Memory...or lack thereof

We all know how difficult it is to remember so many different things and it only gets worse with age.I never thought that I would be having (small) difficulties remembering things at the age of 18. But trying to remember that you have a French test on Friday, a paper due Monday, dinner reservations on Thursday at 5:30, a meeting with your advisor on Tuesday at 12:15 and everything else on top of that can be a challenge. And yes, this is this is my schedule for the rest of the week. And I have to admitt that it's hard to always remember these things espically when I'm trying to remember everything I reviewed last night for my French test. So when Professor Cary (my adv professor, the one this blog is for) mentioned memory in class I knew that this would be benificial for me (which it has), so I figured that it would help other people too.

1. Ten tips on how to improve your memory:
1. be active. Try studying in different ways to get your mind going. Make studying interesting and different.
2. sort/organize what you learn into cateogories. This will make it easier to recall the information.
3. exercise. Not only your mind but your body as well.
4. repeat, repeat, repeat. One of the best ways to remember something is by repeating it until you remember it. Repetition also works by seeing something over and over again.
5. be patient.
2. pseudo forgetting- you never really learned the information to begin with. Your learning of that material was never complete. You may have
3. Three theories about why we forget things:
1. Never actually learned it. You may think that by mearly reading over a text a few times before an exam that you have done enough to ensure that you know the material, but in actuality just reading over something isn't very effective.
2. Cramming. Although it has been shown that cramming before a test or exam will help you retain some of the information, it will not help you remember everything. ( I love how the majority of college students are aware of this, yet still wait till the last minute to do everything)
3. Interference. When studying you are reaching into your long-term memory storehouse and get out the wrong information that you were looking for.
4.  "In 24 hours we forget 52% of the information if we do not review."
5. The MOST important thing in having a good memory is that it involves both putting information into memory and getting it back out (storage and retrieval).
6. 10 Foods to Help You Boost Your Memory: Studies show that certain foods can actually help you boost your memory in addition to the 10 tips listed above. Among the list are blueberries, coffee, apples, grapes, orange juice. Unfortunately (for me at least) fish, onions, spinach and collard greens made the list as well.
7. Another way to boost your memory would be to take vitamins. I would recommend something such as the Flintstone Gummy Vitamins, not only are they utterly delicious, but vitamins have been shown to help stimulate the mind and prevent memory loss. (I know it's hard to resist eating the whole container at one time, but sticking to eating 2 a day will give you the extra memory boost you need)

Links:

1. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1738621,00.html
2. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2007-03-12-memory-first_N.htm
3. http://michaelgr.com/2008/09/13/mit-study-human-memory-capacity-much-bigger-than-previously-thought/