Memory and the Brain

Your mind is an amazing resource, but as you age you will find that your memory is adversely affected. An excellent way to improve your memory is to recognize each improvement as a succession of small victories to be built upon each other.

Classification

Your memory can be divided into 8 different types: Episodic, Factual, Semantic, Sensory, Instinctive, Skill, Collective, and Past Life memory. These divisions describe the function that each part of the memory is responsible for. For example, factual memory is used for remembering facts such as the date of Christmas is the 25th of December. Skill memory is interesting, in that all skills involve your memory as well. Learning to ride a bike, or baking, involved using your brain to remember each particular skill.

Another way of classifying your memory is in terms of duration – Short term, Long term and sensory memory. Short term memory refers to the recent memory, and is usually only held for a very short period of time. A common example would be when you meet many new people, cursorily introduced at a party. Long term memory, on the other hand, can be thought of as a database where all the information that you have learned is kept. Sensory memory is conveyed through your senses of sight and sound, where you keep these “images” in your mind.

Brain

People who are able to learn quickly or remember many facts are often thought of as being more intelligent. Is there really such a correlation between intelligence and the memory? There is little difference between you and your neighbor, or someone else half the world away. What then accounts for this difference in intelligence? Your memory plays a key role in acting as a resource for you to draw upon the knowledge you have learned, and piece them together to reason. By using your memory hand in hand with new experiences, you will find that an individual who learns from mistakes will not make the same mistake again. Again, this is the memory at work, allowing you to remember and hence avoid the error.

Aging

To be in possession of a clear mind is a precious thing. Whilst older people are more prone to suffering from dementia, it can be reversed before it reaches an advanced stage. Keeping a healthy diet, exercising, sleep and having sufficient nutrients can help you to avoid dementia. Elderly people are less likely to have severe problems with memory improvement skills if they are confident in their abilities and work to improve their recall. Just as physical exercise increases your muscle mass, constant exercising of your mind will help you to improve your brain.

Learning

When studying or learning something new, it is always useful to have someone to study with. By sharing knowledge, engaging in discussions and teaching each other, it sends a signal to your mind that the information is useful and this helps you to store it in the long term memory. Keep in mind that systematic learning does not equate to memorizing by rote, but developing a process that will help you to recall the information that you have learned easily. There are many methods to help your brain create such linkages. 

Confidence

Lastly, confidence is an important factor when working to improve your memory. As you gain greater confidence, you will learn to overcome momentary lapses of memory. Confidence can transform the way you learn, and makes a tremendous difference to your learning process

Always begin by first identifying what type of memory you want to improve, and then asking yourself how to go about doing so. Your mind has different types of memory, and exercises to improve one type may not be effective if it is not the right memory classification that you want to work on.