Learning is a part of life and each day we discover something that is new to our brain. Likewise, forgetting also is a part of our life. We tend to forget once a while for instance where we kept our keys and so on. Our brain is an incredible structure that is created for cognitive behavior and reasoning. Every piece of information that is available cannot be stored by the brain hence it chooses specific data that is prioritized in the brain and then stored.
What is Memory?
Memory is the ability of the brain by which data is encoded, stored, retained and retrieved. It is the totality of what we remember and helps in further learning from past experiences that may influence our future behavior.
Memory doesn?t function at its best always. There are ups and downs. The downs occur more when you start aging which results in taking more time to grasp things and remember them. This is a normal part of aging. However, if you tend to remember lesser than the information recalled by people of your age group, you could be suffering from a mild cognitive impairment.
Memory is divided into 3 types:
- Sensory memory: It holds information in less than 1 second after the object is observed.
- Short-term memory: It is the ability to remember for a time frame of a few seconds without practice. The ability to store numbers was limited to 7+/- 2 items which have reduced to 4-5 items as per modern date. A 10 digit number can be easily remembered with the help of a process known as chunking. Chunking is a technique of splitting a group of numbers into chunks which will help a person remember better.
- Long-term memory stores a large quantity of information for nearly very long duration (even a lifetime)
Memory Impairment
You are walking to a grocery store near your home to buy things and you walk back after you finish buying them. But you just can?t remember your way back home. This kind of situation is more serious and it signifies that you might be suffering from an underlying problem that might need medical attention. The possible problems are due to:
- Head injuries
- Blood clots or tumors in the brain
- Stroke
- Major organ problems (Liver, Kidney or thyroid)
- Alzheimer?s Disease
- Dementia of other forms
- Depression
- Reaction to certain medication
The first 4 of the above-mentioned problems might need urgent and immediate medical attention and the remaining 4 might need a medical professional to guide you correctly about treatments.
Boosting your Memory
This can be done by the following ways:
- Improving your diet: Having a lot of antioxidants protect the brain from Dementia. Pomegranates and blueberries are rich sources of the same. Also, Omega 3 fatty acids are good for the brain and they are rich in foods like fish. Vitamin E helps to prevent the cognitive reduction and nuts are a rich source of vitamin E. Tea; dark chocolate contains caffeine that is known to improve memory. Also, a dehydrated brain starts malfunctioning and in order to prevent this one must have sufficient amounts of water to stay hydrated.
- Exercising, Yoga and Meditation: Sedentary lifestyles are known culprits for cognitive impairment hence exercising will pump up the memory too. Yoga and meditation not only improve the flexibility of your body but improve memory, reduces stress, anxiety and other psychological problems.
- Relieving stress: By talking to people, laughing more often and sleeping well. Doing something that makes you happy is important for enhanced brain functioning. As much as possible reduce usage of electronic devices. Improve your focus and avoid multitasking, read and say aloud things that you want to remember and take up challenges (quizzes) every day.
- Think positively by being confident about yourself and keeping yourself away from negativity.
Treating the condition using Homoeopathy
The Homoeopathic product Doliosis D71 Mimol helps to increase memory power, especially in students and elderly people. It increases the concentration of mind and helps to keep mind more alert. There are no known side effects of this medicine. It can be easily consumed with other medicines too, for all ages.