study’s first author, said:
“People with depression or other mood disorders tend to have trouble distancing themselves from their negative memories.
If we can help them remember less or forget those negative memories, then maybe they can reallocate that attention to something more positive in their lives.”
The study involved 17 people having fMRI brain scans while looking at images.
People were tested again a week later to track changes in the brain.
Mr Katsumi said:
“Suppressing emotions appears to reduce negative memories, whether you do that consciously or unconsciously.
But explicit emotional suppression takes effort.
You have to have enough cognitive resources to do that, and people with clinical conditions might not be able to afford those resources.”
The study was published in the journal Neuropsychologia (Katsumi et al., 2018).
Supplementation of this natural mineral can reverse memory loss and cognitive deficits.
Supplementation of this natural mineral can reverse memory loss and cognitive deficits.
Selenium is an essential nutrient found in many foods such as brazil nuts, fish, eggs, long-grain brown rice, beef, chicken, and milk.
This powerful antioxidant is important for our immune system, metabolism, thyroid function, and cognitive health.
According to a study, selenium can reverse the cognitive problems after a stroke and improve cognitive function including memory and learning.
Past studies have found that physical activity slows down age-related cognitive decline.
Exercise elevates the levels of upregulated proteins in the blood and one is selenoprotein P (SEPP1) that transports selenium to the brain.
Dr Tara Walker, the study’s senior author, said:
“We’ve known for the last 20 years that exercise can create new neurons in the brain, but we didn’t really understand how.”
The researchers wanted to know whether selenium supplements can mimic the effects of exercise on the aging brain.
In this experiment, mice were given Seleno-L-methionine (a form of selenium) for a month.
Dr Walker said:
“Our models showed that selenium supplementation could increase neuron generation and improve cognition in elderly mice.
The levels of new neuron generation decrease rapidly in aged mice, as they do in humans.
When selenium supplements were given to the mice, the production of neurons increased, reversing the cognitive deficits observed in aging.”
The research team also examined if selenium can reverse memory loss and improve learning function in people with brain injury after a stroke.
Dr Walker said:
“Young mice are really good at the learning and memory tasks, but after a stroke, they could no longer perform these tasks.
We found that learning and memory deficits of stroke affected mice returned to normal when they were given selenium supplements.”
However, a high intake of selenium supplementation in the long-term can cause serious health issue, thus, foods containing selenium seem to be a much better option.
Nuts, seafoods, legumes, eggs, whole grains, meat, and dairy products all contain selenium and so they can easily be added to the diet of the elderly and those with disability who are unable to exercise.
Dr Walker added:
“Selenium supplements shouldn’t be seen as a complete substitute for exercise, and too much can be bad for you.
A person who is getting a balanced diet of fruits, nuts, veggies and meat usually has good selenium levels.
But in older people, particularly those with neurological conditions, selenium supplements could be beneficial.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Metabolism (Leiter et al., 2022).
Usually when we recall emotional memories, the brain pumps out stressful neurochemicals…
Usually when we recall emotional memories, the brain pumps out stressful neurochemicals…
One of the purposes of dreaming is to take the edge off emotional memories, research suggests.
While dreaming, which we do during 20% of our sleep, the brain chemistry related to stress powers down.
This enables us to process emotional memories without the same jolts of fear and anxiety.
People in the study who looked at a series of emotional images felt much less disturbed by them after sleeping.
Those who looked at them in the morning first, then in the evening, without sleeping, reported a higher emotional reaction.
Brain scans also showed lower emotional reactivity in the amygdalas of those who slept.
Dr Matthew Walker, who led the study, said:
“The dream stage of sleep, based on its unique neurochemical composition, provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day’s emotional experiences.”
The research was inspired by the treatment of war veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.
This type of dream therapy may be inefficient in veterans since when a…
“…flashback is triggered by, say, a car backfiring, they relive the whole visceral experience once again because the emotion has not been properly stripped away from the memory during sleep.”
Dr Els van der Helm, the study’s first author, said:
“During REM sleep, memories are being reactivated, put in perspective and connected and integrated, but in a state where stress neurochemicals are beneficially suppressed.”
Dr Walker explained that the research was inspired by the side-effect of a blood pressure drug.
It happened to reduce levels of norepinephrine in the brain.
Dr Walker said:
“We know that during REM sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress.
By reprocessing previous emotional experiences in this neuro-chemically safe environment of low norepinephrine during REM sleep, we wake up the next day, and those experiences have been softened in their emotional strength.
We feel better about them, we feel we can cope.”
The study was published in the journal Current Biology (ven der Helm et al., 2011).
Memory loss is known as the classic sign of Alzheimer’s, but it isn’t always the first symptom.
Memory loss is known as the classic sign of Alzheimer’s, but it isn’t always the first symptom.
Although memory loss is often thought the first sign of Alzheimer’s, for many that isn’t the case.
In fact, difficulties with problem-solving or language can mark the disease’s onset in the under-60s, a study finds.
The conclusion comes from an analysis of almost 8,000 Alzheimer’s patients.
One in four were mainly complaining of problems unrelated to memory, the study found.
Dr Josephine Barnes, the study’s lead author, told Reuters:
“Non-memory first cognitive symptoms were more common in younger Alzheimer’s disease patients.
Tests which explore and investigate these non-memory cognitive problems should be used so that non-memory deficits are not overlooked.”
The research found that the younger people were when first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the more likely they were to have non-memory problems.
Also, the younger people were, the more likely that depression was a symptom.
The study, conducted at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, was published in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia (Barnes et al., 2015)
Can you remember anything from before the age of three?
The Zeigarnik effect is the psychological finding that people remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones.
The Zeigarnik effect is the psychological finding that people remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones.
The definition of the Zeigarnik effect is that people remember unfinished tasks or activities better than those that are finished.
When a task is finished or completed it tends to leave memory.
The Zeigarnik effect also provides a key to one of the simplest methods for beating procrastination.
The Zeigarnik effect was named after a Russian psychologist, Bluma Zeigarnik, who noticed an odd thing while sitting in a restaurant in Vienna.
What she noticed was that the waiters seemed only to remember orders which were in the process of being served.
When completed, the orders evaporated from their memory.
Zeigarnik went back to the lab to test out a theory about what was going on.
She asked participants to do twenty or so simple little tasks in the lab, like solving puzzles and stringing beads (Zeigarnik, 1927).
Except some of the time they were interrupted half way through the task.
Afterwards she asked them which activities they remembered doing.
People were about twice as likely to remember the tasks during which they’d been interrupted than those they completed.
What does this have to do with procrastination? I’ll give you another clue…
Almost sixty years later Kenneth McGraw and colleagues carried out another test of the Zeigarnik effect (McGraw et al., 1982).
In it participants had to do a really tricky puzzle; except they were interrupted before any of them could solve it and told the study was over.
Despite this nearly 90 percent carried on working on the puzzle anyway.
One of the oldest tricks in the TV business for keeping viewers tuned in to a serial week after week is the cliffhanger.
The hero seems to have fallen off a mountain but the shot cuts away before you can be sure.
And then those fateful words: “TO BE CONTINUED…”
Literally a cliffhanger.
You tune in next week for the resolution because the mystery is ticking away in the back of your mind.
The great English novelist Charles Dickens used exactly the same technique.
Many of his works, like Oliver Twist, although later published as complete novels, were originally serialised.
His cliff-hangers created such anticipation in people’s minds that his American readership would wait at New York docks for the latest instalment to arrive by ship from Britain.
They were that desperate to find out what happened next.
What all these examples have in common is that when people manage to start something they’re more inclined to finish it.
Procrastination bites worst when we’re faced with a large task that we’re trying to avoid starting.
It might be because we don’t know how to start or even where to start.
What the Zeigarnik effect teaches is that one weapon for beating procrastination is starting somewhere…anywhere.
Don’t start with the hardest bit, try something easy first.
If you can just get under way with any part of a project, then the rest will tend to follow.
Once you’ve made a start, however trivial, there’s something drawing you on to the end.
It will niggle away in the back of your mind like a Lost cliff-hanger.
Although the technique is simple, we often forget it because we get so wrapped up in thinking about the most difficult parts of our projects.
The sense of foreboding can be a big contributor to procrastination.
The Zeigarnik effect has an important exception.
It doesn’t work so well when we’re not particularly motivated to achieve our goal or don’t expect to do well.
This is true of goals in general: when they’re unattractive or impossible we don’t bother with them.
But if we value the goal and think it’s possible, just taking a first step could be the difference between failure and success.
Memory problems could be partly responsible for obesity among people consuming this diet.
Memory problems could be partly responsible for obesity among people consuming this diet.
A Western-style diet stops critical memory functions from working properly, a study finds.
People who habitually eat unhealthy foods showed slower learning and poorer memory.
A Western-style diet typically involves eating more red meats, junk foods and saturated fats and less fresh vegetables, grains and seafood.
The damage caused to memory may also be a cause of obesity.
For the study, people who typically ate a Western-style diet seemed not to ‘remember’ that they were full.
Even when they had just eaten, they were always ready to snack.
Dr Tuki Attuquayefio, the study’s first author, said:
“Even though they were full, they still wanted to eat the sweet and fatty junk food.
What was even more interesting was that this effect was strongly related to their performance on the learning and memory task, suggesting that there is a link between the two via the hippocampus.”
The hippocampus is an area of the brain critical to learning and memory.
Studies on animals have now shown that a high-fat and high-sugar diet causes problems with memory inhibition in the hippocampus.
Memory inhibition is our ability to block out memories that are no longer useful.
For example, when we are not hungry, it should be harder for us to think about food.
But, the Western-style diet causes problems with this.
So that even when people have just eaten, they are still attracted to tempting foods.
This creates a kind of vicious circle.
Unhealthy eating leads to poor memory, which also leads to more unhealthy eating.
Fortunately, animal studies also suggest that these memory and learning problems can be reversed relatively quickly.
The study was published in the journal Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition (Attuquayefio et al., 2016).
The age at which people typically start to have problems remembering details.
The age at which people typically start to have problems remembering details.
People typically begin to have difficulties remembering details — like where they left the keys — in their 40s.
The cause, though, could be less about a decline in brain function, and more about a change in the way memories are formed and retrieved.
Research shows that older adults focus more on what is relevant to them, rather than paying attention to external details.
Focusing on external details could help promote healthy cognitive aging.
Dr Natasha Rajah, one of the study’s authors, said:
“This change in memory strategy with age may have detrimental effects on day-to-day functions that place emphasis on memory for details such as where you parked your car or when you took your prescriptions.”
People aged 19 to 76-years-old were shown a series of faces and had to recall where they appeared on the screen, while their brains were scanned.
The results showed that younger people really paid attention, with their visual cortices running on overdrive, Dr Rajah said:
“They are really paying attention to the perceptual details in order to make that decision.”
Older people, though, showed lower activation in the visual cortex.
Instead, their medial prefrontal cortices were more active.
This area is related to introspection and aspects of one’s own life.
Younger people performed better on the task — but the reason may be because of what older people choose to focus on.
Dr Rajah said:
“This may not be a ‘deficit’ in brain function per se, but reflects changes in what adults deem ‘important information’ as they age.”
Older people can learn to improve their memory by focusing on external details rather than internal information, Dr Rajah said:
“That may be why some research has suggested that mindfulness meditation is related to better cognitive aging.”
Hormonal influences are currently being tested as another explanation:
“At mid-life women are going through a lot of hormonal change.
So we’re wondering how much of these results is driven by post-menopausal women.”
The study was published in the journal NeuroImage (Ankudowich et al., 2016).
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