Follow these steps to keep your memory fresh and improve your concentration:
- Eat the foods I mention in this video clip daily
- Keep blood pressure/cholesterol within normal levels
- Get enough evening sleep. It helps consolidate and retain your memories
- Engage in physical activities and exercise daily
- Keep your brain oxygenated
- Keep learning, challenge your brain-it strengthens existing neuronal pathways, and builds new nerve connections that improve your memory
- Relax and avoid stress
- Do NOT smoke-Smoking increases the risk for stroke and hypertension, two major causes of memory loss
- Drink in moderation
See my video clip for more details
Memory is the ability to remember events, skills, experiences through the complex process of encoding, storing, and retrieving information. This complex process involves several regions of the brain. Encoding (registration) is the first step in creating a new memory. It permits your five senses to perceive the information of the outer world in the forms of chemical and physical stimuli to be converted and stored within the brain, and later recalled from short-term or long-term memory. Storage creates a permanent record of and preserves information over periods of time. Retrieval (recall) of information allows stored information to be located and returned to your perception. Types of memory:
- Sensory, part of the process of perception, takes the information given by your five senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell) and retains it accurately for maximum two seconds. It is an essential step for storing information in short-term
- Short-term memoryt-term (recent or working memory), a necessary step toward long-term memory, records and stores maximum seven items of information and lasts a few dozen seconds. You will not remember it unless you make a conscious effort to retain it.
- Long-term (remote), stores significant events in your lives, lets you retain the meanings of words and the physical skills that you have learned. It can last months, years, or your entire lifetime.
Forgetfulness, amnesia, memory loss or poor memory, is the failure to remember. Moderate memory problems and decline of thinking skills are a reasonably common part of aging, although you see more often younger people struggling with remembering than a few decades ago. Normal changes in memory do not prevent you from carrying out everyday tasks, from taking care of yourself and family, from keeping your job and enjoying life. There are two kinds of amnesia: retrograde and anterograde. Retrograde amnesia is the inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to transfer new information from the short-term repository into the long-term one.
- Causes of reversible memory loss and confusion:
- Poor nutrition and insufficient sleep
- Medications: antidepressants, antihistamines, anti-anxiety drugs, muscle relaxants, tranquilizers, sleeping pills
- Minor head trauma or injury
- Stress, anxiety or depression
- Alcoholism, smoking and drugs
- Vitamins deficiency, especially B-12 which helps maintain healthy nerve cells and red blood cells
- Hypothyroidism, an underactive thyroid gland, slows the processing of nutrients to create energy for cells
- Brain tumors
Ways to preserve and improve memory: The foods that I describe in this presentation will definitely help you with your memory problems, concentration and learning ability. Add them to your daily diet in addition to regular exercise (of your body and your mind) and physical activities in well -oxygenated areas, stop smoking, reduce consumption of alcohol, avoid stressful situations and individuals, meditate, last but not least sleep minimum seven hours daily. In a few months you will notice considerable improvement.
