You Can Learn to Remember: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life pdfdrive com

use it or lose it
Our brains are more likely to remain alert throughout our lives if we keep
them healthy. Just as we take exercise to keep our bodies physically fit, and
watch our diet to avoid illness, so we need to take care of our brain. Mem
ory training provides an excellent mental workout, and if we make memory

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exercises part of our daily lives, and continue to expect our memory to
serve us well, it is more likely to remain up to the task. Research carried out
in Japan showed that a group of people aged over 80 had greater mental
agility and memory power than contemporaries who were in their sixties.
The dif ference was that the octogenarians had continued work ing. We
don’t have to stay in employment, but finding daily mental stimulation will
help to keep our memory in good condition, whatever our age.

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enticing the echoes
how to improve your memory
T
he first step in improving our memories is to have faith in memory as a
perfectible faculty. We may speak of having a memory “like a sieve” – yet this is
not the same order of reality as being colour-blind, or pigeon-toed or balding. As
you begin to use simple memory techniques, you will find that your ability to
recall facts, events, places and people gradually sharpens. Memory depends on
three basic processes: making something memorable, storing that item in the
mind, and recalling it accurately at some future time.
In this chapter, we look at the ways in which the basic operation of our
memory may be improved by applying the arts of imagination, association,
location, concentration and observation. We also discover how physical health
enhances memory and how our senses help us to hold information. Lastly we
look at some of the principles of memory recall.