Making A Memory Book Of Regular Days
October 30, 2008
Many people have memory books of babies and weddings and leave scrapbooking as an art only for a life changing event like tying the knot or having a baby or for the holidays. However, even though these events should be captured in accurate detail, how about the other ‘regular’ times in your life which you have more of than the special occasions using memory practice?
If for instance, you have great portrait studio shorts of your kids all dressed in their holiday finest, how about some when they are wrestling with one another on the mattress or having a pillow fight in the night? How about the mess they make when helping you decorate cupcakes for the party as opposed to just the formal shots of how everything is prim and proper on the real day.
With kids, family and friends, regular moments need to be captured in a memory book as well so that we remember that exactly how grubby the kids were after playing in the sand pit and how they looked when the lost their front teeth or rode a two-wheeler for the first time.
Need Not Be Perfect
Memory books need not be pricey, fancy or perfect; they should mirror your life. If your life is extremely organized, squeaky clean and very fancy, then your memory books will reflect that. However, if you’re like the rest of us, let each layout be impromptu, let your creativity dictate where photos go rather than a sketch you saw on CR-ROM
Memory books also need not look like they are endorsements for your local craft store; not everything has to be new or store bought. Provided it is acid-free, you can use your own embellishments, left over scraps of paper, ribbons, postcards, buttons and the like to dress up a page. Buying a kit for a memory book may seem like a good idea to some, but it’s just as shortcut to get your page done. It has little to do with the creativity of mixing and matching elements to get a look that is uniquely you and not something mass produced in a factory.
Memory books do not have to be solely a mommy-only project either; the whole family can put in their two cents worth. What you may think as trivial may be an important to help your memory for another member of the family. Let everyone give their input as far as journaling, embellishments and captions go. Your memory book will have more layers of depth and will be more fun to read as a family.
The Major Causes Of Memory Loss
October 29, 2008
Before you can make any significant changes in terms of how to improve memory it is important that you learn about the different causes of memory loss. By determining what the most common root problems are you will be able to make a much more substantial change and figure out the best ways to improve your own memory.
Causes of Memory Loss
There are many causes of memory loss, both short and long-term, and depression and anxiety are both very common components in both cases. These conditions can both result in causing a kind of brain fog that makes it difficult for the sufferer to remember even the simplest day to day things, and the worst part of all is that this often causes them to become even more depressed and anxious and they then get caught in a vicious cycle.
Low blood sugar levels are also very contributing to memory loss and unable remembering names, in particular short-term memory loss. Blood sugar can become too low as a result of not eating the right foods or by having a health condition such as diabetes.
Aging of course is one of the most common and major causes of memory loss, and although most people already know this, what many people are not aware of is that there are things you can do to keep your memory from failing you. Everyone ages and memory loss is an almost unavoidable factor that comes with age.
So although you cannot fully prevent your memory from fading there are things that you can do in order to keep it as strong as possible.
Keep Active
We all know how important keeping physically active is, but it is just as important to keep our brains healthy and active as well. This can be done in a number of different ways, and doing crossword or jigsaw puzzles, playing trivia games, and taking memory improvement tips and courses are all really great things that you can do to help improve your memory.
Even though there are many known causes of memory loss there are also some which are not yet completely recognized, and so for your memory and your health in general, it is important that you life as healthy a lifestyle as possible. This means eating a nutritional and well-balanced diet, and getting lots of exercise. You should also quit any unhealthy habits that you may have, such as smoking or excessive alcohol drinking, as these can cause memory loss as well.
Avoidable Habits That Can Affect Long Term Memory
October 28, 2008
Many things are unavoidable in preventing long term memory loss, such as ageing, Alzheimer’s disease and even getting a cold. So, you don’t need to encourage long term memory loss by engaging in habits sure to harm your brain and your memory. All of these habits are preventable or changeable. They need changes in lifestyle and help from your doctor to know about human memory facts.
What Is This I Need To Keep Again?
In case you’ve forgotten what long term memory is, it’s the core memories of your life, such as your name, where you were born, how to walk – that sort of thing. This differs from short term memory, which can be easily lost from a knock to the head. When you have a concussion or are thought to have had a head injury or any condition that left you unconscious, one of the first things you’ll be asked is who is president of the United States. That’s a long term memory question. Not knowing what day it is a short term memory question. Damage to your long term memory is usually indicative of some brain injury or damage.
Drinking Alcohol
Although alcohol is notorious for helping you forget, sometimes it can help you forget too much. Short term memory is most often the culprit, but long term use or even binge drinking has proven to damage your long term memory skills. This leads to poor decision making abilities, even when sober. Women’s brains will be harmed faster than men’s brains, for some unfair reason. So make the right decision and stop drinking.
Excessive Marijuana Use
Although we don’t entirely know how the brain processes memory, it is thought that the part of the brain called the hippocampus plays an integral role. Marijuana can affect the hippocampus. In studies where marijuana users had to try and recall a list they learned a month ago, they could not, while those who didn’t use marijuana did. Everyone’s short term memory is affected by marijuana, but it is thought that excessive marijuana use (several joints a day every day) can damage long term memory. Marijuana stays in the body for a full month after it is ingested or inhaled. However, when it’s gone, it seems to take its bad effects with it.
Bad Nutrition
Lack of vitamins and minerals found in healthy foods is thought to contribute to brain malfunctions like long term memory loss and mistaken identity. This is why it is important to eat not only a balanced diet, but a varied one, in order to get all the nutrients your body needs.
Another Delicious Meal For Free
October 28, 2008
Birthday celebrations are one of the best things in life do you agree? Although there are many occasions such as anniversaries, holidays, fiestas and graduations, remembering the day you were born is really special which only happens once in a year.
Honestly I experienced birthday parties once only in my entire life, I think I was at the age of one at that time which I can still remember a picture of me ruining the cake by smashing it with my bare hands and eating it. For us celebrating birthday parties is an expense most specially when you are just living in a middle class family, we see it as very unessential.
Although we still celebrate our birthdays, a great meal, a greeting and a nice big hug from each member in our family is enough to make us feel special during those days, We don’t usually spoil ourselves with gifts and luxuries because we believe love is the most valuable thing that money can’t buy, so it is really rare for us to be celebrating parties.
One of the advantage of not celebrating birthdays is that we don’t have anything to worry about entertaining visitors, most specially cleaning up and washing dishes which I really really hate the most but one disadvantage though is you can’t have visitors.
Although I don’t really hate celebrating my birthday the fact is just I have nothing to share but say thank you when someone greets me. For me saying thanks would be enough I guess but one thing I like most when birthdays are coming is getting invited to a party simply because it would be another sumptuous meal for free, do you agree? Well it’s easy getting an invitation but the difficult part is getting there.
It was last summer when I was last invited to a party, as expected it was hot during that season, so I was donning my Sunglasses all the time. It was just unfortunate that on the same day I had my car repaired and my friend lived in a big village so I have to walk a hundred meters or so just to get there. The sun was up and shining bright during those times when I finally got to my friends house I was swetting bucket. Well it was a good thing I was greeted with a cold drink and a good ventilation whew!. I was also greeted with familiar faces and familiar food.
Speaking of food It was great, just as I expected it was like fiesta. Most of my favorites were served and specially the hot egg soup that totally fogged up my Reading Glasses which gave me a good reason for me to put it aside.
After giving the gift and having a great meal I have to walk another hundred meters to get out of the village. Alhtough the day was almost perfect, rather than going home directly I had to go to my Optometrist to have the frame of my Plastic Reading Glasses replaced because one of the hinges broke off after I sat on it. Well it just show everything is just not perfect even good times comes with bad luck sometimes.
Pay Attention: How To Improve Your Memory
October 28, 2008
If you want to know how to improve memory then there are a few good ideas you are going to want to take into consideration here. There are so many things you can do when it comes to learning how to improve your memory and the very first thing you should do before anything is make sure that you are alert, attentive, and of course positive.
If you are not optimistic and thinking positively about this experience then you are not going to be able to get very good results, so this is important. Also remember to always include as many of your senses as possible and so if you are normally a visual person, rather than just reading things to remember you should read them out loud, so that you are hearing it at the same time and will be that much more liable to remember.
Another great idea when it comes to learning how to improve your memory is to build your memory capacity, which you can do by learning new things and keeping your brain active. Learn a new language or give yourself math or science tests and see how you do. Crossword puzzles and related games are also very effective at helping improve memory because they keep the brain active and make it work.
Take a Course
If you are interested in learning how to improve your memory, then taking a course may be the best option for you here. There are even memory improvement courses that can be taken at home so that you can keep complete anonymity and do it on your own time, rather than having to make time in your day to rush out to school.
Remember that for learning how to improve your memory, pretty much any activity that actively engages your brain, jigsaw puzzles and board games for instance will help to test your knowledge and expose you to new ideas. It is also important to not stop these sorts of activities, even after you have started to notice an improvement in your memory.
You need to constantly keep testing your memory and this means engaging in these sorts of activities as often as you can. You can even make it a group thing and invite your friends and family members over to your house once a week for game night, where you all play trivia games that help improve memory. This way you are not only having fun and enjoying yourself but are also including others and helping them to improve their own memory.
The Fun Of Memory Games
October 27, 2008
We all want to improve short term memory; it is simply because we all know how valuable memory is in our regular lives. In fact, a majority of life successes actually depend on the capacity of memory encoding and retrieval skills. There is a great variety of serious techniques available in the market for enhancing memory skills. But people can also enjoy the time while enhancing their memory capability by simply getting engaged into various memory games as well. Let us explore a few popular memory games that can be played either individually or in a group setting.
Story Telling
When we need to remember the name and phone number, we simply repeat it few times before dialing. But some times after dialing, many of us simply forget the number. This is because we didn’t simply put the number into the segment of our long term memory. So we are unable to remember it later in time.
Story telling is a good memory game that focuses on the critical aspects of long term memory. The idea here is to simply connect the facts or items one needs to remember. When a story is told in a group, it enables the player to visualize a strong mental image of the incidences happening inside the story. This, in turn, helps in encoding the data to an image so that it can be stored in long term memory.
Matching Pairs
It is another wonderful memory game that involves matching pairs from a large bunch of playing cards that help to remember. This game can be played either individually or in pairs. The game can be started by laying out 24 cards containing 12 matched pairs. The player must not know the exact location of any single card in the bulk. The player must turn one card at a time, and look at the image on the card, and then the player turns its face down once again. The player needs to repeat this process till the image in the card matches with the card opened earlier. Now the objective is to find the pair by recalling its location from earlier drawings.
Remembering Names
This type of memory game is played in group of 10 to 12 people. In this game, the players may decide between themselves about the category of names to play with. Say, it is decided that the category will be ‘country’. The players can sit together by forming a circle.
Now the first player will say the name of one country, say, Italy, for example. The second player needs to mention the name already told by the first player in addition to maintain the right order and then add the name of the country he wants to say. If the second player likes to say, ‘Germany’, then following the game’s rule, he must say, ‘Italy, Germany’. The next player will say, ‘Italy, Germany, France’, where France is the name the third player wants to include in the list. It will be repeated in the same fashion for every one in the group. When someone will make a mistake in either recalling a name or maintaining the accurate order, he will be eliminated from the group.
The Connection Between Lipitor And Memory Loss
October 27, 2008
Because memory loss is such a commonly reported problem, it only makes sense then that there are many different forms of treatment that are available to help memory loss sufferers cope with their condition. These treatments work not only to help deal with the presently experienced memory loss but as well prevent the memory loss from worsening in the future.
There are also many known causes of memory loss, and medications for one are often to blame, both for short and long-term memory loss.
Lipitor and Memory Loss
One of the most common connections you will hear between memory loss and a prescription drug is Lipitor and memory loss and mistaken identity. This is because Lipitor and memory loss has proved as being a very common cause, and therefore needs to be taken very seriously into consideration.
Lipitor is a drug which is usually used to treat high cholesterol, and recent studies have shown that it is responsible for causing memory loss problems. It works by blocking an enzyme in the liver that the body uses to make cholesterol, and as a result when less cholesterol is produced the liver then is able to take up more cholesterol from the bloodstream.
More specifically in terms of Lipitor and memory loss, patients who have started on the Lipitor drug have complained of having memory loss, and although this is a very rare side effect of the drug and actually only occurs in less than 2% of the entire range of people taking the drug, it is still a serious problem nonetheless.
While most people are able to tolerate Lipitor, there are also others who experience anywhere from mild to severe side effects as a result of taking the drug. There is little research that has been conducted to date concerning the effects of Lipitor on memory loss, memory improvement tips and other brain conditions, and furthermore any research that has been done is rather conflicting and not determined.
Lipitor and memory loss is only one of many connections between memory loss and prescription medications, so it is important to discuss with your doctor about any drug before starting on it. Learn how it works and what is involved in the process, and most importantly what the possible side effects are.
Even if you hear that the side effects are very rare on human memory facts, this certainly does not eliminate the possibility of them happening to you and so you should always be prepared for the worst just in case.
Improving Memory Skills Effectively
October 26, 2008
If you believe your ability to memorize is below average you might just be using some memory techniques and memory practice that are not very helpful. There are techniques available that are easy to use for improving your memory skills. Unless you have some damage to the part of your brain that stores memory or a disease that affects you ability to remember information and the events from your daily life you can improve your memory with some new skills.
Mnemonic Techniques –Improving Memory Skills
Mnemonics are hints that come in a wide variety and they assist you in recalling information. Use enjoyable or interesting visual images to remember things and try to make them vibrant and three dimensional. Remember you neighbor’s name by thinking of a pretty Lilly flower if her name is Lilly. If you have difficult words to memorize such as scientific words put the words in humorous sentences or silly sentences. Boring information is more difficult to remember and recall. Use Acronyms or rhymes or alliterations such as beautiful Barbara to remember the name of someone you work with. “Chunking” information can also be useful for improving your memory skills and is done by taking a long list of items and creating shorter easier to remember lists.
Brain Exercises for Improving Memory Skills
Try doing some of your daily tasks in a different manner such as combing your hair with your left hand if you usually perform the task with your right hand or keep your eyes closed while you are buttoning your shirt. Learn something new that you have very little knowledge about or learn a new mind challenging game. When you challenge your brain with new tasks or change the way you perform your daily tasks your brain will use pathways it has not been using and this is a good strategy for improving memory skills.
Funnel Approach and Personally Relating
If you are studying for school it helps to memorize information by learning the broader concepts and then later try learning the details of the subject. The details will make more sense to you if you first acquire a good understanding of the subject. Another technique for improving your memory skills is relating the information to you. Try relating the information to your own life or how the information could be helpful to you and your goals and how it might relate to your past experiences. Using “mental hooks” is the procedure in which you connect new information to memories that are already kept in your brain. This will significantly assist you in recalling the new information.
Remembering information you obtain from reading a textbook can be difficult to do and you may find that you have to read the text numerous times to retain the information. Try placing the pertinent information in tables or lists or make brief outlines. Make charts and graphs by using the important information form your book that you desire to retain in your memory. If you were to find information in a humorous cartoon that you need to memorize for a test, chances are you will remember the information significantly easier than if the information was found in a mundane paragraph in your textbook. Using visual techniques such as these can help in improving your memory skills.
Memory Games Can Prove Effective In Dealing With Memory Disorders
October 26, 2008
It can be quite complicated trying out various techniques that are often used to improve your memory, and when it concerns the memory of children, not all of these techniques can prove to be useful and appropriate. There are times when children that have memory disorders requiring some simple means to improve their memory and thus need to try out improving memory games along with supplements that together can do the job for them.
Improve memory games are a better solution for children than drugs and also the various difficult techniques available in the market today, though it must be mentioned that such types of games are not solely designed for use on children, and they can also prove useful on adults as well. In fact, adults will get a lot of enjoyment out of playing improve memory games, while also helping to improve their memory capabilities.
Trivia Quizzes
The trivia quizzes are a prime example of what good memory games are to improve concentration focus, and they are very helpful to different people in being able to improve their memory and also better their reaction times, and they also help people to recall things a lot sooner than otherwise. These memory games have simple rules and the person that is first to provide the correct answer gets the points and thus the person with most points wins the game. The biggest advantage to using trivia quizzes is that they can be tailored around any topic and they are definitely better memory games which can also are playable on your home computer, though they are more fun when played amongst a group of friends.
Mahjong Tiles are another great example of memory games that are very good for enhancing the memory, and it requires players to make pairs of mixed tiles, and in this form of memory games, reaction times are assessed and also improved when played correctly. In a similar vein, is another memory games though this one is played with cards that are mixed and laid on a table face down, and the players need to turn up a card one at a time and observe it for a short span of time and then put it back where it was. The aim of this simple improving memory games is to realize different pairs out of the cards drawn while not taking too many tries in the process.
However, there are many other more complicated memory games as well though these may not suit everyone, though they can often lead to noticeable improvements in the memory of players, as witnessed in games such as the trivia quizzes.
Where To Find Memory Games Online
October 25, 2008
When it comes to ways to improve your memory one of the best things you can do is play a memory game. This is because by playing memory games you are not only working to improve your short and long term memory but more importantly you are having fun while doing it.
It is necessary to stay happy and optimistic while improving memory, otherwise it is not going to be a game but rather a task and you will find that you will not have nearly as significant results.
Memory Games Online
As with most other things, when it comes to memory games the Internet is really going to be one of your best resources. There are a number of different websites that offer memory games online, but a few in particular that have shown to be effective.
One website that offers memory games online is Buzzle, which offers an array of different games including card games, darts, memory games, treasure hunts, word games, adventure and fantasy games, and much more.
They are a website that is comprised of a truly dynamic network of authors and content contributors and as subject experts all of their authors work to create an informative and yet comfortable place for finding information about everything from animals to tourism.
Another website offering memory games online is the Explatorium. They actually offer a lot more than memory games online as they also feature explanations on the loss of memory and what is involved with it, as well as other things that you can do on a daily basis in order to improve your memory as much as possible.
If you think that you have a poor memory then it may also be that you just have some less than effective habits when it comes to taking in and processing information. Pay attention to things that are going on in your life because this will make a big difference, and you also want to involve as many of your senses as possible, as often as possible. Even if you tend to be more of a visual learner you should read out loud things that you want to remember because then you are hearing it as well and will be that much more liable to remember it for a longer period of time.
Improving your memory is something that can be done with a little time and a lot of patience. Just remember that the biggest changes are going to be noticeable long-term rather than right away.
