Memory Tips

Photo by Natalie Maynor

Short term memory presents us with two challenges:  (1) keeping track of 'disposable items' long enough to use them: and (2) transferring 'keeper' items into long term memory.  Disposable items include a phone number on a voice mail or choices in a phone bank.  As we get older, short term working memory gets less efficient.  Some form of note taking is the easiest solution to those 'disposable' items. 

Remembering names has always been a challenge for me.  I'm actually better at it now than ever because I've learned some techniques to give information a nudge into long term memory.  I've reviewed several sources to identify the techniques.  Most come down to some version of what Dr. Gary Small calls Look--Snap--Connect. (Drs Andrew Weil and Gary Small, The Healthy Brain Kit, 2007, Body & Soul Omnimedia).

LOOK.  Pay attention.  Actively observe what you want to remember.  With names, pay attention to the sound of the name, look carefully at the person's face.  Repeat the name.  Ask for further information if possible.  "Is that Irish?  How is it spelled?" 

SNAP.  Take a mental snapshot.  In your imagination write the name in the air over the person's head. 

CONNECT.  Relate your mental snapshot to another image, preferably one suggested by the name or by some quirk that you noticed about the person.  My young nephew recently came up with a good example when he discovered I'd never learned the difference between the muppets Bert and Ernie.  "Here's the deal," he explained.  "Ernie's head is an egg; Bert's a banana."

I use a form of this method whenever I leave the house.  I call it, "Are we ready to go on the b-b-bus."  The corresponding mental image has my badge, billfold, and bus card all on a bus being driven by my mobile phone.

Brain Back Up Plan

My scores on the Lumosity games have humbled me.  It's a good thing I have a brain back up plan to help fill in those little memory gaps.  Actually, I used to have little gaps on the road to remembering such things as names and the location of needed items.  Lately, those little gaps are more like the big potholes that have plagued Minneapolis drivers this spring.
My solution for lost items has been to create an 'object central'.  A desk organizer in a previous life, it now has a prominent place on a room divider in the center of my home.  I'm training myself to deposit watch, keys, misc jewelry, stray pens and other miscellany there.  It seems to work really great--unless I'm really desperate to find something and Murphy's law is operating.
I've also taken to making lists, a practice religiously avoided in the past since I'd noticed that putting an item on the list brought the same sense of accomplishment as actually doing the task.  The lists I'm gathering have less to do with tasks that definitely need doing, and more to do with remembering little things--like a book that sounds interesting or the name of a movie recommended by a friend or a website that is referenced in an article.
Next time--the big bug-a-boos:  Names and misc effemera.  (I read an article that suggested learning and using a new word every day will keep you sharp.  My word of the day is effemera which refers to things that need to be retained for only a limited time--such as where you parked your car at the shopping center.)

Updates

Since my previous post on brain games http://wisewellsenior.blogspot.com/2010_03_17_archive.html I've discovered the Lumosity web site.  Give it a try!  http://www.lumosity.com/

Here's an update on Collin http://wisewellsenior.blogspot.com/2010_03_04_archive.html.  He's been home now for several weeks and doing great.  His mom reports that he runs all over and the blue tinge has been replaced by pink cheeks.  She's also changed his usual bedtime ritual of bundling up his feet and legs and arms to keep him warm.  With his new circulation, all the bundling makes him too hot.

A Certain Unrelenting Optimism

Photo by alan cleaver

Crossword puzzles remind me of my mom in happier days before her struggle with Parkinson's disease and her descent into confusion.  I remember, too, the laughter that punctuated that long slide.  Laughter marking battles won even as we lost the war.  Comic relief.  Tender humor.  Alternative to tears.
Not that Mom ever had much time for crossword puzzles with a husband and 13 children to care for.  During a very lean time in our family's life,  the Des Moines Register published "Prizeword Pete."  By solving a seemingly simple puzzle, you could get a lot of money.  Enough money, it seemed to me, to solve all our problems.
"Look at this," she said to me, holding out the Sunday paper page.  We pored over it together, then, certain that we had it right, we sent it to the paper.  What a week that was!  Would the good news come by phone or mail?  Be announced in the next Sunday's paper?
The puzzle was a trick, the clues red herrings.  Nobody won.  Mom was undaunted.  "Look, there's a new puzzle.  We can try again."
The experience cultivated the crossword puzzle gene in me--and a certain, unrelenting optimism.  Mom's experience in her later years has cultivated my interest in brain function.