A Neurologist's Tips to Protect Your Memory
As we age, our memory declines. This is a fixed assumption for many people; however, according to neuroscientist Dr. Richard Restak, a neurologist and clinical professor, decline is not unavoidable. . Here are some of his tips for developing and maintaining a healthy memory.
Pay more attention.
Some memory declines are actually attention problems, not memory problems. For instance, if you've forgotten the name of someone you met at a cocktail party, it could be because you were talking with several people at the time.
One way to pay attention when you learn new information is to visualize the word..
Play games.
Dr. Restak's "favorite working memory game" is 20 Questions —in which a group thinks of a person, place or object, and the other person, the questioner, asks 20 questions with a yes-or-no answer. To succeed, the questioner must hold all of the previous answers in memory in order to guess the correct answer. ."Maintaining information and moving it around in your mind." Restak wrote.
Read more novels.
One early indicator of memory issues, according to Dr. Restak, is giving up on fiction. "People, when they begin to have memory difficulties, tend to switch to reading nonfiction." Fiction requires active engagement with the text, starting at the beginning and working through to the end.
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Storing everything on your phone means that "you don't know it." This can damage our own mental abilities. And the phone takes our focus away from the task at hand.
Find regular everyday memory challenges.
. Dr. Restak suggested composing a grocery list and memorizing it. When you get to the store, don't automatically pull out your list (or your phone)—instead, pick up everything according to your memory. Once in a while, get in the car without turning on your GPS, and try to navigate through the streets from memory.
A. Beware of technology
B. Sort out things on devices
C. The point is to engage your working memory
D. However, we can prevent the memory decline
E. Ultimately, "we are what we can remember," he said
F. Having a picture associated with the word can improve recall
G. There are many memory exercises that you can integrate into everyday life
