Technology has given us the ability to have a device in our pocket that is both an agenda and an encyclopedia, reminding us of our friends’ birthdays and giving us access to all the details of the periodic table. Nevertheless, a good memory helps us in many aspects of our lives.
The problem is that whether it’s because we’re students and need to memorize a lot of concepts, or because we’re getting older and our brains are losing capacity, there are many reasons to look for tools that allow us to train and maintain our mnemonic capacity. . These are some of the strategies that have been validated by scientific studies.
The first reminds us of that Latin phrase “healthy men in healthy bodies”, taken from a satire by the Roman author Decimo Junius Juvenal. Various medical organizations, such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization, They combine physical exercise with a good memory.
Exercise could be particularly useful when it comes to preventing the degeneration of our memory associated with age and diseases such as Alzheimer’s. In the same year, two studies focused on this issue can be found, one published incl Alzheimer’s research and therapyand others in Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
We don’t know the exact reason for the relationship. While some suggest this may be due to the BNDF protein, others believe the relationship may come from better oxygenation of the brain. In this regard, more studies are needed to also determine the extent to which the relationship can be extrapolated to younger people. The problem is that many studies conducted in this context have limited samples, which limits the generalizability of their results.
Food is the key to the proper functioning of our brain. I.e Good food can also help our memory. A varied and nutrient-rich diet is key here. Among the recommendations we find diets rich in fruit, vegetables and fish, without forgetting the role of certain fats, such as those offered by olive oil and nuts.
Here again we find studies that focus on the deterioration of memory over the years. An example of this is a study published in 2015 in the journal Nutrition that examined the relationship between diet quality and cognitive impairment in a sample of over 27,000 participants.
Exercise and a healthy diet are very general strategies that can improve our quality of life in general, but there are strategies that are more focused on our memory. Like any other skill, memory can be trained.
This is a long-term strategy. A literature review published in 2019 found no evidence of a relationship between memory training and our cognitive abilities in young adults, but found a positive relationship in older adults. Of course, memory training can also help us improve at specific tasks, but the more general benefits to our memory may be limited as we age.
Stress has been linked to memory problems, so those strategies that enable us managing our stress levels better could also help us remember with greater dexterity. The (inverse) relationship between stress and memory is not only associated with advanced age, but also the problem it presents in classrooms where memorization is important but also promotes stress.
Closely related to stress is the issue of attention. If we want to remember something, it is advisable to pay as much attention as possible to it. One hypothesis about the origin of this relationship suggests that it’s because our brains understand that the tasks or ideas we pay attention to are more important, so we’re more likely to commit them to memory.
Finally, one more tip that can help us far beyond our goal of improving our memory: sleep well. Getting enough and good sleep helps our brain to function properly. Although neuroscientists are not entirely sure why we sleep, one hypothesis is that during sleep the brain “fixes” its memories.
In 1973, a study published in the journal Science delved into this relationship and verified that dreams in which the rapid eye movement (REM) phase was more abundant were associated with poorer memory than dreams in which the deep phase occupied more in relative terms. Since then, we have been refining our knowledge of the relationship, but with the growing certainty that good sleep is essential for a healthy and effective memory.
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Image | Laura Fuhrman