Improving Your Memory For Dummies E-Book

John B. Arden

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 482

Beschreibung

Practical tips and techniques make remembering a snap Jog your memory with exercises to help you at home, at work,anywhere! Whether you are cramming for an exam, have trouble rememberingnames, or you just want to give your overall memory power a boost,this plain-English guide offers clever tricks to help you rememberwhat you want to remember. You'll discover how your memory worksand how to enhance it in all types of situations. The Dummies Way * Explanations in plain English * "Get in, get out" information * Icons and other navigational aids * Tear-out cheat sheet * Top ten lists * A dash of humor and fun Get smart! @www.dummies.com * Find listings of all our books * Choose from among 33 different subject categories * Sign up for daily eTips at www.dummiesdaily.com

Leseprobe

Improving Your Memory For Dummies®

by John B. Arden, Ph.D.

Improving Your Memory For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2002 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Library of Congress Control Number: 2002106046

ISBN: 978-0-7645-5435-3

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9

1B/TQ/RS/QT/IN

About the Author

John Boghosian Arden, Ph.D., is the Director of Training for Psychology in the Kaiser Permanente Medical Centers in Northern California. In this capacity, he oversees 20 training programs in as many medical centers. He is also the local Director of Training at Kaiser Permanente in Vallejo, California, where he served in the past as Chief Psychologist.

Dr. Arden is the author of four other books: Consciousness, Dreams, and Self (winner of the 1997 Outstanding Academic Book of the Year Award by Choice — a publication of the American Library Association); Science, Theology, and Consciousness (nominated by an international panel of jurists for the Templeton Prize); Surviving Job Stress; and Creating the Lowest Common Denominator Society.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife, Vicki, and our two sons, Paul and Gabe, who were more than patient and supportive of me during the long hours and months I spent writing this book. Vicki also read every page of this book before I sent it on to my editor, always forcing me to be clear and straightening out my grammatical stumbling.

Author’s Acknowledgments

No book is written in a vacuum or is the product of just one person’s effort. Many people deserve my hearty thanks and acknowledgment. To begin with, many thanks go to my always pleasant and hardworking agent, Elizabeth Frost-Knappman, for asking me to put together a proposal to write this book and for working out the contractual details that are well beyond me. I am very fortunate to be represented by Elizabeth and her husband, Ed.

To Greg Tubach, Acquisitions Editor, for working with both Elizabeth and me to help me get into the ballpark and learn to write a book of this style. He was more than gracious.

To my Project Editor, Norm Crampton, who was my partner. Norm worked with me for all the months that it took for this book to develop, and it was his job to make sure that it took the proper form and became the best that it could be. He was always there, not only to provide helpful suggestions and forcing me to be practical and down to earth, but also to be a friend. Our many pleasurable conversations touched on everything from politics to family and were always enlivened by his warmth and humor.

Finally, to Norm’s associate, Senior Copy Editor, Patricia Yuu Pan, who, with her colleagues Chrissy Guthrie and Mary Fales went over every page and word to make sure that what you read is clear and complete. Her running dialog with Norm, which I was privy to, was not only helpful, but quite fascinating, because it all took place in the amazing high-tech environment of e-mail.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Norm Crampton

Acquisitions Editor: Greg Tubach

Copy Editors: Patricia Yuu Pan, Christina Guthrie, Mary Fales

Technical Editor: Michael Shore, Ph.D.

Editorial Manager: Christine Beck

Editorial Assistant: Melissa Bennett

Cover photo: © Royalty-Free/Corbis

Composition

Project Coordinator: Dale White

Layout and Graphics: Scott Bristol, Brian Drumm, Jackie Nicholas, Barry Offringa, Betty Schulte, Mary J. Virgin

Proofreaders: Dave Faust, Aptara

Indexer: Aptara

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director, Consumer Dummies

Kristin A. Cocks, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies

Michael Spring, Vice President and Publisher, Travel

Brice Gosnell, Associate Publisher, Travel

Suzanne Jannetta, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Contents

Title

Introduction

About This Book

Who Needs This Book

How to Use This Book

How This Book Is Organized

Icons Used in This Book

Part I : Understanding Memory

Chapter 1: Cultivating Your Memory Skills

Wondering about Skips in Your Memory

Clearing the Air of Random Noise and Ridiculous Ideas

Improving Your Memory

Chapter 2: Tossing Out Those Memory Myths

Myth: Thinking that You’re Losing Your Memory

Myth: Memory Is Like a Filing Cabinet— F for Food, T for Travel

Myth: Memories Are Snapshots, and Cameras Don’t Lie

Myth: You Can Learn in Your Sleep and Other Nonsense

Myth: You’re Too Old, Too Young, or Too Dumb to Improve Your Memory

Chapter 3: Discovering How Your Brain Remembers

Navigating Through Your Hemispheres and Lobes

Brain Cells: Zooming in for a Closer Look

Staging Your Memories: Long Term, Short Term

Sorting and Recovering Your Memories Down Pathways

Part II : Establishing Memory Power

Chapter 4: Eating To Remember

Breaking a Fast — Breakfast

Vegging Up

Carbo Loading: Go Complex Instead of Simple

Getting Your Fats Right

Boosting Your Neurotransmitters

Vitamins: Eating Foods that Put the Bs in Your Brain

Avoiding Foods that Aren’t

Making Sure You’re Hydrated

Chapter 5: Supplementing Your Memory

Vitalizing Your Memory with Vitamins

Taking Advantage of the Chinese Gs

Using Your Herbal Cornucopia

Charging by Hormones

Bathing in Minerals

Making Less More

Chapter 6: Avoiding the Memory Suppressors

Minimizing Subtle Brain Rot

Keeping Clear of Neurotoxins

Saying No to Certain Food Additives

Saying “No, Thanks” to Alcohol and Marijuana

Getting Clear on the Side Effects of Rx

Stamping Out the Butt

Slowing the Dementias

Keeping Your Thyroid and Pancreas from Causing Memory-Drift

Chapter 7: Balancing Your Mind for Memories

Defusing Stress

Shifting to the Relaxation Response

Relaxing to Charge Up Your Memory

Pulling Out of the Dumps

Getting a Move On

Getting Some Sleep So You Can Remember

Part III : Preserving Your Memory

Chapter 8: Tricking Yourself into Remembering

Introducing Mnemonics, Your Memory Sidekick

Hanging Memories on Pegs

Putting Memories into Familiar Places

Telling Yourself a Story to Link Memories

Choosing the Right Mnemonic at the Right Time

Chapter 9: Troubleshooting Your Forgetfulness

Cutting through Memory Fog

Getting It Down Cold by Overlearning

Getting Organized

Rhyming Memory

Getting the Meaning of the Memory

Feeding Back to Remember

Chapter 10: Keeping Your Memory Sharp as You Grow Older

Making Full Use of a Vintage Brain

Mental Gymnastics: Inflating a Shrinking Brain

Becoming an Old Dog Who Remembers New Tricks

Part IV : Exercising Your Memory Every Day

Chapter 11: Schooling Memory

Organizing Your Recall

Striving for Meaning Instead of Rote

Taking Notes and Remembering What You Heard at Lectures

Remembering What You Read

Remembering How to Spell

Chapter 12: Taking a Powerhouse Memory to Work

Interviewing for the Job

Remembering How to Pass Political Probation

Dealing with Passwords and Procedures

Remembering New Technology

Satisfying Customers

Dealing with Deadlines

Remembering Your Co-workers

Stressing Your Memory at Work

Speaking from Memory

Chapter 13: Acing Exams

Replacing Your D– Habits with A+ Habits

Underlining with a Rembrandt Touch

Using Your Memory Techniques

Going to the Bathroom and Other Good Ideas

Chapter 14: Remembering People

Facing a Face to Remember

Putting a Name on a Familiar Face

Using Conversation to Unzip the Person Within

Sharing Memories: How People See Things Differently

Putting People in Pigeonholes

Car Talk — Wheeling in the Person

Remembering the Pecking Order

Making Connections at Meetings

Remembering All Kinds of People

Chapter 15: Taking Stock of Important Dates and Strings of Numbers

Getting Briefed on the Technique

Celebrating Those All-Important Days

Creating Rhymes for Historical Dates

Tying a String around Appointments

Getting a Handle on Recurring Events

Working with Rotating Schedules

Getting to Your Appointment on Time

Remembering Strings of Numbers

Chapter 16: Keeping Your Memory Intact in a High-Speed World

Staying Organized at the Center of the Cyclone

Dodging the Hazards of Multitasking

Breaking Away from a Media-Crazed World

Aiding Your Memory with External Cues

Part V : The Part of Tens

Chapter 17: Ten Best Ways to Improve Your Memory

Consume a Balanced Diet

Relax Your Brain

Exercise Your Memory

Take Supplements

Stimulate Your Mind

Focus on Memory

Stay Organized

Associate, Pair, and Connect

Use Memory Aids

Keep the Right Attitude

Chapter 18: Ten Frequently Asked Questions About Memory

As I Grow Old, Are My Memory Skills Going to Wither Away?

Can I Do One Thing to Improve My Memory?

Does My Brain Store Memories in Just One Place?

I Think I’m Losing My Memory. Can I Find It Again?

Can I Remember without Paying Attention?

Do I Have Memories I Don’t Know About?

Are My Memories Accurate Reflections of My Experiences?

Should I Use Supplements?

Why Can’t I Remember My Infancy?

Should I Relax My Mind, So I Can Remember?

Chapter 19: Ten Memory Web Sites

Introduction

S o you want to improve your memory. Good! You’ve come to the right place. Your memory can be the key to success and enjoyment on the one hand or the key to mistakes and concern on the other hand. Practically all of us have first-hand experience on both hands.

Improving your memory is a worthwhile activity no matter how old you are, from high school student studying for exams to carefree retiree making new acquaintances.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you can improve your memory, and I can show you how.

About This Book

This book is about your memory — what it is, what it isn’t, and how to improve it. This book is a resource that you can count on not only to explain how your memory works, but also to provide you with ways to improve it.

Because there’s no single, all-purpose way to improve your memory (and no magic memory pill), this book addresses the wide variety of ways that you can boost your memory skills. You can discover how to enhance your brain’s ability to remember and how to avoid those things that drag it down. I also show you how to use a number of tricks to remember what you want to remember.

Whether you want to remember facts and ideas for an upcoming exam, improve your memory of work processes on the job, or just remember the people you meet, you can discover ways to do all that and much more in this book.

Who Needs This Book

I don’t know what your age is, but I do know that you have memory skills. You simply can’t live without them. How good those memory skills are is another question. However, the opportunity is the same for you, me, and everyone else: There’s always room to improve memory skills.

So the answer to “Who Needs This Book” is simple: We all do. Everyone can benefit from using Improving Your Memory For Dummies as a reference and guide.

How to Use This Book

Because you can improve your memory in a wide variety of ways, you can think of this book as a general resource and reference. I suggest that you use each chapter as a self-contained mini-book on a special aspect of improving your memory.

For example, in the chapter on nutrition, you find tips on improving your memory by what you eat. In the chapter on mnemonics (nee-MON-iks), you can discover useful little tricks for remembering things — for example, associating something you know well with something else that you want to remember.

Each chapter in this book is an independent unit, but each is also one part of the bigger picture concerning ways you can improve your memory. I hope that you dip into every chapter and consider all the advice I provide in this book — but you don’t have to. Browse, if you want to. Take what you need at the moment and save the rest for later. It’s okay to skip around and read the chapters out of order. If a topic, such as improving your memory at work, is important to you right now, you can start with Chapter 12, and then you can jump to, say, Chapter 5, which covers food supplements that have a good effect on memory. Your route and pace through this book are strictly up to you.

I do recommend, however, that you read the entire book, over time, because there’s no one way to improve your memory. The more ways you discover and learn to use memory skills, the better those skills become.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is organized in parts. Each of the five parts covers a broad area associated with your memory.

Part I: Understanding Memory

Use this part to discover what your memory is and what it isn’t. Find out how your memory works and what kinds of things affect it, from body chemistry to outside environment. Basically, Chapter 1 gives you the big picture.

Chapter 2 sorts fact from fiction concerning memory, so that you can cast away the myths and concentrate on strategies that actually do have an effect on memory.

Chapter 3 tells you all about how your brain remembers. Your brain works as a system of systems to form your memories. Various parts of the brain are specialized to perform specific roles in your memory. Chapter 3 explains how short-term memories move into long-term memory, how attention and association are important parts of your memory, and more.

Part II: Establishing Memory Power

You can improve your memory in many ways. You can also diminish your memory in many ways. Part II covers this territory in detail.

Chapter 4 explains how important a balanced diet is to your memory. What you eat has a major effect on your brain chemistry, which, in turn, has a major effect on how well you remember.

Chapter 5 takes you on a tour of dietary supplements — vitamins, minerals, and herbs — that help support your brain’s ability to remember. I explain which ones are helpful.

Chapter 6 identifies illnesses and warns you away from lifestyle habits (smoking, poor diet, and so on) that suppress your memory.

In Chapter 7, you discover why relaxing is so important to remembering, and I suggest relaxation techniques. You also discover how to pull yourself out of a depression, so that you’re not distracted and can remember better. The chapter also covers sleep and exercise — two vital parts of a strong memory.

Part III: Preserving Your Memory

Chapters 8, 9, and 10 serve as your memory “maintenance manual” where I show you a number of all-purpose strategies and tricks for remembering the things you want to remember (the central topic of Chapter 8). I cover a variety of mnemonic techniques, such as loci, peg, and story links.

Chapter 9, “Troubleshooting Your Forgetfulness,” shows you how to “overlearn,” so that you can tell yourself with pride, “I’ve got that down cold!” (Don’t you love the sound of those words?) The chapter also explains how to apply other useful remedies called tagging, chunking, rhyming, and serializing.

Chapter 10 is your “sooner or later” chapter. Sooner or later, as people grow older, they worry that their memory is withering away. Chapter 10 explains what’s what about aging and memory, and shows you how to maximize your memory skills as you age.

Part IV: Exercising Your Memory Every Day

You test your memory skills in a variety of arenas every day of your life. In this part, you find out how to enhance your memory as you meet challenges at work, school, and in social situations.

In Chapter 11, you can discover how to maximize your memory skills while you try to learn as much as you can at school.

When you’re at work, your memory is working every minute. In Chapter 12, you find out ways that you can stretch your memory skills while on the job.

Whether at school or at work, your memory is put to the test regularly. Chapter 13 shows you how to ace those exams.

Human beings are social creatures. You’ve probably met hundreds, if not thousands, of people in your lifetime. You may not remember them all, but, in Chapter 14, you find out how to remember the ones you want to remember.

If remembering dates, appointments, and anniversaries is important to you, Chapter 15 is your key reference to practical ways that you can make sure you don’t forget.

The last chapter of Part IV contains my best advice on preserving a strong memory in a Post-Modern world that’s saturated with cell phones, e-mails, pagers, instant messaging, and so on. Remembering who just called, e-mailed, or paged you can be hard if you’re off to something else before you can digest the conversation. Chapter 16 shows you how to avoid the memory perils of multitasking or jumping from one engagement to another with barely a break in between.

Part V: The Part of Tens

The three chapters in Part V provide information about memory in a top-ten format. Chapter 17, “Ten Best Ways to Improve Your Memory,” is a quick list of reminders. Chapter 18 covers ten frequently asked questions about memory and provides the answers. Finally, Chapter 19 is your reference to ten sites on the World Wide Web where you can find many more fascinating facts and helpful hints about improving your memory.

Icons Used in This Book

The margins of this book contain little pictographs called icons. Here’s what they mean:

Targets information that you can apply at once to improve your memory.

Cautions you away from certain kinds of behavior that can derail your memory improvement effort.

Presents information about memory gathered from my practice as a psychologist.

You could tag the whole book with this icon, but I reserve it for big ideas about memory.

Gives you the deep background on a few selected topics.

Part I

Understanding Memory

In this part . . .

Human beings have wonderful imaginations. You and I can imagine all sorts of things about our memories — some of it true, some of it not. This part sorts fact from fiction and shows you around the brain’s anatomy so that you’re familiar with memory land. I explain how the brain works and how it performs amazing gymnastics for you, 24-7.

Chapter 1

Cultivating Your Memory Skills

In This Chapter

Avoiding absentmindedness

Getting it off the tip of your tongue

Unblocking your memories

Using methods to improve your memory skills

N ine out of ten people say that they want to improve their memory. Are you one of them? Are you also one of the six out of ten people who tell pollsters that they’ve had the awkward experience of walking into a room — and forgetting why?

These numbers seem to suggest that planet Earth is experiencing an epidemic of declining memories, but that’s not the case. Nearly everyone wonders from time to time whether he or she is losing memory power.

By reading this book, you’re demonstrating that you want to have the best memory possible. Therefore, my job is to show you how to improve your memory and how to avoid losing it.