We are getting fitter – only when it comes to the head does the fun stop: By now, people in their mid-thirties already notice the first signs of aging. And so-called memory clinics, which are actually there to diagnose and treat Alzheimer's disease, are increasingly being used by those seeking advice who are fully employed but who doubt their mental performance.
It is modern to complain about your absent-mindedness and difficulty concentrating. But most 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 are supplied with manuals as thick as a thumb, there are always new challenges at work, and names, data and facts pour out about us from the media – until they are switched off.
Meanwhile, neuroscientists are feverishly searching for a remedy for the type of memory loss that only became widespread due to our increasing life expectancy: age-related dementia. They have not yet found a pill against oblivion, but there are many new insights into the function of our memory. And, fortunately, they not only show how we can keep our brain on the go, but also help to endure memory misfires.
The most important in seven guidelines:
Memory training I: 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, wants to be praised and rewarded.
This is shown by a new study from North Carolina: Before a memory test, older subjects were confronted with negative or positive claims about the mental performance of their age group. In fact, the candidates who had been praised did significantly better than those who were discouraged before the test.
If you dare to do more, you can do more – we can take advantage of that. Those who learn another foreign language at the age of 40, 50 or 60 or who practice the movements in tai chi train their memory – and stay mentally fit longer.
Memory training II: memories have to dock in the present
Brain research is particularly interested in how we store and recall memories of life in our heads. Neuropsychologist Anna Schwab at the Cultural Studies Institute in Essen interviews women about important experiences – such as their wedding or the birth of their first child. Brain activity is measured as they recall such moving episodes.
The MRI tomographies show that young people can quickly and specifically "recall" memories from a specific region of the brain. Older people need more time to do this, but they also activate larger and deeper structures of the brain. "We revive our memories again and again in the course of life – 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 dock them again and again in the present. Old photos, diaries, letters or tickets and the exchange of memories with school friends or relatives help us do this.
Memory training III: Our memory as a novelist
"When I was younger, I remembered everything, whether it happened or not," Mark Twain once said. But over the years he observed "that I remember nothing more than what never happened". The writer knew: Our memory writes its own story – and the imagination is co-author.
The brain behaves like a child for life: it wants a story about everything it should remember. At around three years of age, children learn to process individual facts and impressions in the form of small stories – and only then do conscious "memories" arise. In the process, poetry and truth mix, own experiences with the stories of others. According to the memory researchers, incisive events between the ages of 18 and 30 are saved, to some extent, reliably: training, the first home of your own, the first great love. As soon as experiences repeat themselves, they are threatened with forgetting.
Memory training IV: Trick and cheat
You just had the name on your tongue? From the main actress of the film, whose title you just forgot? Just stay calm. The "blocking" is only one of the seven "memory sins", says the American brain researcher Daniel L. Schacter in one of his books ("The Seven Sins of Memory"). In it he also explains how our memory tricks to gild the past. How it fades defeats and insults, while exaggerating successes and small heroics. But how it also causes traumatic experiences that we would like to forget to push back into our consciousness.
We usually only notice gaps in memory when they are annoying – for example when looking for a parked car. But these dropouts, consoles Daniel Schacter, are only the price of a functioning memory: we have to forget a lot in order to be able to remember anything at all. So many impressions and information pour in on us at any moment that without an effective – and unconscious – sorting program we would soon only have chaos in our heads.
Memory training V: What helps to remember
Our brains think about their own way of sorting, storing and disposing of information every day. This shows the so-called Baker / Baker paradox. If you introduce a man named Becker to a group of test subjects, most of them soon forgot this name. However, if the same man is introduced to you with the note that he is a baker by profession, most 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 pictures (hat, oven, bread) that remain in the memory. Memory training such as the so-called mnemonic technique makes use of such mechanisms. Intuitively, we use such techniques all the time. If we absolutely want to keep a name, we will build a donkey bridge: We will introduce ourselves to the gentleman baking bread rolls – and have a good chance of knowing what his name will be the next time we meet.
Memory training VI: The memory effect
Learning, saving and remembering – essentially nothing changes in these brain activities for a lifetime. However, studies suggest that over the years the focus has shifted from recording to knowledge, from quick memorizing to careful management of what has been learned. Older people are at least superior to young people in one respect: they know more.
But when it comes to storing impressions and information in short-term memory, it is the other way round: "If you play against a four-year-old memory, you will lose," explains memory psychologist Ute Bayen. The professor at the University of North Carolina, herself a mother of two young children, gave it a try: "If I train for four weeks, I can win." And if the child also trains? "Then I have no chance. Even a young adult would be far superior to me."
From around the mid-30s, we feel that short-term memory abates. Ute Bayen sees no reason to be alarmed from now on: "The best 70-year-olds are better than some 20-year-olds," Ute Bayen stated.
Memory training VII: nerve cells need exercise
Our brain ages like other organs. New investigation methods sometimes show this more precisely than we would like. The brain researcher Anna Schwab was able to see in the MRI images of her participants how water-filled structures in the brain dry out over the years.
But the mental activity apparently affects such degradation processes only very late: "In any case, I was sitting opposite women between 60 and 75 who were extremely active and interested, engaged in sports clubs, in the parish or in politics," says Anna Schwab.
Ute Bayen doesn't find her findings depressing either. If there are gaps in her memory, she thinks there is something you can do: "If necessary, just hang up a few more notes in the apartment." Otherwise, the psychologist knows, one thing above all helps: live healthy and keep your body and mind in motion. From this perspective, the often tiring information society also has advantages: It offers training opportunities for brain jogging.
Memory training? But with pleasure!
Move: A study by the University of Illinois shows that regular endurance sports increase the concentration of neurotransmitters in the brain. Music: Anyone who learns an instrument forms circuits in the brain that strengthen other intellectual 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 orienting yourself with a wealth of information. Dance and theater: 65- to 85-year-olds received drama lessons for a study in Basel. With the help of professional tricks, they memorized long texts. A professor from the University of Montreal offered seniors a tango course. The effect: mobility and number memory improved. Mnemo techniques: Memory contents are linked to pictures like the positions of a shopping list: "The broccoli hangs on the ceiling, the whipped cream is on the bedside table." In tests by the Max Planck Institute, young participants rose from eight to 29 retained terms, while older participants achieved 18 instead of four. Mnemo techniques are learned from books or in courses, e.g. B. at adult education centers.