Memory is the process of maintaining information over time. (Matlin, 2005)Memory is the means by which we draw on our past experiences in order to use this information in the present (Sternberg, 1999).Memory is the term given to the structures and processes involved in the storage and subsequent retrieval of information.Memory is essential to all our lives. Without a memory of the past we cannot operate in the present or think about the future. We would not be able to remember what we did yesterday, what we have done today or what we plan to do tomorrow. Without memory we could not learn anything.Memory is involved in processing vast amounts of information. This information takes many different forms, e.g. images, sounds or meaning.For psychologists the term memory covers three important aspects of information processing:statges of memory1. Memory EncodingWhen information comes into our memory system (from sensory input), it needs to be changed into a form that the system can cope with, so that it can be stored. Think of this as similar to changing your money into a different currency when you travel from one country to another. For example, a word which is seen (in a book) may be stored if it is changed (encoded) into a sound or a meaning (i.e. semantic processing).There are three main ways in which information can be encoded (changed):1. Visual (picture)2. Acoustic (sound)3. Semantic (meaning)For example, how do you remember a telephone number you have looked up in the phone book? If you can see it then you are using visual coding, but if you are repeating it to yourself you are using acoustic coding (by sound).Evidence suggests that this is the principle coding system in short term memory (STM) is acoustic coding. When a person is presented with a list of numbers and letters, they will try to hold them in STM by rehearsing them (verbally). Rehearsal is a verbal process regardless of whether the list of items is presented acoustically (someone reads them out), or visually (on a sheet of paper).The principle encoding system in long term memory (LTM) appears to be semantic coding (by meaning). However, information in LTM can also be coded both visually and acoustically.2. Memory StorageThis concerns the nature of memory stores, i.e. where the information is stored, how long the memory lasts for (duration), how much can be stored at any time (capacity) and what kind of information is held. The way we store information affects the way we retrieve it. There has been a significant amount of research regarding the differences between Short Term Memory (STM ) and Long Term Memory (LTM).Most adults can store between 5 and 9 items in their short-term memory. Miller (1956) put this idea forward and he called it the magic number 7. He though that short-term memory capacity was 7 (plus or minus 2) items because it only had a certain number of slots in which items could be stored. However, Miller didnt specify the amount of information that can be held in each slot. Indeed, if we can chunk information together we can store a lot more information in our short-term memory. In contrast the capacity of LTM is thought to be unlimited.Information can only be stored for a brief duration in STM (0-30 seconds), but LTM can last a lifetime.3. Memory RetrievalThis refers to getting information out storage. If we cant remember something, it may be because we are unable to retrieve it. When we are asked to retrieve something from memory, the differences between STM and LTM become very clear.STM is stored and retrieved sequentially. For example, if a group of participants are given a list of words to remember, and then asked to recall the fourth word on the list, participants go through the list in the order they heard it in order to retrieve the information.LTM is stored and retrieved by association. This is why you can remember what you went upstairs for if you go back to the room where you first thought about it.Organizing information can help aid retrieval. You can organize information in sequences (such as alphabetically, by size or by time). Imagine a patient being discharged from hospital whose treatment involved taking various pills at various times, changing their dressing and doing exercises. If the doctor gives these instructions in the order which they must be carried out throughout the day (i.e. in sequence of time), this will help the patient remember them.Criticisms of Memory ExperimentsA large part of the research on memory is based on experiments conducted in laboratories. Those who take part in the experiments - the participants - are asked to perform tasks such as recalling lists of words and numbers. Both the setting - the laboratory - and the tasks are a long way from everyday life. In many cases, the setting is artificial and the tasks fairly meaningless. Does this matter?Psychologists use the term ecological validity to refer to the extent to which the findings of research studies can be generalized to other settings. An experiment has high ecological validity if its findings can be generalized, that is applied or extended, to settings outside the laboratory.It is often assumed that if an experiment is realistic or true-to-life, then there is a greater likelihood that its findings can be generalized. If it is not realistic (if the laboratory setting and the tasks are artificial) then there is less likelihood that the findings can be generalized. In this case, the experiment will have low ecological validity.Many experiments designed to investigate memory have been criticized for having low ecological validity. First, the laboratory is an artificial situation. People are removed from their normal social settings and asked to take part in a psychological experiment. They are directed by an 'experimenter' and may be placed in the company of complete strangers. For many people, this is a brand new experience, far removed from their everyday lives. Will this setting affect their actions, will they behave normally?Often, the tasks participants are asked to perform can appear artificial and meaningless. Few, if any, people would attempt to memorize and recall a list of unconnected words in their daily lives. And it is not clear how tasks such as this relate to the use of memory in everyday life. The artificiality of many experiments has led some researchers to question whether their findings can be generalized to real life. As a result, many memory experiments have been criticized for having low ecological validity._n response to the trend to abolish teaching of cursive in schools, about a year ago I posted an article on what I thought were the developmental benefits of handwriting (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201303/why-writing-hand...). That post has generated over 230 comments and is still active.Now there is evidence that handwriting of lecture notes, compared to typing on a laptop, improves learning by college students. Following up on prior studies that indicated relative ineffectiveness of taking notes by laptop, researchers Pam Meuller and Daniel Oppenheimer provide clear evidence that handwritten note-taking produces better learning in college students.They reported three experiments that compared the efficacy of college students taking notes by handwriting or with a lap top. Those who used handwritten notes that they studied later scored significantly higher than students using laptops, including fleet typists who took vastly more copious notes. Handwriters took fewer notes overall with less verbatim recording. There are many possible explanations, beginning with the "less is more" idea in which too much information produces cognitive overload. Notably, when the typing students were told to avoid verbatim notes, they still did it. This suggests that there is something about typing that leads to mindless processing. Handwritten notes involve more thought, re-framing, and re-organization, all of which promote better understanding and retention. The manual act of handwriting requires more engagement with the subject matter. Finally, handwritten notes capitalize on the use of drawings and of personalized spatial layout of the notes. Memorization involves not only what the information is, but where it is spatially located.}Moon Walking With Einstein is the title of a recent memory improvement book written by Joshua Foer, a reporter of memory championships. Foer became so entranced by watching astonishing memory feats in the contests that he decided to learn the secrets. After talking to memory athletes, he started practicing the techniques and within a few years became a memory champion himself. You could do that too!Memory athletes are those seeming freaks of nature who enter contests to see how fast they can memorize the sequence of four shuffled decks of cards or how long a string of digits they can memorize. But memory athletes are not freaks. They are ordinary people like Foer, you, and me who have learned some gimmicks that make possible the seemingly impossible.Here, I will describe the simplest and easiest gimmick to use. I call it SVO, which stands for SUBJECT (or actor or agent), VERB, and OBJECT. This is the intuitive way we think with our language. Usually the subject is a person, which is why others call this technique POA for person, object, action). But animals or inanimate things can do things too. The trick is to visualize, using lots of imagination, an actor doing something relating to an objectas in moon walking with Einstein. Memorization is made easy because the images are so bizarre and vivid. I will illustrate the principles with Foer's method for memorizing the sequence of a deck of cards. He didnt explain his method completely, deliberately I think, because he probably did not want to be drummed out of the elite memory athlete club to which he had been initiated. Not knowing his particular scheme, I will conjure an illustration of how all cards can be visualized. For example, the suits might be as follows: Spades: Batman (black, darkness) Clubs: Tiger Woods (re: golf clubs) Diamonds: Diamond Jim Brady (diamond tie stud) or Zsa Zsa Gabor (who famously said, Daaahling, always wear your diamonds, even to the grocery store. You never know who you will run into). Hearts: Somebody you loveThen, to associate the card number with the suit, you could use the number code, which is another tip that I will explain later. But as an illustration, the number four is coded as rye, which can be a picture of a field of grain or a bottle of rye whisky, whichever you prefer. Thus, for example, the four of clubs would be visualized as Tiger Woods (SUBJECT) teeing off (VERB) on a bottle or rye whisky (OBJECT), instead of a golf ball. What does one do with the face cards? They can be converted to numbers too, Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13, Ace = 1 (Or 14; the number code for one is tie and you dont want to get confused if you are using Diamond Jim Brady as your code for diamonds.Finally, Foer did mention that he clusters three sequential cards into one image, so that he only has to memorize 17 items, with one item left over, instead of 52.Well most of us arent going to enter memory contests or card-count in Vegas (they catch on to you pretty quick). So, how do we apply this to everyday life? You could use this SOV approach to play a better game of bridge. But many events in daily life are better remembered this way.First, a simple illustration: Capital of Arkansas (Little Rock): most people know Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. Visualize Clinton (SUBJECT) throwing (VERB) a little rock (OBJECT) at Noah's ark (ansas)Now, here is a more complex example where you can string together multiple items to be remembered: Harveys discovery of the circulatory system: Everybody knows that the heart is key, because it pumps blood. See the heart (SUBJECT) as pumping (VERB) blood (OBJECT) out on to the main traffic artery, like a freeway. Imagine you as an image of Harvey (like Harvey the rabbit in the movie) riding in a boat in the blood river. See the boat slow down and start to back up as it leaves on the off ramp. Maybe you want think of the boat going through a hole (ole for arteriole) to get to the off ramp. Then see the boat stop at the stop light (covered with baseball caps capillary). Then, on green the boat goes back up on the access road (because Harvey had gotten off too soon, in vain (vein). This schema also helps as a metaphor for associating function at the various locations.While all this seems bizarre, it works with great power. Facts and concepts memorized this way are robustly encoded and readily consolidated into lasting memory because humans are visual animals. We have far more brain area devoted to vision than we do any other sense.Another way to make the point is with the age-old phenomenon of fairy tales. Fairy tales often carry a moral that we want our children to remember. A few fairy tales are even for adults, with the political protest embedded as a metaphor. In any case, a fairy tale is easy to remember because it is visually vivid, with people acting on or with things.SVO is perhaps the most flexible memory device. Use it for simple memory tasks or for truly demanding memory challenges.}he chart below is telling: SAT scores have been flat for over 40 years while education spending has increased 140%. Though this is Texas, I have seen similar data for other states. At the national level, federal government educational spending has skyrocketed, with no comparable improvement in educational outcomes. Clearly, the data debunk the supposition that more money is needed to fix education. What about changing standards and curricula? What have we got to show for all the reforms in the last 40 years such as Head Start, New Math, Nation at Risk, Goals 2000, Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, charter schools, Next Generation Science Standards, and Common Core?Could it be that we are trying to apply right answers to the wrong problems? If money, revised standards and curricula, and high-stakes testing are not the real problems, what is?I think the real problem is that students generally lack learning competencies. Amazingly, schools tell students more about what to learn than how to learn. I think that such schooling has it backwards. In my view, the main goal of school should be to motivate students to learn and to teach them how to do it. Good schooling also ought to cultivate good academic taste, that is, the ability to distinguish principle from fact, useful information from trivia, logical analysis from specious argumentation, and intellectual excellence from superstition, myth, and falsehood. With that accomplished most everything else will fall into place.What do I mean by "learning competencies?" In this post, I will just identify the competencies needed for effective learning as follows:OrganizationUnderstandingSynthesisMemoryApplicationCreativityIn a follow-on post, I will explain what I think teachers can do to promote student development of these learning competencies. The corollary is that Colleges of Education need to be doing more research on these competencies and provide more instruction to pre-service teachers on how to teach learning competencies. In short, what is the smart way to address the real problem in education?]I have written before about research that clearly demonstrates improved learning after sleep. Sleep promotes the "consolidation" of recently acquired short-term memories into more permanent memories. Impaired consolidation is a major problem in teaching and learning. Teachers often have to repeat the same instruction again and again, and yet many children still do not perform well on high-stakes tests. Anything teachers can do to improve retention of instruction would be useful, and that includes making school children aware that they probably need to get more sleep. The well-known change in sleep cycles during adolescence makes a strong case for starting school later in the morning. But another issue is whether or not naps during the school day would improve learning.A recent study in Brazilian schools has addressed this question by having 371 6th graders take a nap after receiving a 15-minute lecture on intentionally novel information that was not relevant to the normal curriculum. Students were then given a surprise multiple-choice test on this content at three different times after the lecture: 1, 2, and 5 days after the lecture. Scores were compared with that of a pre-test on this material before the lecture.Students were divided into a nap group, in which students were given sleep masks and encouraged to try to sleep, lying down on mats in a quiet room. The other group went to a regular class by their usual teacher after the lecture.Not surprisingly, both groups showed improved scores (12 percent gain) when tested the next day. However, this gain disappeared by five days in the non-nap group, whereas essentially no decline in test scores was evident at testing two or five days later. Teachers would not be surprised that students soon forgot what they are taught. In this situation, the preserved memory in the nap group was especially impressive, given that the study was designed to impair learning in both nap and non-nap groups in four ways: Students were not allowed to take notes. Students were not encouraged to remember this information. The lecture topic was not relevant to the curriculum. Students did not know they were going to be tested.If these constraints on learning had not been present, I suspect that the nap effect would have been much larger. Moreover, there was no objective measure of how much actual sleep each student had. Many might have just been resting. Data were not tracked by individual student, but rather averaged over the whole group. Finally, multiple-choice tests were used, and these only test recognition memory. If naps do improve memory, a larger nap effect might be seen with tests that call for students to generate a remembered answer, as in short answer or fill-in-the blanks tests.While theory and experiments such as this suggest that napping could help student learning, there are of course practical constraints. Time spent napping is time that content cannot be presented.My experience as an educational consultant in schools is that schools seem to conspire to make learning difficult. First, students are constantly over-stimulated and distracted, not only by social interactions, but by posters, pictures, and do-dads placed conspicuously all over the rooms and in the halls. Many teachers allow students to multi-task, for example, using cell and smart phones in class. Classes are commonly disturbed by loud public-speaker announcements from the principal's office and by loud bells signaling the end of class. Immediately after class, no quiet time is allowed for reflection on what happened in class. Students actually start tuning out about five minutes before the anticipated bell ring, and the bell causes them to leap up, run out into the halls, and start socializing. Then, of course, there is the emphasis on all manner of extracurricular activities that occupy the minds of many students much more than curriculum. It's a wonder students learn anything.Finally, few if any teachers teach students how to learn. The emphasis is on what to learn and on performing well on state-mandated test scores. I have started to give teacher workshops to help teachers realize the importance of developing learning competence in their students. If students had better learning skills, the job of teaching would be much easier and student test performance would improve automatically}In this series of posts related to memory problems, I have noted that the information in these posts is NOT devoted to any memory problems due to aging. Rather, this information is in regards to memory problems that are specifically related to brain injury as a result of disease, trauma or neglect. In last weeks post 10 Ways to Improve Your Memory we explored strategies for dealing with memory problems due to neglect. This post is focused on the proven methods and treatments that can improve your memory problems resulting from disease or trauma, such as traumatic brain injury, concussion, stroke, MS and Parkinson Disease.The various methods and treatment are classified into three areas: conventional, complementary and alternative. This classification is based on insurance reimbursement. Almost 98% of conventional methods are covered by insurance, while at least 50% are covered by complementary and 0% for alternative approaches.1) Cognitive Therapy (CT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)Both methods are covered under insurance, yet are very different. Cognitive Therapy is done by a Speech and Language Pathologist, while Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is done by a mental health professional, such as a licensed psychologist or licensed social worker. Cognitive therapy (CT) is the assessment and treatment of cognitive skills, including memory, attention and executive functioning (planning, sequencing, organizing, initiating, problem-solving, decision-making and self-awareness). Through the education and training of compensatory strategies, cognitive therapy helps you complete daily tasks with greater independence and self-confidence. Making strategic adjustments to your environment, for example, enables you to be more efficient and focused in daily function.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy that helps people change how they think, feel, or act in order to improve their mood, reduce stress, or achieve other important health and life goals. Some goals may be specific, such as reducing worrying or procrastination, whereas others can be more general, such as figuring out why ones life seems to lack meaning, passion or direction, and figuring out what to do about it. There are three parts to CBT: How you think (cognitive) can and does change your behavior. The way you think may be monitored and altered. The desired behavior change may be affected through changes in the way you think.2) MedicationsIf prescribed by an M.D., most are covered by insurance, such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine) can be very effective for attention problems. Amantadine (Symmetrel) is a drug that affects the action of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters and that is sometimes used to treat people with Parkinsons disease. These medications have side effects, but if they are effective, the benefits may outweigh the disadvantages. Prevagen, a brain health supplement, has been shown to help alleviate memory and sleep problems by binding to calcium cells and reducing damage done by the bodys diminished production of calcium-binding proteins. The active ingredient responsible for this work is apoaequorin, a protein found in jellyfish. The regular version of Prevagen can be purchased at a health food store, while a professional, more potent version is sold through medical practices. As always, it is extremely important to consult with your neurologist before using any over-the-counter medication.3) Special Need Educator/TutorSome state, providence and school systems may reimburse the expense. If you were in an automobile accident, it is important to have this included. A special needs educator is trained in a wide variety of methods to help with memory issues.4) Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)In many states, such as Florida, Texas and California to name a few, HBOT is covered by your health insurance. Hyperbaric medicine, now called Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy or HBOT, was invented as a means of dealing with decompression sickness. Breathing pure oxygen in an environment of increased pressure delivers twenty to thirty times the amount to the body tissues. This method helps provide more oxygen to the brain to enhance brain regulation. A subset of this is oxygen therapy or the personal oxygen bar. 5) NutritionMost insurance companies do cover a nutritionist or dietician. It is extremely important to eat an anti-inflammatory diet that allows the brain to heal, eliminating refined sugar, corn syrup, and any grains that can be fermented or distilled. An increase of omega-3 from wild sockeye salmon and tuna is beneficial. Additionally, spinach and other vegetables rich in antioxidants can help improve your memory. Coconut, olive oil, and avocado are good sources of fats that help the brain heal and enhance your storage and retrieval capabilities. Drinking water helps the brain, too.6) NeurofeedbackNeurofeedback can help the brain to become regulated again and form new neural connections needed for attention, concentration, storage and retrieval. This technique uses a computer to give information to a person about his or her own brainwave pattern in the form of EEG activity, in order to train the person to modify his or her own brainwaves. When the brain is not functioning properly, evidence of this usually shows up in EEG activity. Neurofeedback training (EEG Biofeedback) assists a person to alter his or her own brainwave characteristics by challenging the brain to learn to reorganize and function better.7) ExerciseDo what you can to raise your heart rate so that you can get more oxygen to your brain.8) Computer ProgramsThere are several computer programs and websites devoted to improving your memory, such as BrainTrain, EyeQ, and Lumosity. There are other programs, however the ones Ive named are the ones that I know personally are very effective.9) Alternative ApproachesMany advertisements state that certain herbs or homeopathic remedies can increase your memory. These over-the-counter products may help, but it is always best to work with a knowledgeable practitioner rather than attempting to self-medicate. Even natural remedies can have serious side effects if not used properly. Depending on your specific needs, a knowledgeable herbalist may recommend a product such as ginkgo biloba, ginseng, super blue-green algae, black cohosh, or suan zao ren for memory improvement. Homeopathic remedies that may be recommended for people with post concussion memory difficulties include Carbo vegetabilis, Silicea terra, Hyoscyamus niger, Phosphoricum acidum, Helleborus, and Calcarea carbonica. Some people have found that taking certain nutritional supplements, such as 50 milligrams of vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) and 100 milligrams of coenzyme Q10 daily, has helped to restore memory. It is important to be aware, however, that excessive amounts of vitamin B6 can damage the nervous system. As with any substance, it is crucial to first confer with your physician to determine what dosage, if any, is best for you.Polarity therapy may be helpful in resolving attention and concentration problems, particularly if the practitioner has experience treating your particular symptomsPractical SuggestionsYou can go on numerous listserves, Facebook, or do an organic search for methods to help with your memory, including using sticky notes, writing things down and repeating them over and over to yourslef, or using digital recorders. I have found that many of these methods do work and you have to hunt and pick what is the best for you. In next weeks post, Ill dig deeper into practical suggestions that can help with memory problemsWhat is important to know is that if you do the above nine suggestions, you WILL see improvements in your memory. Remember that there is help and hope. ]In my What Causes Memory Problems? I discussed the three causes of memory problems: disease, trauma and neglect. In Are You Having Memory Problems? I presented the 3 essential aspects of memory: registration, storage and retrieval. This weeks post and the posts that will follow are devoted to methods and treatment to improving your memory.The serenity prayer says, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."Neglect is the one area you do have the ability to change. If you do the same thing every day in the same way, even as small as how you scramble your eggs, eventually you lose neural connections. The reason people are able to hold certain memories long term is because these memories are based on cumulative memories, and the neural hubs and connections have grown and been reinforced. Events, dates and names that are not reinforced in the present will be quickly lost because you are NOT paying attention. Multitasking in this fast-paced world can cause you not to pay attention to the road, resulting in an auto accident, causing a brain injury, which can affect memory. Or you could be listening to music while walking and never see the edge of the road or the oncoming traffic.10 Suggestions for Maintaining Your MemoryTry the following 10 strategies to protect your memory and keep it strong.1) Focus on AttendingIf you are listening to someone, repeat or paraphrase what they have said along with writing it down, if possible. Try different ways of attending, this helps make new neural connections. In a Dale Carnegie course, the manual suggests that you shake a persons hand and repeat their name upon meeting. Now with Skype and other digital media this can be impossible, but you can still repeat information out loud and take notes. There is research on whether typing information into a computer or the actual act of writing on a piece of paper helps the attention process along with proper storage. It is important to have undivided attention when you are focused on the new information. The Chinese Ideogram for To Listen is eyes, ears, undivided attention and a heart. If you are thinking, when someone is presenting information, you often are not listening to what is presented. Also, it is important to keep the task within your ability or understanding. It is extremely hard to properly process and store information when you dont have a good understanding of that information or meaning of what is being said. 2) Learn Novel ways of ThinkingUse it or lose it. Do crossword puzzles help? Yes. Does Luminosity and similar websites help? Yes. However, if all you ever do is crossword puzzles eventually other areas of the brain and brain connections will die off. Its important to have a balanced life of conversations with new friends, new routines, and taking different routes when doing your morning run or bicycle ride. As mentioned above, those connections you do use will get stronger, however if you arent doing something novel, the connections youre not using will die off. This is especially true if your brain injury is from disease and/or trauma. If you had a sport-related concussion and you continue on the same path of recovery, the areas that are damaged due to the TBI may never recover. You need to use your brain as much as possible in a variety of ways.3) Stress ReductionFor many, this is one of the hardest things to do. There is extensive research on how stress affects your ability to attend, concentrate, store and retrieve information. Add to this a disease and/or trauma and your brain just shuts down. Heart rate breathing is extremely important. The heart to brain communication system is through the vagus nerve and the sympathetic afferents. Through controlling your breath, you are able to have control of your brain and higher brain centers that influence registration, storage and retrieval. The emWave2 (link is external) is a method to help you learn heart rate breathing. This method is not going to make the baby stop crying or make the leaky roof go away. Rather, it is going to give you a tool to help you cope better, which reduces the stress, thus allowing you to attend, concentrate, store and retrieve information more effectively.4) NutritionWhat you eat affects your brain. Eating an anti-inflammatory diet that is high in protein and Omega 3 really makes a difference. I go into great details about the foods to eat and the foods to avoid my book, Coping with Concussion and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (link is external). Also, in the Brain Health Recipes (link is external) portion of my blog there is a wide variety of recipes specifically to help your brain health and your memory. Lastly, as part of our integrative team, we have an amazing nutritional educator. 5) Restorative SleepThis area is extremely important, which is why I wrote a previous blog on sleep and devoted an entire chapter to sleep in my book. It is essential that you go to bed at the same time each night and wake up at the same time, if possible. Do not have sound machines or the radio or TV going during the night. Sleep is the first area that is most effected by disease, trauma and/or neglect related memory problems. Rescue Remedy sleep is very effective, as is taking a soothing bath along with the heart rate breathing that helps reduce the stress in your life so you can attain restorative sleep.6) ExerciseThis is a lot easier than you think. Park a block away from your office. Walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Buy a big medicine ball and bounce on it while watching TV or a movie. Try isometric exercise. Try Tai Chi exercises. Move for a least 20 minutes a day!7) Be Careful with Prescription MedicationIf you had a brain injury, do NOT take any medication that will affect your central nervous system (CNS) unless it is LIFE or DEATH. Every medication has some side-effects. Only use the medication, if and only if, the positive effects outweigh the negative. If you are in severe pain and need to take a medication for your pain, be aware it will affect your memory. There are major drug categories that will affect your memory including sleep aides, steroids, antiepileptic drugs, tranquilizers, anti-anxiety drugs, and muscle relaxants to name a few. Again, be sure to use prescription medication and even some herbal remedies with caution.8) Alcohol, Wine, Beer and DrugsThis is a no brainersm! Use any of these, especially together, and lose your memory. Period. This is especially true if you have had a form of disease or trauma to the brain. So, this is your choice. Now Im not saying I never have a drink of wine on a Saturday night, but if I do, I understand the consequences and do not plan to have a consultation or see a patient on Sunday.9) Stop SmokingWith a brain injury there is a decrease of oxygen to the brain. When you smoke there is even less. 10) Reduce your Caffeine This is a mixed area, because for some people with memory problems caffeine can actually help in the short term to attend or focus, yet in the long run it can cause adrenal exhaustion, which effects retrieval of information.Now you have a choice. You can continue to neglect yourself, which will definitely cause you some form of memory loss. This is especially true if you have a disease or trauma to the brain. Or, you can take the 10 suggestions presented above and make changes to improve your life and memory.The next blog will present methods and treatments using conventional, complementary and alternative approaches for improving your memory as a result of diseases and/or trauma. What is important to know is that there is a way.}Teaching, learning, and remembering dont have to be complicated. In my previous "Memory Athlete" Tip #1, I described a strategy based on linking mental images to particular locations in a familiar environment, such as one's home or yard. Here, Tip #2 describes my invention of a simple flash-card process that can help accomplish all three educational processes in a computer slideshow file consisting of only one slide. This one-screen file can serve as a single composite flash-card reservoir of information from which information can be organized and modified, saved for on- or off-line study and always available for self-testing (in principle, as is done with conventional flash cards). Conventional flash cards are typically limited to factoids, with a word on one side and definition on the other. But composite flash cards are fundamentally different because they provide a way to capture and learn whole cohesively organized concepts as well as factoids.Moreover, the new type of card captures many well-established principles of effective learning and memory (Klemm, 2012, 2013). Unlike the common teacher-centric mode that stresses presentation and explanation, this new system incorporates the student-centered need to encode and remember presented information, all in the same visual and conceptual space.The principle, as in Tip #1, is also based on the idea that remembering what the information is depends largely on where it is. Here, mental images are pinned to specific spots in a table in PowerPoint and animated so that you can browse through the items in proper sequence, one at a time.The entire process is illustrated with nine key memory-improvement concepts in a single PowerPoint slide that serves as a home page (Fig. 1). The memory-improvement concepts, represented by clip-art icons in sequential left-to-right, top-to-bottom order are: 1) enhance motivation, 2) allocate learning time wisely, 3) organize learning material, 4) make nets of association, 5) dont overload working memory, 6) reduce memory interference, 7) dont multi-task, 8) think about what is to be memorized, and 9) self-test. Readers can get construction details and download this actual slide show from a link at http://03908f9.netsolhost.com/thinkbrain/educational-consultant/ (link is external) (scroll down to the bottom until you see "Klemm cards"). Fig. 1. Edit view of a PowerPoint slide containing basic information about nine key concepts of effective learning and memory. In slide-show play mode, the objects (icon and associated text block) are coded for animation, so that each icon and associated bullet list appear in turn upon a mouse click. The opening screen in show mode will ordinarily be blank or contain the very first icon at upper left. Icons can have hyperlinks to other sources of information. Mouse click on an icon links to an enlarged corresponding bullet slide and its hyperlinks.To illustrate the reasoning in Fig. 1, the mental image of the first icon conveys the self-evident idea that the fellow without a parachute is highly motivated to hang in there. To mentally link the bullet points, a learner could visualize him praying he doesnt slip loose, helping him to believe he can hang on. Then imagine him clutching more desperately than he needs to, just to fight boredom. Then when he lands safely, he can be visualized as celebrating by playing his A game in basketball. As another example, the second icon of an alarm clock conveys the idea of managing time. Imagine seeing the clock set 10 minutes before the hour (10 minute rule). Then picture multiples of such a clock (reserve lots of time), each appearing as fast as possible (dont procrastinate). Space the clocks apart (space learning). Silly, yes, but that is what makes such imaging memorable.The spatial organization of the icons makes it easy to remember them and even their sequence. During recall required by self-testing or examinations, remembering the images automatically brings up the associated bullet-point ideas. To accelerate the speed at which icons can be memorized, a learner can think of associational links between icons. For example in Fig. 1, after seeing the motivation icon, an association can be made with the next icon (clock) by imagining that the parachuting people are looking at a clock to time how long it will be before they hit the ground.Options for UseOrganizing and Presenting Information. The instruction mode is shown on the right side of Fig. 2. Cards can be created by a teacher, as the basis of a lecture, or by a student, who constructs it from lecture and/or assigned learning resources. Icons can be used as hyperlinks to separate slides that contain bullet points, text, or diagrams. Animating the objects allows them to be displayed one at a time.Figure 2. Logic flow diagram for use of the flash card in two different modes: on the left for a single flash-card study and self-test and on the right for expanded organization or presentation of learning material. A slide show developed as shown on the right can still be used for self-test from the single flash card home.A student or teacher could play the complete slide show, or whatever portion is desired at a particular time, by mouse clicking through the icons and their bullet lists, and launch into the detail slides by clicking on the ICON (as opposed to blank space); each detail slide has links on it to return back either to the bullet list or to the home flash card. A link is not needed to go to the next detail slide is not needed, as each slide in that path appears on a mouse click on open space. Obviously, this same home card can be played for self-testing via the flash-card mode process on the left of Fig. 2.Before clicking, the teacher may want to ask the class what they think or know about the role of motivation in learning. During or after explaining the bullet points, the teacher may wish to pause before the next click to answer questions, orchestrate class discussion, launch a traditional slide show, show a video clip, conduct a demonstration, conduct a hands-on activity, or whatever. In an on-line tutorial, a hyper-linked audio file could provide the instruction.When all items in the home page are displayed, students see a grand overview of the content, and, as with matrix notes, it should be easy to discern cross-cutting relationships among the ideas. In Fig. 1, for example, students might discern that organizing the material requires thinking hard about meaning and relationships or that multi-tasking creates interference effects. Teachers can spread the instruction across multiple class periods from the same card (after class one, for example, she would resume in class two where she left off last in the flash card and repeat with each later class. Since each subsequent class period brings up the original card, teachers can click on previously displayed objects as a review. In an on-online environment, students can self-pace as they work their way through the cards information.The teacher may want to tell students in advance to take notes as each icon is presented. After the lecture, the computer file (the single flash card) can be e-mailed to students, and they can modify the bullet points on the basis of the notes they took in class. Alternatively, if students have computers in class, they can load their copy of the slide show and make notes directly in their copy. Once in their possession, students can customize the file and use it again and again for study and self-testing (see below). A whole semester could be taught this way, with each lecture based on its own single card.Flash Card Self-study and Testing. Cards can be designed simply for study and self-testing (left side of Fig. 2). Extra slides to expand on a given icons mnemonic representation are added at will, and links to them can be created from any icon to an expanded bullet list, which in turn has hyperlinks to any number of extra slides on that topic.The same approach can be used by students to construct their own flash cards from textbooks, videos, websites, or other information sources. This might be an improved way to document Web quests.With a composite card constructed with each icon and text box tagged for animation, the learner simple clicks through one item at a time. Thus, the composite card serves as a study and self-test tool wherein the learner tries to memorize the icons and the ideas they represent. True self-testing is easily done when the learner anticipates what should appear upon mouse click and then adjusts recollection to correct any memory errors. Students can study a card file in edit mode, which allows the student to see, all in one place, both the big picture and the fine detail of the information presented in lecture or gleaned from other sources. One typical problem in education is that academic content is dumped on students as an overwhelming mass that obscures perspective and context. Students can easily feel like a rat lost in a maze. But if they could look at the maze from the top view, they would easily see how to navigate it. When students can see and think about the total display of information on the home page screen, they may find it easier to see cross-cutting relationships. Different icons can be substituted and re-arranged (first group the icon and its text box) if needed to enhance the inherent meaning for a particular student. The student can even add cells to the table and insert new material and links that were not included in the original information presentation. Perceived BenefitsThe advantages of this system would seem to include the following features: Comprehensive. All manner of information can be packaged into a single card. Intervals between mouse clicks can be used for other modes of information presentation, discussion, and learning activities. Compact. Everything is all in one place, viewable as a holistic display, yet the user can drill down via the cards hyperlinks to extensive detail within the slide show. Flexible/extensible. Cards can be constructed for presentation of information from any source: lecture, books, websites, or whatever. A given card can be modified at any point in time, by either the teacher or the student. Information content can be expanded simply by adding new table cells. Major topics can have their own separate and independent cards. Teachers can readily adapt the system for on-line or in-class teaching. Organized cohesively. Ideas are organized as topics, and subtopic ideas are shown as associated bullet points. Sequential order is preserved (left to right, top to bottom). When the user drills down to a detailed bullet point slide, return hyperlinks quickly lead back to the home page. Studied quickly. Students can view everything at once and zoom in on parts that need further thought or rehearsal. Students can modify any part of the slide as needed during the study process. Self-tested in flash-card style. Students can anticipate what should appear upon the next click and check to see if they had it correct. Any needed modifications are quickly made on the fly during self-testing. This design discourages students from glossing over the memorization process by looking over material without really forcing a self-generated answer. Embodied key memorization principles. This one approach captures a wide range of generally accepted principles that facilitate memory. Students and teachers are enabled and encouraged to: Condense content is to essentials (less is more?Sss et al. 2002; Norretranders, 1998). Memory capacity is limited and easily overwhelmed by too much information. Moreover, memorization is facilitated by excluding information that one already knows or can figure out. Organize material by arranging like items in the same row or order a sequence in which rows are read left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Chunk items in small groups by putting like items on the same row of the table. Represent ideas with images, which are far easier to memorize than words (Rigney and Lutz (1976). Create a spatial organization that itself facilitates memorization (Vaughn, 2007; Sparrow et al. 2012). Composite flash cards are a form of method of loci, an ancient technique that works because where information is provides important cues for what information is. Such cues help in both forming and recalling memory. Because only a few images are on a given row, it is a trivial task to remember the three or four images on a given row. To create location pegs for images on each row, users could use the classical number coding system (Klemm, 2011), in which row one would be indexed by an image of tie (as in neckties), row two by Noah (as in the Ark), row three by ma, (as in mother), and so on. Thus, for example, in row one a user can visualize a necktie wrapping around the several images on that row. A user could also make a visual story line that begins with a tie linked to an image of the first item on the row, which in turn is lined to the second item, and so on. Capitalize on the convenience of having all memory processes (encoding, consolidation, retrieval) operate in the same visual format and space in which information is presented. This composite card structure is akin to matrix note taking, which offers the added advantage of making it easier to see cross-cutting relationships that may go undetected in other forms of note taking (Kiewra et al. 1991). The holistic display of all information makes it easy to perceive any one item in the same context, while at the same time making it possible to see two or more items in a new context. Learners can self-pace study and review. Learners can easily self-test frequently and do so in a much more powerful way than the common approach of just looking over the material. True self-testing is apparently under-utilized by the typical student (Pyc and Rawson, 2010; Karpicke and Roedinger (2008). The process of creating a composite card is engaging. Learners simply must think about the material to decide what goes where, what images are most useful, and what are the minimally useful number of key words. In my 50 years of learning and teaching, I have become convinced that thinking about learning material is the best way to memorize it. Easily constructed and modified. Anyone who knows how to use presentation software like PowerPoint can easily make, modify, and navigate the information content.}Consider the volume of personal details in our lives that we remember accurately, and over long periods of time: The names of friends, colleagues, and people in our family; our own name, our birthday, and our addresses, past and present. We remember when we first fell in love, the births of our children, the deaths of our loved ones, where we work, the teachers who have influenced us, scenes from movies, lines of poetry, the melodies and lyrics of hundreds of popular songs, a stinging insult we received decades ago. Our first kiss. Memory can have unsurpassed endurance. Specific memories can last longer than the documents that validate them, which can get lost or destroyed, or actual physical structures, which deteriorate, grow dilapidated, and get torn down. Memories of parents and grandparents live on long after we have become parents and grandparents ourselves.Why, then, do many of us emphasize and dwell on the inaccuracy of memory?One answer is the availability bias. We are far more likely to recall instances of flawed memories than instances of accuracy. We do not celebrate every time we find our way home or accurately remember the names of our children, but we may note very clearly making a wrong turn when visiting a colleague, misremembering the name of a neighbor, or forgetting why we went into the garage. Mistakes of memory are more newsworthy to us than everyday accuracy, just as crimes are more newsworthy than everyday legal behavior. We do not shout out our memory accuracies. (Ironically, remembering instances of faulty recall is a form of accurate memory.)Another reason we emphasize the faultiness of memory is the well-documented inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony. But we should not treat eyewitness testimony as typical of all personal memory. Remembering details from brief, unanticipated events is simply not something we do very well. Fleeting glimpses of unexpected events occur every day and are forgotten every daybecause there is no reason to remember them and no consequences for forgetting, unless they become important after the fact, as in the case of a crime. Research on eyewitness testimony is vitally important, with life-and-death consequences, but we should not extrapolate errors in eyewitness testimony to characterize all of personal memory. Recently, during a discussion of autobiographical memory in my class on cognitive psychology, one of my students asserted that all memory is constructed, that it is an ever-changing, unreliable fiction. When another student challenged this assertion, the first student insisted she was correct, saying she had read about memory constructions in one of our assigned articles. When pressed, she cited the particular author and title, inadvertently revealing the inherent inconsistency of an extreme constructivist position: She had accurately remembered the article on inaccurate memory.Even those who emphasize the faultiness of memory need accurate memory to support their skepticism. How are childhood memories shown to be incorrect? Often by comparing them to the memories of parents or older siblings, which are assumed to be accurate.More broadly, if memories did not represent interpretations of past events, we could never converse about shared experiences with friends or family. We could never satisfactorily discuss the news or movies or sports or findings from research studies. We could, in fact, never reference anything, unless the evidence was physically right in front of us. My plea for the accuracy and durability of memory is not a cri du coeur so much as a cri de lesprit. Of course memory has weaknesses: We exaggerate, we blend different events, we allow general knowledge to intrude on specific memories, we forget sources of information, we have trouble remembering some names (and passwords). But memory illusions do not discount all of memory any more than visual illusions discount all of perception.We have not evolved to misremember the world. Our memory can be an accurate representation of what we have perceived and interpreted. All I ask is that we occasionally take the time to appreciate how truly remarkableand accuratememory can be.All unreferenced images are in the public domain and taken from en.wikipedia.org]Most people don't want to be memory athletes, but they would like to remember things more easily and reliably. These techniques can accomplish that. Besides, they're fun.Ancient Greek orators were noted for their ability to give hours-long speeches from memory. How did they pull off such astonishing feats? Since images are much easier to remember than words, they invented a visual imaging technique through which thoughts were mentally captured as images in the minds eye, and they recalled what was to be said by recalling the images.One common imaging technique is known as a "method of location" (MoL). This technique is also called "Memory Palace." Mental images are attached to certain locations in a three-dimensional space imagined in the minds eye. The idea is to use objects in a familiar area as anchor points or pegs for hanging the mental images of what you are trying to remember. Surveys of competitive memory athletes reveal that 9 out of 10 use some kind of imagined location device. [1]Use a memory palaceHere is a simple example: Consider the living room of your apartment or house. You are very familiar with each object and its location. You use these as mental pegs, which is easy to do, because you already know what they are. You can just mentally walk about the room and see each familiar object. In turn, one at a time, attach a mental image of what you are trying to remember on the object peg in the room. For example, suppose you identify the front door as a starting point. The first object encountered might be a recliner chair, then a lamp, then a sofa, then a coffee table, then the TV set, and so on. Now suppose you want to remember a day's to-do list. You might remember the trip to the post office by imagining the mailman at your door; the doctor's appointment by seeing a stethoscope lying on the recliner; the grocery store by seeing the lamp making a stalk of celery sprout; the bookstore trip by seeing books stacked on your sofa; the kids' soccer practice by seeing them kick the ball into the sofa; the evening PTA meeting by seeing a TV film crew filming you there; and so on.You can use other locations or maps, such as your body, specific places in your car, or highly familiar routes in your backyard or at work. To recall these stored items, simply retrace your steps. Like fishing lines, each memory is hooked to a location and you just reel them in.These techniques work, even for older people with no formal memory training. A recent survey that tested the usefulness of image location in older people found it effective in improving their memory capability. In a recent TED talk, Kasper Bormans described using a virtual reality replica of their home to help patients with Alzheimers disease store the memory of their loved ones faces using the MoL.[4] Although generally used to remember objects, numbers or names, the MoL has also been used in people with depression to successfully store bits and pieces of happy autobiographical memories that they can easily retrieve in times of stress.[2] (link is external)Modernizing the MnemonicIn 2012, a team of Canadian researchers gave the ancient MoL mnemonic a 21st-century facelift. [3] (link is external) The team constructed several detailed virtual-reality environments to serve as loci, rather than asking MoL learners to generate their own. Researchers allowed 142 undergraduate volunteers only five minutes to familiarize themselves with the virtual environment before giving two-thirds of them instructions in using the MoL to memorize 110 unrelated words. A third were told to pick a familiar environment; a third were allowed to use the virtual environment they just navigated; and third didnt receive any specific instructions on memory techniques.Both MoL groups outperformed the controls. They were 10 to 16 percent more accurate in their recall, and students who used the virtual environment performed just as well as those told to generate their own landmarks, even though in both groups the students admitted they weren't diligent in using MoL. (It does take practice.)The main point is that people can improve their memory ability by learning to use MoL. Although with age the brain gradually loses the flexibility to change in response to training, many studies show that MoL successfully slows memory decline in the normal aging population. Why this happens had been a mysteryuntil recently.Thickening of the BrainAny time the brain learns something, at any age, physical and chemical changes occur. In 2010 a Norwegian team set out to look for the most obvious signs of MoL-induced structural changes in the brain.Expert instructors led 23 volunteers with an average age of 61 through an intensive eight-week training program. These volunteers managed to use MoL to remember three lists of 30 words in sequential order in no more than 10 minutes, a remarkable feat of memory. Meanwhile, members of a control group similar in age, sex and education were instructed to live as usual for the eight weeks.MRI brain maps identified a surprisingly large morphological change in the cerebral cortex of the MoL-trained volunteers.[5] (link is external) The amount of improvement in memory performance correlated with the cortical thickening. A later study by the research team showed that MoL training increased the integrity of elderly participants white matter, compared to controls.Rewiring the BrainTwo groups of researchers decided to determine whether MoL training alters brain activity patterns. Scientists in Sweden recruited volunteers in their twenties and sixties and tracked changes in their brain activity through PET scans as they adopted MoL to remember a list of random words. All of the younger volunteersbut only half of the older participantsremembered roughly four more words than they had in their initial test.[6] (link is external) Scans of the older subjects who did't improve revealed a complete lack of activation of MoL-associated brain regions during testing. Follow-up interviews revealed that many of these participants found it difficult to associate the loci with the words under the experiments tight time constraints, became frustrated, and gave up. So while it's a promising technique for many, MoL is difficult, particularly for the older adults less able to generate and rely on a mental map of distinctive landmarks.But I know from experience that practicing MoL improves one's imagination, and in turn, the ability to get more benefit from MoL. Besides, it's a more fun way to memorize.+Most people don't want to be memory athletes, but they would like to remember things more easily and reliably. These techniques can accomplish that. Besides, they are fun.Several thousand years ago, ancient Greek orators were noted for their ability to give hours-long speeches from memory. How did they pull off such astonishing feats? They invented a visual imaging technique where thoughts were mentally captured as images in the minds eye and they would recall what was to be said by recalling the images. Images are much easier to remember than words Use a memory palaceOne common imaging technique is known as a method of location (MoL). This technique is also called "Memory Palace." That is, mental images are attached to certain locations in the three-dimensional space imagined in the minds eye. The idea is to use objects in a familiar area as anchor points or pegs for hanging the mental images of what you are trying to remember. Surveys of competitive memory athletes reveal that 9 out of 10 use some kind of imagined location device.Here is a simple example. Consider the living room of your apartment or house. You are very familiar with each object and its location in the room. You use these as mental pegs, which is easy to do, because you already know what they are. You just mentally walk about the room and mentally see each familiar object. In turn, one at a time, you attach a mental image of what you are trying to remember on the object peg in the room. For example, suppose you identify the front door as a starting point. The first object encountered might be a recliner chair, then a lamp, then a sofa, then a coffee table, then the TV set, and so on. Now suppose you want to remember a daily "to do" list. You might remember the trip to the post office by imagining the mailman at your door, the doctor's appointment by seeing a stethoscope lying in the recliner, the grocery store by seeing the lamp making a stalk of celery sprout, the bookstore trip by seeing books stacked on your sofa, the kids' soccer practice by seeing them kick the ball into the sofa, the evening PTA meeting by seeing a TV program showing you there, and so on.You can use other locations, such as body parts, specific places in your car, or highly familiar routes in the yard or at work. To recall these stored items, simply retrace your steps. Like fishing lines, each memory is hooked to a location and you just reel them in.These techniques work, even in older people with no formal memory training. A recent survey that tested the usefulness of image location in older people found that it was effective in improving their memory capability. A study people with superior memory revealed that nine of 10 employed the method spontaneously.[1] (link is external)Although generally used to remember objects, numbers or names, the MoL has also been used in people with depression to successfully store bits and pieces of happy autobiographical memories that they can easily retrieve in times of stress.[2] (link is external)Modernizing the MnemonicIn early 2012, a team of Canadian researchers gave the ancient MoL mnemonic a 21st century facelift. [3] (link is external) The team constructed several detailed virtual reality environments to serve as loci, rather than letting MoL learners generate their own. Researchers allowed 142 undergraduate volunteers only five minutes to familiarize themselves with the virtual environment before giving two thirds of them instructions in using the MoL to memorize 110 unrelated words. Some were told to pick a familiar environment, while others were allowed to use the virtual environment they just navigated. The other third didnt receive any specific instructions on memory techniques.Both MoL groups outperformed the controls. They were 10 to 16 percent more accurate in their recall, and students who used the virtual environment performed just as well as those told to generate their own landmarks, even though in both groups the students admitted they weren't diligent in using MoL. It does take practice to be good at it.In a recent TED talk, Kasper Bormans described using a virtual reality replica of their home to help patients with Alzheimers disease store the memory of their loved ones faces using the MoL.[4] (link is external)The main point is that people can improve their memory ability by learning to use MoL. However, with age the brain gradually loses the flexibility to change in response to training. Nonetheless, many studies show that MoL successfully slows memory decline in the normal aging population, but why this happens is a complete mystery. That is, until recently.Thickening of the BrainAny time the brain learns something, physical and chemical changes occur in the brain, even in the elderly. Thus MoL should be able to change the brain for the better. In 2010 a Norwegian team set out to look for the most obvious signs of MoL-induced structural changes in the brain.Expert instructors led 23 volunteers with an average age of 61 through an intensive eight-week long program. These volunteers managed to use MoL to recall three lists of 30 words in sequential order in no more than 10 minutes, a remarkable feat of memory! The control group matched in age, sex and education were instructed to live as usual for the eight weeks.MRI brain maps identified a surprisingly large morphological change in the cerebral cortex of the MoL-trained volunteers.[5] (link is external) The amount of improvement in memory performance correlated with the amount of increased cortical thickening. Similarly, a later study by this group showed that learning MoL increased the integrity of elderly participants white matter compared to controls.Rewiring the BrainTwo groups of researchers decided to determine whether learning MoL alters brain activity patterns. Scientists in Sweden recruited young volunteers in their twenties and elderly participants in their sixties and used PET scans to follow changes in their brain activity as they adopted MoL to remember a list of random words. All of the younger volunteers but only half of the elderly remembered roughly four more words than they had in their initial test.[6] (link is external) What about the half of elderly participants who didnt improve? One important clue was their complete lack of activation of MoL-associated brain regions during testing, prompting researchers to wonder whether these volunteer actually used the MoL. A subsequent informal chat revealed that many older participants found it difficult to associate the loci with the words under the experiments tight time constraints, felt frustrated and gave up. So although a promising technique for many, MoL training is difficult, particularly for the elderly who are less able to generate and rely on a mental map of distinctive landmarks. But I know from experience that practicing MoL improves one's imagination, and that in turn improves the ability to get more benefit from MoL. Besides, it's simply a more fun way to memorize.+1. When information is first acquired, it is tagged for its potential importance or value.2. Such tagging is influenced by multiple factors such as attention, old memories, emotion, repetition, and purpose.3. Images are easier to remember than words. The most powerful mnemonic systems are based on representing ideas and facts as images.4. Memories with impact get preferentially rehearsed, either through conscious will or by covert (implicit) brain processes.5. Rehearsal should occur with true self-testing, repeated often, and spaced over time.6. The re-call during self-testing launches a new round of consolidation that can strengthen the original learning. Each re-consolidation episode builds on prior ones and strengthens the neural circuits that store the memory.7. Sleep promotes conslidation of recent learning.8. Effectiveness of recall during rehearsal is promoted by use of relevant cues, especially information that was associated with the original learning material. _Memory and learning go hand in hand. Although the two terms are not synonymous, they are highly interrelated. In order to remember, a persons brain must first learn (encode) the information they will later remember (retrieval). When it comes to learning concerns, whether a child has ADHD, a learning disability, anxiety or some other emotional difficulty, parents most common question to me is How can we improve his or her memory? Memory is highly impacted by learning style. Once a persons learning style is understood and accommodated for, memory will improve. When people understand their learning style, they can adapt how they learn to most efficiently use their brains, including and improving their memory capability. Here are ways to determine a persons unique learning style:1. Psychological or neuropsychological testing offers formal insight into the brain through a set of standardized tasks that are administered and scored according to testing standards. The results are compared with normative data offers a unique profile of a persons strengths and weakness in learning style compared to same age peers. Basically, the test results offer a snap shot into a persons brain functioning as it relates to their behavior and learning style.2. The informal or non-standardized way of determining learning style is by recognizing what type of learning is easy and intuitive compared to what type is difficult for a person. This means recognizing what comes easily and naturally and what does not.When it comes to improving memory, knowledge of learning style is essential and here are some basic guidelines:1. Auditory learners are people that are best at listening and learning. These are the kids who love to listen to and comprehend difficult stories, but arent able to comprehend and therefore recall at the same level if they read the information from a book. They remember what they hear, especially in context. They pick up languages easily because of the auditory component and their ability to copy and memorize the sounds of what they hear. Auditory learners hear the information and when it's time to remember it and they recite an auditory script in their head as part of recalling it.2. Visual learners benefit from seeing what they need to learn and remember. They do better by watching a visual of information or reading information. They also tend to be inclined to problem solve with their hands. They like to see and manipulate visual information, therefore learning visual problem solving strategies that can be recalled and applied in other situations where visual learning is required. Visual learners prefer to see the information to be recalled and can create a visual file in their brain to retrieve this information when necessary.3. People with attention and executive functioning weaknesses are challenged by being presented with different types of learning simultaneously. For example, if they are introduced to a new person, they may not recall their name because they are hearing the name while visually processing their face. These two inputs compete in an already overloaded brain, causing forgetfulness of the name. In addition, ADHD people tended not to recall rote facts such as names of unfamiliar people because they rely on contextual cues to help them make the information more meaningful and memorable.4. People with executive functioning and or learning disabilities (not with learning preferences such as auditory and visual learning preferences as described above, but actual disabilities) often require repetition of information through a variety of modalities- visual, auditory, tactical, sensory, as part of the encoding and retrieval process required for memory.Most people do not have learning disabilities or executive functioning weaknesses and yet memory remains a challenge. Some people do not have a preferred learning style; however, most people have some variability with strengths and weaknesses in their learning profile. The basic strategy of knowing and using ones preferred learning style to reinforce memory is not practiced routinely today and yet it should be.Given the rate and the pace of life today it behooves people to know their learning style and the learning styles of those around them with whom they rely on and communicate with routinely. People communicate most efficiently when information is presented in a manner that is consistent with a persons learning style. Many miscommunications occur in relationships, both parent child and parent-parent because of misunderstanding of each others learn styles and capabilities; all of which impact memory. +Getting a good amount of high quality sleep appears to deliver great benefits (link is external) to memory. Sleeping well primes (link is external) the brain for learning and retention, sharpening (link is external) focus and increasing attention span during waking hours. Research also shows sleep has a powerful influence over memory. Time spent in sleep (link is external)especially deep, slow wave sleep and REM sleepplays a critical role (link is external) in memory consolidation, the process (link is external) by which newly acquired knowledge is converted from short-term to long-term memory storage. This process not only embeds long-term memories, it also clears the way (link is external) for the brain to take in new information. In recent years weve learned a tremendous amount about this relationship between sleep and memory, and the importance of sleep in memory consolidation. How do sleep medications affect this critical function? Despite all the recent attention paid to the role of sleep in memory, this is a question that has, until now, received little notice. Researchers at St. Lukes Hospital Sleep Medicine and Research Center in Missouri investigated (link is external) the impact of prescription sleep aids on memory consolidationTheir results suggest that under some conditions, some commonly prescribed medications for sleep may interfere with the memory-enhancing benefits of sleep. Researchers examined the possible effects on memory of 2 different sleep medications: zolpidem (link is external) and zaleplon (link is external). Zolpidem is the active ingredient in several frequently prescribed sleep medications, including Ambien, Ambien CR and Elduar. Zaleplon is the active ingredient in the prescription sleep aid Sonata. Both drugs belong to a class of drugs commonly known as sleep hypnotics (link is external). They have a sedative effect that aids physical relaxation, relieves tension and induces sleep. The study included 22 adults who were free of sleep problems. Researchers had all volunteers sleep under 3 different 8-hour sleep periods during the course of the study: With a bedtime dose of 12.5 mg zolpidem With a middle-of-the-night dose of 10 mg zaleplon With a placebo Before and after each sleep session, researchers tested participants memory skills in two different (link is external) ways. They used word-pair association tests to measure declarative memory. Most of what we think of as conscious memory is declarativeit is a form of memory that allows us to store facts, events, thoughts and ideas. They also tested procedural memory using a test involving finger tapping. Procedural memory involves recall for skills and tasks, most often using the body. We use procedural memories constantly, without consciously thinking about it, when we tie our shoes, brush our teeth, or type on our computers. Analysis revealed changes to both types of memory consolidation after taking sleep hypnotic medication at bedtime. Participants performed worse on both declarative and procedural memory tests after nights sleeping with the aid of zolpidem taken at bedtime, compared to nights with the placebo and nights with zaleplon taken in the middle of the night. Researchers found no difference between the placebo and the middle-of-night zaleplon dose, in terms of participants performance on memory tests. These results indicate that using sleep hypnotic medication may interfere with and diminish the brains work to consolidate memory during sleep. The research also suggests that timing may be a significant factor. Sleep medication taken earlier in the nightat bedtimehad a negative influence on memory, while medication taken later in the night did not. This initial study has provided an important first step in exploring the effects of prescription sleep aids on memory consolidation and other sleep-related brain functions, raising several questions that deserve follow up: Do dosage levels affect the influence of sleep medications on memory? Is timing of dose important to its effect on memory consolidation, and why? What role might age, or gender, play in this apparent influence of sleep medications on memory? Whats not in question? The importance of learning all we can about the effects of prescription sleep aids. According to a recent report issued (link is external) by the Centers for Disease Control, more than 9 million adults in the United States use prescription medication for sleep. Thats roughly 4% of the population relying on these medications to improve nightly rest. Were also learning more about the complications that can arise from some prescription sleep medication. In early 2013, the FDA issued (link is external) a safety alert pertaining to zolpidem, in response to research that showed certain nighttime dosages of the drug lead to excessive drowsiness in the morning. The research indicated that the standard dosage of drugs containing zolpidem, when taken at night, posed a risk for early morning drowsiness and impairment of activities including driving. These risks for impairment and drowsiness were highest for women. The FDA required the recommended dosages of zolpidem be lowered for women. The FDA also urged physicians to prescribe the lowest effective dose for all patients, and to fully discuss the risks of morning impairment. Also in 2013, a report issued by the federal governments Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found sharp increases (link is external) in the rise of emergency room visits that involved adverse reactions to zolpidem. The report included analysis of ER visits nationwide between 2005 and 2010, during which period zolpidem-related cases increased by 220%. Does this mean there is no place for prescription sleep medications containing zolpidem or other sleep hypnotic drugs? No. Used on a short-term basis, with the guidance of a physician, these sleep medications can help to break the difficult and often intractable cycle of insomnia, and help get sleep back on track. For most people, however, the best long-term strategy is to develop a strong, sustainable sleep routine that does not rely on prescription sleep medication. Theres no question this takes work, but the rewards are worth it. Your sleep, your overall healthand perhaps your memorywill be better for it. +