Memory Loss

By vickylass on September 4th, 2011

Memory loss is a tragedy for anyone.

One of my aunties used to tie a ribbon on one of her fingers whenever she wanted to remember about something. The trouble was that when she looked to her finger, she couldn´t remember why she had done so. She was not really very old, but in her house, there were loads of stickers everywhere including the on front door.

-Don´t forget to buy milk.

-Need some white thread and needles.

-Dentist app on Monday at 18.00 p.m.

Everything that she needed to remember was written on a small piece of paper and stuck on any place she could see it. The trouble, again, was that she forgot what she had written and stuck. Bad memory she had! Or, she didn´t exercise it well.

I don´t know if these little tricks to exercise our memory work, but I have seen many distressing cases on memory loss and I have always been interested on this topic. I talked about them with my pshycho therapist and she gave me some hints that I use time and again.

One of the best ones is reading books, she told me, and once we finish reading a book we have enjoyed, we should try to remember what we have read. We have to remember where the story takes place, who the main characters are and why they act the way they do. We should try to remember what parts of the book we enjoyed more.

Recalling our past life, especially our childhood or teens is also a good memory excercise. Take a rest, sitting on the couch or laying on the bed. Close your eyes and think of an scene of your past life. Try to visualise it with the maximum of detail. Who is there? What season is it? Are you happy or are you not? If one isn´t in the mood to recall past events, one may bring into its mind´s eye a place where one has been and may try to recall it in detail too. They can be other places one has lived, or places one used to go to often, but then, one stopped going. Or, revisiting a place. It will amazes us how much we can remember and if there have been any changes or not.

Memory loss may be caused by several reasons such as nutritional deficiency, stress, anxiety or serious neurodegerationist diseases. If it isn´t a serious disease one is suffering, it is worth practising some exercises to improve our memory.

Learning new things may help too as we have to try to remember what we have learnt. A lady I know started to learn English at the age of 78 and she was amazed to see how her memory had improved with her classes. She had to remember what her teacher explained them when she had to do her exercises and writing at home.

Another practice is not doing a list for everything one has to do, whether is a shopping or fixing things in the house. An empty fridge will remind us that we have to do some shopping and if we are used to shop regularly and well, we shall know what we have to shop. No need to write lists reminding us that we have to buy eggs or milk if we know well there aren´t any.

I hope they can be of good use to anyone to practise our most precious treasure, which is the ability to recall and to recognize our close friends and relatives, because not being able to do so, it is the same as being dead and we lose what what we don´t use.