6 Tips From a Neurologist to Protect Your Memory

There old age It is an inevitable stage of life What worries many people . And this is usually linked to loneliness, illness and deterioration of the brain and its cognitive functions. Specifically, Many people fear losing their memory with the years.

The neuroscientist Richard Restak of George Washington University Hospital has been studying the problems of memory has written over 20 books on the mind and, in a recent interview with The New York Times , He assured that memory deterioration is not inevitable.

With this in mind, in his recent book The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening the Mind , The expert revealed a series of tips – accompanied by mental exercises and habits – to strengthen and protect the memory of any person, especially those who are closer to old age.

These are The neuroscientist’s 6 tips for taking care of your memory.

According to the expert, Many memory problems are actually attention problems. For example, if you just met someone and you’ve already forgotten their name, it’s likely that you simply didn’t pay enough attention to them, not cognitive decline.

“One way to be mindful when you’re learning new information, like a name, is to visualize the word. “Having an image associated with the word can improve memory,” the doctor told the Times.

Dr. Restak mentioned that In everyday life, there are countless challenges to exercise memory. For example, he suggested writing out the shopping list and then memorizing it. When you get there, instead of reading it, try to gather everything you remember.

Another exercise can be to drive the car without turning on the GPS and try to navigate your route from memory.

Chess is a great memory game. However, other simpler games can also work well.

From what he said, Dr. Restak’s favorite is “20 Questions”: it involves one person thinking about a place or object, and the other person asking 20 questions that can only be answered yes or no. “To guess, the questioner must remember all previous answers,” the doctor explained.

“The goal is to activate working memory, to retain information and move it around in the mind.”

Abandoning fiction is an early indicator of memory problems, according to the neurologist. “People, when they start having memory problems, tend to turn to reading nonfiction books.”

The expert explained that Fiction novels require “active engagement” with the text, because you have to remember what the character did in the previous pages. In this way, you exercise your memory and strengthen it, to remember small but important details.

Dr. Restak assured that there are “three new sins of memory” and, for him, two are associated with technology. The first is “technological distortion,” which involves storing everything we don’t know on the phone, so that our capabilities remain low. For example, if you want to remember something, you write it down on your cell phone, but you don’t make the effort to try to remember it.

The second is that Technology “diverts” us and distracts us from the tasks we need to accomplish. “Today, people can check their emails while watching Netflix, talking to a friend or walking down the street. All of this hinders our ability to focus on the present moment, which is essential for encoding memories,” the doctor said.

The neurologist explained that Mood plays an important role when we want to remember something. For example, depression can significantly decrease memory.

“When you’re in a bad mood or depressed, you tend to remember sad things,” Dr. Restak said. With that in mind, treating depression (with pills or psychotherapy) could help restore memory in these patients.