Expert: John Locke - 10/12/2007

Question
I am 47 years old and I'm in my first year of college. My question is, is there a good way to improve my memory?

Answer
Thanks for using AllExperts, and congratulations on your entrance to college. I wish you great success.

First, it's necessary to recognize that cognitive ability peaks relatively early in life, somewhere in the early 20's to early 30's. It plateaus after that point and eventually declines: after a certain point, neurons (brain cells) don't get replaced as quickly as they're lost. People find it harder to learn new things and to remember what they already know. If this seems terribly unfair, please remember that for most of human history, life spans were much shorter than they are presently in developed nations: there simply wasn't time for most people to develop the decline in cognitive function that we're discussing here. In short, human biology has not had time to catch up to the longer life spans that many of us now enjoy.

On a more upbeat note, loss of memory is not uniform across all areas of knowledge and not inevitable, nor does it have to be as severe as the above paragraph might suggest. There are a variety of techniques that can be used to improve one's memory, and in fact there has been a great deal of research in this area. Let me make some suggestions and provide you links for further reading:

The Institute for the Study of Aging produced a 2000 report that focuses on how to prevent cognitive decline in older adults (the study is focused on adults over age 60, but the suggestions on pages 14-16 apply to all adults; please don't be offended): http://www.ilcusa.org/media/pdfs/isoa.pdf

Regular aerobic exercise increases oxygen levels in the brain and has a strong, positive affect on memory:
http://www.wonderquest.com/memory3.htm This site also has links to other suggestions for memory improvement.

Smell is strongly associated with memory recall; the nerves that carry smell impulses travel through the hippocampus, a part of the brain strongly associated with certain types of memory. A report on this effect appears in the February, March, or April 2007 issue of Science magazine. The primary author was Jan Born.

A psychological phenomenon known as the spacing effect indicates that people learn best when they review material several shorter times over a long period, rather than for a long period on one occasion. That is, "cramming" doesn't help improve memory, but spreading out your studying over a longer period of time does help.

Another phenomenon is the Zeigarnik effect, which indicates that people recall tasks better if they're interrupted or left uncompleted and then restarted later. What does this mean practically? Take regular breaks while studying.

You should certainly try to keep your stress down, as memory is adversely affected when stress levels are high.

Apply these strategies, along with good common sense, and I think that you will find your ability to recall becomes much better. I wish you the best of luck.