Alcohol Good For Memory

Alcohol good for memory: black grapes have a compound that improves spatial memory

…a compound found in the black grapes, Pinot noir and Pinot meunier, both of which are used for champagne, helps stave off forgetfulness.

For those of you who are not fans of champagne, all is not lost since it appears that a compound in black grapes is what does the trick. Hopefully, some enterprising business person will come up with a non-alcoholic drink that would be just as effective. Even though researchers found alcohol good for memory, consuming so much will not doubt have a number of negative side effects. More research is needed with varying grapes, concentrations, and age ranges.

Free Online Memory Techniques

The lessons include an article on each of the following topics:

•     Cognitive Exercises
•     Play Games
•     Mnemonics
•     Visualization
•     Use It Instead of Devices and Tools
•     Reduce Stress
•     Get Enough Rest
•     Diet
•     Exercise
•     Supplements

The videos run between 7 and 11 minutes each.

•     Memory Training – Even Memorize An Entire Speech
•     Memory Improvement Techniques – Remember Words, Language, and More
•     Increase Memory – Remember Quotes Word-For-Word!
•     Improve Your Memory – Have a Fit Mind!
•     Memory Techniques – Remembering Lists and More
•     How To Improve Memory – Food For Thought
•     Improve Memory – Avoid Memory Robbers!

You can access all the lessons and videos here.

Share these free online memory techniques with friends, family, and business colleagues.

Fist Clenching and Memory

Researchers recruited 51 right-handed individuals for the experiment, and asked them to squeeze a pink rubber ball for 90 seconds before they were shown a list of 36 words. They were then asked to squeeze the ball again before they wrote down as many of the words as they could remember.

The test subjects who squeezed the ball with their right hand before memorizing the list, and then squeezed it with their left hand before writing words down, performed best.

Those who squeezed the ball first with their left hand, and then with their right, or those who used just one hand, recalled fewer words.

Read more about the study here.

So it appears that the fist clenching technique can increase activity in the opposite side of the brain — and it also appears that the timing is particularly important. You’ll get the best results if you squeeze the right hand first before you tackle a learning activity and then the left hand when you go to retrieve the information. Fist clenching and memory go hand-in-hand (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

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• Be in the Moment
• Create a Learning Environment
• Use All Your Senses
• Use Mnemonic Devices
• Organize
• Overlearn
• Retain a Positive Attitude
• Exercise Regularly
• Manage Stress
• Other Good Habits

I’ve chosen a small sampling to share with you.

Transform Your Memory Skills

Transform your memory skills through exercise, positive attitude, being in the moment, being organized, reducing stress, and more. Read all 75 tips.

Overlearn

46. Spend some time with new material a few hours after you’ve been introduced to it. Review notes and try to consolidate the notes into a broad concept or idea.

47. Review notes and other information at intervals throughout the next few days. This is called “Spaced Rehearsal” or “Spaced Repetition,” and it’s a more effective method for learning than cramming.

48. Review material until it becomes second nature. The best way to accomplish this task is to discuss material with another person.

49. When you use overlearning, you improve recall speed.

Retain a Positive Attitude

50. If you don’t want to learn something, chances are you won’t learn it.

51. Tell yourself that you want to learn and that you can learn and remember the information at hand.

52. If you constantly tell yourself and others that you have a bad memory, this action actually hampers the ability of your brain to remember.

53. A positive outlook and positive mental feedback sets up an expectation for success.

Read all 75 tips here.

Trying to take in 75 tips to transform your memory skills all at once is no doubt overwhelming. So choose 2 or 3 and try them out. Don’t add any more until you’ve mastered the first set and have made them a daily part of your life.

Do you have any tips you’d like to add to the list? Share them with us in the comment section.

In this article, Dr. Patricia Farrell, first tackles laziness as it relates to exercise and genetics. Yes, believe it or not, you can blame your “programming. From there, she goes on to discuss the effect of walking and weight training on two types of memory:  remembering words and spatial memory.

Walking or Weight Lifting

Which is a better boost for your memory — walking for weight lifting?
Read the article to find out.

Some people, as you know, try to maintain their memory by frequent reading, doing puzzles and even playing computer games. I’m sure each of these can contribute to the maintenance of memory, but who would’ve thought that exercise played such an important role?

Interestingly enough, women who  walked briskly had better verbal memory gains  than those who did weight training. The supposition is that the difference may be attributed to different physiological effects on the brain in terms of memory. Some other research that was also done relative to the brains of runners showed that there was an increased level of what is known as BDNF, otherwise known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor. That’s a good thing to have. You might say that it’s the protein that can cause brain growth and it may be that there are important changes in the hippocampus, the brain structure central to memory formation and retention, as a result.

You can read the entire article here.

So if you’re wondering how to spend your lunch time at work, it looks like a brisk walk will do your memory good. Grab a colleague or two and get moving. Why not use the opportunity to hold a walking meeting instead of sitting around the boardroom table?

As for walking or weight lifting,  if you ask the fitness experts, they’ll tell you it’s still a good idea to do both.

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Can Rosemary Enhance Memory?

Can rosemary improve memory? A number of scents have long been associated with improved memory.

Participants were tasked various tests to assess their memory functions, including finding hidden objects and passing specified objects to researchers at a particular time.

The results, presented at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference in Harrogate, showed that participants in the rosemary-scented room performed better on the prospective memory tasks than those in the room with no smell.

“We wanted to build on our previous research that indicated rosemary aroma improved long-term memory and mental arithmetic,” said author Dr Mark Moss.

“In this study we focused on prospective memory, which involves the ability to remember events that will occur in the future and to remember to complete tasks at particular times. This is critical for everyday functioning. For example, when someone needs to remember to post a birthday card or to take medication at a particular time.”

Read more about the University of Northumbria study here.

Can rosemary enhance memory? It appears that it does. What can we do to safely benefit from the aroma of essential rosemary oil? Share your ideas in the comment box below.

Memory Championship Techniques

You too can use memory championship techniques to remember names and faces, lists, or shuffled packs of playing cards.

The most important of those principles is that we remember when we pay attention. We remember when we engage deeply, when information is made meaningful, when it’s colorful, when we’re able to integrate it into the web of all the other things we know. Memory techniques, like the memory palace, may sound like miraculous shortcuts. But in fact they work precisely because they make you work. They take effort. They force a kind of depth of processing and a kind of mindfulness that many of us don’t normally walk around exercising. But that’s what it takes to remember — and to live a memorable life.

For example, if you want to remember someone’s name, the first and most important thing you can do is pay attention — real attention — when a person introduces herself. Most of the time, we forget a person’s names because we never properly encode it in our memories. Our minds are elsewhere, or we’re too busy thinking of the first clever thing we’re going to say back.

…

If attention and engagement are the secret to remembering, then that raises an interesting question. How much of our lives — our already short lives — are we comfortable losing because we’re buried in our smartphones, or not paying attention to the human being across from us, or because we’re simply too lazy to try to engage deeply with the world around us? The feats of memory champions prove that there are incredible memory capacities latent in all of us, but if you are going to live a memorable life, it takes effort. You have to constantly force yourself to pay attention, to make information meaningful, to engage deeply. You have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.

You can read the full article here .

So there you have it — being mindful of our surroundings, engaging deeply in the situation, as well as having a system for encoding the information in our brains seems to be the foundation of memory championship techniques.

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How to Remember Anything Instantly

Want to know how to remember anything instantly? Create a storage location in your mind. That will make it easier to come back and retrieve it when you need it.
photo: kozzi.com

Pay attention. If you don’t make an effort to consciously tune in and focus on what someone’s telling you or that shopping list in front of you, no strategy will work. Period.

Place the pictures on a path. “When we remember something, we don’t usually store it some place where we can retrieve it,” Dellis says. The solution? Create that place. Choose a location you know well, like your house, and pick a familiar path through it. Then, place your series of pictures along the path, interacting with specific markers—a closet, a couch, a door. The idea is that once you’ve placed all the items you want to memorize, all you have to do is walk back through that same path to “see” them.

You can read more about Nelson Dellis’ techniques here.

The reason most of us don’t know how to remember anything instantly is that we don’t have a structured storage and retrieval system. Memory champions are expert at storing information in a way that makes it easy to get the information out of their brains when they need it. As Nelson Dellis mentions in his second point above, we can create the place or location for storing the information. Then all we have to do is walk back in our minds to that spot to retrieve the information. Pretty cool, huh?

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Does Exercise Increase Brain Power?

Does exercise increase brain power? A little jog or walk before a presentation may work wonders. (photo: kozzi.com)

… researchers have found that even just one bout of exercise can — even better than a cup of coffee — improve your mental focus and cognitive performance for any challenging task you face that day.

A new analysis of 19 studies involving 586 kids, teens, and young adults that was published Wednesday in the British Medical Journal found that short 10 to 40 minutes bursts of exercise led to an immediate boost in concentration and mental focus, likely by improving blood flow to the brain.

“These results provide further evidence that doing about 20 minutes of exercise just before taking a test or giving a speech can improve performance,” said Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Ratey, who wrote the best-selling book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

Here’s one exercise suggestion.

To improve immediate mental performance, think quick-and-dirty exercise bouts. A short, sweaty session of jumping rope, running in place, squat bends can quickly improve blood flow to the brain, helping to improve the transmission of signals through the nerve cells, according to Ratey. Try to squeeze in this mini-workout within an hour before you’re expected to perform.

You can read the entire article here.

Does exercise increase brain power? If it works for the younger generation as in the study described above, no reason it won’t work for others. Try incorporating a few minutes of exercise several times a day. Set a timer. If your boss complains, tell him/her you’re improving your memory and focus. Right before a presentation is a particularly good time to engage in a little exercise.

I’d also suggest adding exercise breaks into training courses. If you want people to remember what they’re learning ( and what instructor doesn’t), then try them in your sessions. Your training programs will really stand out.

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Better Memory and Concentration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpbMvXT5140

According to one of the entries in the comment section below the video, this exercise originates from the book The Power Of Concentration by Theron Q. Dumont (who lived from 1862-1932). When it comes to concentration and focus, it appears that some ideas never get old.

So try out this exercise for better memory and concentration and then come back and tell us how it’s working out for you. Share it with colleagues, friends, and family members. Apparently, it helps with ADHD too.