Development of memory and attention in adults: what methods exist

How much easier life seems when your memory doesn’t fail you! Any person comes to this conclusion when he begins to have problems with memorization and attentiveness. In the women's club "Those Over 30" we have already looked at the causes of memory deterioration. Today we’ll take a closer look at how to improve the memory of an adult.

Any problem can be solved faster if you find the right approach to it, and from several angles at that. Memory deterioration not associated with head injuries can be successfully stopped using the most simple methods: daily exercises to train different types of memory, traditional medicine advice and medications.

Why did we begin to forget everything?

Before you start studying reference books and search engines for “recipes” to improve memory, it’s worth understanding the cause of this phenomenon.
Human mental and physical health are inextricably linked in their interaction. If a failure occurs in one link, the consequences will certainly affect the other. Therefore, serious diseases of the body can lead to memory deterioration:

Brain and skull injuries;
Diseases or weakening of vital functions of important organs of the body.

Unscrupulous attitude towards one's health, expressed in the abuse of alcohol, energy and stimulating drinks and drugs, smoking, unbalanced - all this has a detrimental effect on the active activity of the brain. The deterioration of which, therefore, leads to a deplorable state of all mental processes.

The person himself often becomes the main cause of “lapses” in memory. Allowing yourself to underestimate the importance of proper sleep and alternating active activity with rest, drives yourself into nervous breakdowns and depression. And this directly provokes memory failures.

A conscious assessment of your lifestyle and consultation with specialists helps determine the level of globality of the problem with memorizing, storing and reproducing information.

Memory is usually called a person’s ability to preserve the sequence of events occurring in the external world and his attitude towards them in order to use this knowledge in the future. In this way, memory integrates the future, present and past, allowing us to detect analogies and predict the outcome of new cases. It shapes personality and gives it the opportunity to develop further.

Scientists have discovered that memory is closely related to speech. The events that are most vividly preserved are those that were retold to other people.

The most basic division of memory is into long-term and short-term. This also includes sensory, which lasts a few seconds, and operational, which is necessary to perform a certain action. There are known figurative, verbal, motor and emotional types of remembering what is happening.

Each person has one type of memory more developed than the others. Having found out which one, you need to try to save information with its help.

Expanding your horizons through games

How to train an adult's memory? You can combine useful exercises with relaxation - various games, puzzles, tasks. The following will also be useful for this:

Logic puzzles. They are one of the most accessible ways to develop memory. This includes Sudoku, crosswords and others.
Puzzles and charades.
Rubik's cube and other mechanical puzzles. They allow you to train your intelligence, which has a beneficial effect on memory.

Video: causes of memory deterioration and how it can be improved

In the modern world, people receive the same amount of facts every day that a century ago they learned in a lifetime. The load on memory has increased many times over, so it retains information even about the recent past worse.

In large cities, people constantly find themselves in stressful situations. They also negatively affect the memorization process. Added to this are workloads at the office and everyday problems at home. Young people have no energy left for conscious memory training, such as learning foreign languages or solving puzzles and crosswords.

In older people, the structure of the brain changes, which leads to a deterioration, first of all, of short-term memory. It is difficult for them to remember the events of yesterday, but they can tell in detail incidents from childhood.

Age-related changes are partially corrected with medications, but memory training also becomes more necessary than ever. Memorizing a quatrain a day or doing handicrafts will prolong a full life and preserve dear memories.

Many factors in the modern world can impair memory

The following factors lead to memory impairment:

emotional stress;
systematic depression;
lack of sleep;
infectious diseases;
vitamin deficiency;
consumption of alcoholic beverages;
smoking;
brain injuries;
taking medications (antidepressants, sleeping pills);
diseases: atherosclerosis, thyroid dysfunction, multiple sclerosis, diabetes mellitus;
aging of the body.

Many people are familiar with the situation when, at the right moment, their memory begins to fail. It's not just older people who experience this. Anyone can learn methods to improve their memorization ability. For better results, it is recommended to take an integrated approach. You will feel the effect already at the beginning of classes.

What is human memory capable of?

Chinese Chao Lu was able to remember all the digits of pi. This is 67,980 digits that a 24-year-old student reproduced throughout the day, without even being distracted by going to the restroom.
Autistic artist Stephen Wiltrish was able to depict in detail on canvas the view of London, which opens from an observation deck located at an altitude of 224 meters.

And these are just two examples of the phenomenal memory of savants - this is what people are called whose memory abilities are considered fantastic. Science cannot yet explain these phenomena. Among savants there are healthy people and those who suffer from various diseases, in particular mental ones. At the same time, four-time winner of memory competitions in the United States, Nelson Dellis, speaks of the absence of any uniqueness in his personality. The man claims that he has never had a phenomenal memory and everything he has achieved is the result of regular and hard training.

Scientists from the Salk Institute for Biological Research conducted a series of experiments and created a computer model of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is responsible for storing the information we remember. After complex calculations, they were able to establish specific values: one hippocampal neuron can store approximately 4.7 bits of information.

Prayer for mental development

Prayer for memory development is usually used by people over 60 years of age. This generation believes in magic and everything connected with it. There are videos on the Internet that talk about conspiracies and methods that involve reading a prayer.

Say your prayers with your soul, believe in them, and do not repeat memorized words. Some prayers are read at night, some before meals, and there are prayers that are said in front of a candle.

Why should you believe in the effectiveness of the method? Human psychology is designed in such a way that the subconscious directs the work of the brain to those things in which we believe. If you are confident that prayer will help, psychology will do amazing things with you, and the subconscious will direct you to develop your abilities.

Methods for improving and restoring human memory

Aivazovsky method

If you have an idea of what Aivazovsky’s paintings look like, then it will not be difficult for you to understand the principle of operation of the mentioned method. In order to stop the movement of the wave in your thoughts and transfer it to the canvas, memory and attentiveness are needed. What needs to be done for this? For five minutes, gaze intently at the object you want to remember. It is important to notice any details. After this, lower your eyelids and try to reproduce the image of the object in your thoughts, doing it as accurately as possible. If you do this training regularly, you will develop the necessary skill.

Train your memory with pictures and poems

In your free moments, give yourself an effective brain workout right at the computer. You can find many educational and very short games on the Internet. You can turn the pictures over to guess the pair, or try to reproduce the order of pictures shown for a few seconds or minutes. You can also do an exercise that will not only train your memory, but also broaden your horizons. Look at famous works of famous artists on the Internet for a few minutes, then write down on a piece of paper all the details of the picture that you managed to remember.

Poems also help a lot in memory training. The essence of the exercise is quite simple - you just need to periodically learn some poems, starting with very short and simple ones, moving on to more capacious and complex ones. It is advisable to do this as often as possible.

Simple memory tasks for every day

According to scientists, over the entire period of our lives we spend about a year looking for various things, without immediately remembering where we put them. This usually applies to keys, documents, a scarf, and so on. Now, when you put something that you sometimes lose sight of in some place, imagine in every detail how this place explodes, where the fragments fly, and what remains in the end. Over time, you will be surprised how good this method is,

Traditional methods of treatment

If, having critically assessed the situation, a person has identified a non-catastrophic level of forgetfulness (elementary absent-mindedness, overwork, lack of nutrients in the diet), then there are traditional medicine proven by time and experience that can help in the fight against this phenomenon:

Elecampane root;
Swamp calamus;
A mixture of mint and sage;
Rowan bark;
Pine buds;
Clover;
A mixture of oregano, bergenia and raspberry leaves.

Each package of medicinal herbs indicates the brewing method and contraindications. The latter are worth paying special attention to - while achieving improvement in memory and attention, you can provoke some diseases and harm your health.

Aromatherapy provides an additional option for a soothing and beneficial effect on brain activity.

For the bedroom it is more appropriate to use a mixture of juniper, eucalyptus and cedar;
In the work area (even the office), it is more effective to use a composition of eucalyptus and laurel herbs with the addition of spices - coriander and cloves.

For both collections, a linen bag located near the person is suitable.

“Chain” technique

This technique for memory training involves memorizing the necessary images in pairs. The visual dimensions of these images should be approximately the same in each pair. When a connection is formed between the first and second object, the first must be displaced from consciousness, transferring attention to the second. Then a relationship should be formed between the second and third image, and so on. When this sequence is remembered, three to five visual images appear in the mind simultaneously.

Memory enhancing drugs

The situation of self-diagnosis and prescribing treatment leads to disastrous consequences. Even an experienced pharmacist will not be absolutely competent in this matter and will not prescribe adequate treatment. Not to mention cases of self-medication on the advice of friends and acquaintances.

If a person feels serious destructive changes in memory operations (frequent and global deterioration in the process of remembering elementary and recent phenomena, events, information), then the most optimal and sure way is the help of a doctor.

To begin with, contact a therapist who will determine the further trajectory of dealing with the problem.

In most cases, two types of drugs are prescribed:

Prescription drugs – nootropil, cerebrolysin, picamilon;
Over-the-counter - bilobil, Gingo Biloba, glycine.

Even if the drug is available in a pharmacy without a doctor’s prescription, you should start using it only after carefully reading all the points of the instructions for use.

Repetition

This option is usually recommended for those people who have well-developed visual memory, but poor auditory memory. For example, while walking in the park, a friend gives you a phone number, but there is no way to record it on paper. In such a case, while a friend is dictating, you need to mentally imagine a telephone receiver in your home and, under his dictation, “dial” the number. Then you should imagine that he was busy and repeat the technique again, saying out loud the phone number to your friend. To reinforce it, you should repeat the number again. Constant practice of this exercise to train your memory will have a good effect on your memory.

Traditional medicine tips

It is quite possible to overcome forgetfulness on your own. It is better to try several well-known methods at once to choose the most effective one. You can start training at home. If performed regularly, they will show impressive results.

Lying on the couch and watching TV series and talk shows is unlikely to develop your memory. In addition, the mood of homebodies worsens over time, since it is important for a person to explore the world and get fresh sensations. Ordinary walks will make a person happier and give new images.

It's even better to start playing sports. This will strengthen the body, improve sleep and increase blood flow to the brain, which will automatically affect memory properties.

Students, scientists and top managers often practice the use of special drugs that regulate blood flow in the vessels of the brain. They help to concentrate attention and remember large amounts of data.

Nootropics are such “magic” pills. They are also prescribed to older people to improve memory. They stimulate the central nervous system, which ultimately leads to the successful retention of external information.

Like any medicine, nootropics can only be prescribed by a doctor.

Folk remedies

Methods for improving memory, proven over the years, are simple and accessible. For example, it has long been noted that a lack of fluid in the body reduces the ability to perceive new things. Its reserves should be replenished with clean drinking water, and not with sweet soda or fruit juices.

Water normalizes blood pressure and the functioning of the whole body, so you need to drink it in the required volume.

Physical activity and adequate rest time are equally important. It is not for nothing that Eastern sages practice meditation. By distracting from worries and lowering the level of stress, a person comprehends the events that have occurred and puts them into long-term memory.

Absorption of carbohydrates, which are converted into glucose in the body, is important for good memory. Sugar and chocolate, which also increase brain activity, will help a person with information processing.

At the same time, such products carry the risk of entering the body with excess calories. Studies show that with age, this impairs memory and provokes the development of Alzheimer's disease.

By observing a reasonable amount of sweets in your daily diet, you will be able to maintain your health and memory.

Green tea, ginseng root and fruit also have a beneficial effect on the brain. They are rich in vitamins, microelements and saccharides that activate the body.

Vitamins

Taking a vitamin complex during the season of lack of nutrients will help support all functions, incl. brain Vitamins of group B primarily affect memory, but C, D, E and P are no less effective.

In addition, in recent years, pharmaceutical companies have introduced many nutritional supplements that also enhance memory.

There are several techniques known to have a positive effect on retention skills. How to improve your memory by playing games or solving puzzles can be read on the Internet or in special textbooks.

Sometimes people worry that mental abilities decline with age. We hasten to please you, there are a huge number of ways to improve memory and brain function, to quickly develop your attentiveness even after 40 or 50 years.

The methods you can do at home are very simple. Exercise regularly so that attentiveness and mental activity quickly increase to the desired level. How to improve memory at home:

Select 8 cards from the deck so that all suits are included. Place the cards in front of you in 4 rows of 2 cards each. Look at them for a minute, then turn them face down. Remember where which suit was located. Make the task more difficult over time. Choose 10, 14, 18 cards, remember not only the suits, but also the names of the cards.
Our life is impossible without a calculator, which does not develop mental activity. Every day, mentally calculate simple children's examples (114,334, 236,342, etc.). You can add multiplication, division and subtraction.
Take a photo that you see for the first time. Look at it carefully for a minute, then remove it and remember the details of the photo. It's good if you can remember small details.
Write down 10 numbers in random order. Look at the number row, cover it with your hand and reproduce the order of the numbers in your mind. Increase their number over time.
Solve crosswords, puzzles, logic problems, read books. These methods, at first glance, do not contribute to the development of memory, but you will be surprised how quickly your mental activity is activated.

Improving memory is not a difficult task, but you need to do it regularly.

The brain is a dynamic structure that reacts to any influence. The right approach will help you achieve the desired result. Today, a sufficient number of techniques have been developed to improve memory.

Exercises

The brain is easy to train

Let's start looking at this method with an exercise called “association”. An assistant will be required for implementation. Ask him to read aloud several pairs of words that have a semantic connection with each other. For example, “notebook - pen”, “winter - snow”, “book - study”. Your task is to remember as many words as possible. Then the assistant must read the first words, the second must be reproduced independently.
The second exercise involves improving visual imagination. You need to close your eyes and imagine in detail any object, natural phenomenon or animal. It could be an oasis in the middle of the desert, a cat drinking milk, lightning in the sky. A wide variety of options are possible. Next, take a sheet of paper and describe the images presented on it in reverse order.
The third exercise is to improve the ability to perceive information by ear and remember it. Someone needs to read the set of words out loud. For example, “table, sky, computer, elephant, autumn, river, tree.” Repeat these words first in the same order, then in the opposite direction. If there is no one nearby, you can do the exercise yourself. To do this, take a book and read aloud the first words of each line.
The fourth exercise will give you the opportunity to train your memory and perform household chores at the same time. Before going to the store, write down on a piece of paper a list of the products you need to purchase. Read it several times. You can do this out loud or silently, whichever is more convenient for you. Then leave the leaf at home and go to the store without it. Repeat this exercise every time you need to shop.
Exercises aimed at activating the hemispheres of the brain will also help improve memory. The simplest of them is changing hands when performing any action. For example, comb your hair or hold a cup with your left hand (if you are left-handed, then with your right). You can also practice walking in place. The exercise must be performed at a fast pace. When lowering the knee, a swing of the arm is made so that it rises above the head. The exercise should be repeated several times.

Cards are laid out face down on the table in a row. Several people can take part in the game. Everyone takes turns turning over any two cards. If they match, the participant takes them.

Playing questions will also help train your memory. The topic doesn't matter. Each player asks the other participants any questions. Five points are added for a correct answer, and two points are deducted for an incorrect answer. Solving crossword puzzles will also help you achieve tangible results.

Many simple foods are good for the brain

The state of memory depends on the diet. The source of substances necessary for the body are certain products:

Bananas provide the body with amino acids (carotene, methionine, tryptophan), easily digestible carbohydrates, and vitamins PP, B1, B2.
Sprouted grains contain elements that provide energy to the brain and normalize its functioning. These are selenium, copper, iron, zinc, calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus. Vitamins B9, B6, B5, B3, B2, B1.
Eggs are rich in amino acids. They contain glutamic acid, methionine, cysteine, tryptophan, lysine. Also vitamins A, B2, B1, PP. They supply the body with protein, which is easily digestible.
Honey is a source of carbohydrates. They can replace sugar. Honey contains highly digestible glucose and fructose. And also 22 microelements out of 24 found in the circulatory system.
Fish – salmon, trout, salmon, herring. Consumption of these products will replenish the content of essential Omega 3 acid, the deficiency of which causes degenerative brain diseases. This element has a direct impact on the development of intelligence, memory and cognitive functions.
Avocado improves blood circulation to the brain due to the presence of unsaturated fatty acids and minerals.
Dark chocolate contains flavonol, an element that prevents brain oxidation and normalizes blood flow. Cocoa destroys substances that contribute to the formation of blood clots.
Apples prevent the development of oxidative stress, which provokes memory loss.
Tomatoes contain lycopene, a strong antioxidant that destroys free radicals (substances that negatively affect the brain). Melatonin, which is also found in this product, will help slow down aging.
Walnuts containing lecithin have a positive effect on the brain, normalizing its activity. They also prevent premature aging. To feel the desired effect, it is enough to eat 5 nuts a day.
A handful of pumpkin seeds will provide your body with your daily requirement of zinc.
Wild berries, blueberries and currants, are distinguished by a high content of vitamin C. Lemon also has this feature.
Tea has a tonic property. Contains caffeine and antioxidants to enhance cognitive performance. L-theanine relieves emotional stress.

Introducing a salad made from the following ingredients into your diet will help maintain your memory:

carrots;
beets;
half a celery root;
parsley;
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil;
half a lemon.

Grate the ingredients on a coarse grater, season with oil, pour in lemon juice and add a little salt. Then mix the salad well and enjoy healthy, tasty food.

Poetry and music

How to develop photographic memory - a step-by-step action plan

Try a fairly simple exercise that will help you improve your visual memory. So, throw 5-6 matches onto the surface of a pillar, and spend a couple of seconds remembering their location. Then turn away and try, using the same number of matches, to reproduce the picture you saw on a different surface. If the exercise is difficult, then look at the match for another second, recreating the image more accurately. Gradually everything will work out for you. When you realize that the described action is easy for you, then increase the number of matches.

Train your photographic memory not only at home, but also on the street, in everyday life. Look around and quickly remember what is currently surrounding you. You can choose a separate object (a bench, a tree, a poster) or a general panorama. After this, close your eyes or simply look away, trying to remember in detail what you just saw. Make it a kind of game, and before you know it, you will make significant progress in developing your photographic memory.

Watching your diet

People believe that only age and lack of exercise lead to poor memory. What to do if, they say, we are all not getting any younger? Nutrition plays a huge role in improving memory and increasing attention.

A varied table with plenty of fresh vegetables and fruits, fish rich in fatty acids, cereals, with the addition of vegetable oils, nuts and seeds to the diet helps not only normalize weight, but also solves the problem of how to improve memory and attention.

Excessive consumption of animal fats, heavy sauces, fast food, sweets and baked goods at the same time is one of the causes of memory problems.

Training memory and intelligence: Cicero's method

This method was named after the ancient Roman orator and statesman Cicero, but according to some sources, even before him the technique was successfully used by the ancient Greek lyricist Simonides. One way or another, the method is one of the oldest today.

Its meaning lies in the fact that units of information to be memorized must be imagined in a well-known room, arranged in a certain order. Before using this method, you should decide which sequence of visual “walking around” the room the memory will follow. In other words, it is necessary to determine the sequence of those points at which each block of information or object will be placed.

If it is difficult to imagine, then, by memorizing the sequence of elements using this method, you can try to walk around a real room, while at the same time arranging the necessary objects in your imagination. This is exactly what Cicero did. If the room is well known, then its visual representation is sufficient. To memorize objects, you can use the image of the entire apartment or house, or long-known homes of relatives or friends.

It is necessary to connect individual elements using associations. First, you can make a list on paper of all the elements of the room - they will play the role of “hooks” to which the remembered elements will cling.

For example, you need to remember a number of objects in a certain order: pen, cup, sugar bowl, spoon, cookies, puppy. They should be placed sequentially, according to the layout of the home according to which the memorization will occur. Examples should be as unusual as possible - this will improve the memorization process. For example, a pen is placed on a shoe rack and a cup is placed next to it. A sugar bowl is placed in the cupboard, a spoon and cookies are placed on the kitchen table. The puppy can be “seated” on a chair.

Intensive repetition of information

How to train memory and attention in adults, what practical methods to use for this? One of the most important secrets of those people who remember data well is the frequent repetition of information after memorization. The technique is to repeat the memorized data as intensively as possible during the first four days after the initial familiarization. For example, having learned a poem, you need to intensively repeat it 3 to 4 times in one day. And so on for four days.

Creation of visual videos

This technique will allow you to better remember the necessary information that constantly disappears from your head. To use it, you need to create mental images of each concept. For example, the to-do list includes the item “buy a bouquet of roses.” While reading, you must not just mentally pronounce these words, but imagine their visual image - imagine how fragrant these roses are, how pleasant their petals are to the touch and how sharp their thorns are.

Then you should be distracted, and after 15-20 minutes again reproduce the image of the bouquet in your imagination. Using this method, you can create a whole visual video for each of the points, which will scroll through your imagination. You can create your own to-do list, or practice with the following example:

take the coat to the tailor,
buy bread and milk,
fill the car,
send a letter to a colleague,
fill out the receipt.