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Improve Your Short-Term Memory - Tips For Mental Exercise
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Published on: 07/20/ 2008 | By: Marie Tucker
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There are exercises that improve short-term memory that are fun and have been shown to have beneficial effects. Memory is the mental activity of recalling information that you acquire through learning or experience. Memory is either short-term or long-term. Short-term memories are stored for a few seconds or minutes – just long enough to compare prices at the store or dial the telephone number.
Long-term memory is information you make an effort to retain. Information that is meaningful to you for certain reasons. It can be information about friends or family, material you are studying for a test, or something that made an impression on you such as a movie or the date of your wedding anniversary.
In a study presented in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2000 researchers reported that initial evidence of improved working memory in patients with schizophrenia following cognitive exercises. The improvements were in verbal memory but not non-verbal memory.
The areas of the brain that are important to the formation of memory are the hippocampus, amygdala and the cerebral cortex. In addition, memory also involves the communication along the network of neurons that use chemicals called neurotransmitters.
Your brain must first acquire the information, which happens only when you are paying attention. Then your brain consolidates the information for storage. In the retrieval portion of memory the brain activates the same pattern of nerve cells it used to store it. The more often you retrieve information the easier it becomes.
The key concept here is the concept of concentration or attention. Learning meditation is one of the very best ways to learn to calm your mind and to sustain focus. Otherwise, if you are sufficiently interested in the information that you want to retain then you will intuitively associate that information to other references that can help you recall the information at a later time.
There are for example, several tricks - or mental exercises - that can help improve your long-term and short-term memory. You can tailor the acquisition of the information to your learning style- visual, auditory or tactile. Involve as many of these senses as possible – if you are a visual learner, say or read the information out loud so it is also committed to auditory memory.
You can relate the information to data you already know - this is the principle of association. In other words the name of a new person is the same as your neighbours. Rehearse the information as often is as needed.
You can activate your neurons to fire in patterns that are not triggered by procedural memory. In other words you can do things that normally you do without thinking in a way that forces the brain to work harder. Improve your memory by exercising your brain through thought patterns that are unusual or unfamiliar to you.
These mental exercises include brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand, showering with your eyes closed, and getting dressed in the dark. All activities that you would normally accomplish without thinking can be done in ways that make the task a bit trickier and thus getting your neurons work harder.
You can also play mental exercise games with information that you want to remember by ‘attaching’ a visual image to the data, using the information in a sentence, putting the information into an acronym or rhyme or including the information in a joke.
All of these exercises to improve short-term memory can be used to improve your cognitive skills as well. The best thing you can do is relax and have fun because stress and tension will only decrease your memory –just the opposite of what you want! |
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