Memory training: The best tips
In order for our brain to stay fit for a long time, we should strengthen it regularly with memory training. These tips will help you get your brain going!
We’re getting fitter – the fun only stops when it’s about our heads: people in their mid-thirties meanwhile think they’re noticing the first signs of senescence. And so-called memory clinics, which are actually there for the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, are increasingly being used by those seeking advice who are fully employed but have doubts about their mental abilities.
It is modern to complain about your own absent-mindedness and lack of concentration. But the vast majority of us only suffer from the rapidly growing demands on our memory. Nothing works without pin codes and passwords, everyday items such as telephones and alarm clocks come with thumb-thick manuals, there are always new challenges at work, and names, data and facts pour over us from the media – to the point of switching off.
Meanwhile, neuroscientists are feverishly researching a remedy for the kind of memory loss that has only become a widespread disease as we live longer: age-related dementia. They have not yet found a pill against forgetting, but they have found many new insights into the function of our memory. And fortunately, they not only show how we can keep our brains constantly busy, but also help to calmly endure memory failures.
The most important thing in seven key points:
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Memory training I: Self-confidence makes you smart
Our brain stores a lot of information, but it doesn’t work like a computer’s hard drive. Rather, it is a capricious and sometimes vain companion who wants to be praised and rewarded.
A new study from North Carolina shows that before a memory test, older subjects were confronted with negative or positive statements about the mental performance of their age group. In fact, the candidates who were eulogized with praise performed significantly better than those who were discouraged before the test.
Those who dare to do more achieve more – we can take advantage of that. Anyone who learns another foreign language at the age of 40, 50 or 60 or rehearses the movements of Tai Chi trains their memory – and stays mentally fit for longer.
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Memory training II: Memories have to dock in the present
Brain research is particularly interested in how we store and recall life memories in our heads. The neuropsychologist Anna Schwab at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen asks women about important experiences – such as their marriage or the birth of their first child. As they recall such moving episodes, brain activity is measured.
The nuclear spin tomography shows that young people can “recall” memories quickly and specifically from a specific brain region. Older people need more time to do this, but they also activate larger and deeper structures in the brain. “We keep reviving our memories over the course of our lives – and every time this happens, new networks and connections are created in the brain,” explains the neuropsychologist.
This also means that if we want to preserve memories, we have to keep them in the present. Old photos, diaries, letters or tickets and the exchange of memories with school friends or relatives help us.
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Memory training III: Our memory as novelists
“When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not,” Mark Twain once said. But over the years he observes “that I remember nothing more than what never happened”. The writer knew: Our memory writes its own history – and the imagination is a co-author.
The brain behaves like a child throughout its life: It wants a story for everything it needs to remember. At around three years of age, children learn to process individual facts and impressions in the form of short stories – and only then do conscious “memories” develop. Poetry and truth mix, personal experiences with the stories of others. According to the memory researchers, decisive events between the 18th and 30th birthday are stored with some degree of reliability: education, the first own apartment, the first great love. As soon as experiences repeat themselves, they are threatened with oblivion.
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Memory Training IV: Trick and cheat
Was the name still on the tip of your tongue? About the main actress of the film, whose title just slipped your mind? stay calm “Blocking” is just one of the seven “memory sins,” says the American brain researcher Daniel L. Schacter in one of his books (“The Seven Sins of Memory”). He also explains how our memory tricks to gild the past. How it fades defeats and slights while exaggerating successes and small heroic deeds. But at the same time, how it causes traumatic experiences that we would like to forget to push back into consciousness.
We usually only notice memory gaps when they are annoying – for example when looking for the parked car. But these interruptions, Daniel Schacter consoles, are only the price for a functioning memory: We have to forget a lot in order to be able to remember anything at all. So much impression and information is pouring into us at any given moment that without an effective – and unconscious – sorting program, we would soon be left with nothing but chaos in our heads.
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Memory training V: What helps with remembering
Our brain makes up its own mind as it sorts, stores and disposes of information on a daily basis. This is what is known as the Baker/Baker paradox. If you introduce a man named Becker to a group of test subjects, most of them soon forget this name. But if they are introduced to the same man with the comment that he is a baker by trade, most of them can remember it later.
The explanation for this effect: While the name alone says little about the man, the information about his job is immediately linked to images (hat, oven, bread) that stick in the memory. Memory training such as the so-called mnemonics make use of such mechanisms. Intuitively, we use such techniques all the time. If we absolutely want to keep a name, we build a mnemonic: We imagine the gentleman baking bread rolls – and there is a good chance of knowing his name the next time we meet.
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Memory training VI: The memory effect
Learning, saving and remembering – essentially nothing changes in these brain activities, for a lifetime. But over the years, studies suggest, the focus shifts from absorbing to knowing, from remembering quickly to carefully managing what is learned. Older people are superior to young people in at least one respect: they know more.
When it comes to storing impressions and information in short-term memory, however, it’s the other way around: “If you play memory against a four-year-old, you’ll lose,” explains memory psychologist Ute Bayen. The professor at the University of North Carolina, herself a mother of two small children, tried it out: “If I train for four weeks, I can certainly win.” And if the child also trains? “Then I don’t have a chance. Even a young adult would be clearly superior to me.”
From around the mid-30s, we notice that short-term memory is decreasing. From now on it’s going downhill, but Ute Bayen sees no reason for concern: “The best 70-year-olds are better than some 20-year-olds,” Ute Bayen found.
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Memory training VII: Nerve cells need sport
Our brain ages like other organs. New research methods sometimes show this more precisely than we would like. In the MRI images of her participants, brain researcher Anna Schwab was able to see how water-filled structures in the brain dry out over the years.
But mental activity apparently only affects mental activity very late: “I was sitting across from women between 60 and 75 who were extremely active and interested, who were involved in sports clubs, church communities or politics,” says Anna Schwab.
Ute Bayen does not find her findings depressing either. She thinks there is something you can do to counter memory lapses: “If you have to, just put up a few more notes in your apartment.” Otherwise, the psychologist knows, one thing above all helps: live healthy and keep body and mind in motion. Seen in this way, the often tiring information society also has advantages: it offers training opportunities for brain jogging.
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memory training? But with pleasure!
Movement: A study from the University of Illinois shows that regular endurance exercise increases the concentration of neurotransmitters in the brain. Music: Anyone who learns an instrument forms connections in the brain that strengthen other mental abilities, according to a study by the Hanover University of Applied Sciences. Computer: Research on the Internet is excellent training for older people, says Prof. Ute Bayen: You practice finding your way around a wealth of information. Dance and Theater: For a study in Basel, 65- to 85-year-olds received acting lessons. With the help of professional tricks, they learned long texts by heart. A professor at the University of Montreal offered seniors a tango class. The effect: mobility and number memory improved. Mnemonics: Memories like the positions on a shopping list are linked with images: “The broccoli is hanging from the ceiling, the whipped cream is on the bedside table.” In tests conducted by the Max Planck Institute, young participants increased their remembered terms from eight to 29, while older participants managed 18 instead of four. You learn mnemonics from books or courses, e.g. B. at adult education centers.