Age-related memory loss affects short-term memory the most, but it can lead to fears of long-term memory loss and dimentia.

The “Aha!” test can indicate if you should be concerned. If you forget a word temporarily, but feel that it is on the tip of your tongue, and finally recall it with a sense of “Aha!” your reaction is healthy.

This does not tend to happen with conditions such as Alzheimer’s, where people lose that sense of recognition when a memory is right. A psychologist put it this way. “If you forgot an appointment, that’s alright. If you forget that you forgot. Hmm!”

Growing older is not the only reason our memory power dwindles. Our ability to remember can also be afflicted by our lifestyles.

One common problem may be stress. Studies show that quick bursts of stressful excitement can actually benefit our memory… it keeps us on our toes!! However, constant demands on our busy modern life, can actually damage our brain’s ability to form new memories.

This is because constant high levels of the stress hormone ‘Cortisol’ can damage the hippocampus, because being soaked in cortisol dramatically reduces the ability of the hippocampus to produce new cells.

Here’s Some Good News
Stresses and strains aside, recent research has good news for all of us.
Neuroscientists have begun to discover how the our brain, rather than giving up, instead reconfigures itself in order to cope. YAY!

Researchers at Duke University have found that middle agers begin to use BOTH sides of their brains…the cognitive side…and the feeling side! This is called “bilateralisation.”

Commenting on this research, Barbara Strauch explains that as we grow, the two sides of our brains become more intertwined, letting us see bigger patterns and think more broadly.

So…how can we protect our memory
It begins by recognizing that your brain never “turns off,’ even in deep sleep. And although it takes up about only 2% of your body weight, it uses 20% of your energy, 25% of your blood, 30% of your oxygen, and 40% of your nutrients. In fact, it uses more of your energy in a 24 hour period than your largest muscles!

WOW!!!
So if your physical health declines, your brain can be at risk…AND IT IS YOUR BRAIN…THAT RUNS EVERYTHING!.

So let’s look at just three ways to help preserve your memory!

• A little more daily exercise could make a huge difference for millions of people.“More than 13 studies show that exercise can reduce risk by up to 45 percent. Evidence shows that the exercise does not have to be strenuous to have this benefit: “The exercise just has to raise the heartbeat by a little, making you feel slightly breathless.”
• This also helps you keep your weight down. A 27-year study of more than 10,000 men and women described in the British Medical Journal described how people who are obese in middle age are 74 percent more likely to develop dementia compared with those of normal weight.
• Adopting broader healthy-eating habits can actually reduce the risk of dementia. A range of studies indicates that Mediterranean-style diets work best, as they are low in fat and salt and high in oily fish.
• Avoiding junk food can have real benefits, too. A study last month in the respected journal Neurology found people with junk diets high in complex “trans-fats” are more likely to experience the kind of brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer’s than those who consume less of the artery-damaging fats.

Your memory…however…WILL NEVER BE PERFECT!
Scientific research continually finds that our memory is anything but perfect! Even our most closely held recollections can completely change without us noticing.

John Seamon of Wesleyan University, Connecticut says that, oddly, it is possible that the more frequently we recall an event, the less accurately we remember it.
His research suggests that when we try to remember something, we do not go back to the event itself…but rather to the last time we remembered it.

And each recollection adds new flaws and reinforces previous flaws.
After about a year of doing this, our memory – including the false elements – solidifies and becomes the person’s constant “truth.”

So…in terms of what you remember…and how well you remember it…GIVE YOURSELF SOME SLACK! It is never perfect….NO MATTER HOW OLD YOU ARE!

But remember this. IT IS NEVER TO LATE TO LEARN AND GROW AND CHANGE YOUR BRAIN….UNLESS YOU SAY IT IS..and then your brain says…OK.

Is it true? Your brain doesn’t even care. All it cares about is what YOU….tell it. So when you say it…your brain believes it.

Wow!!!

SAVE THE DATE!
The next Winners Circle is a wonderful day-long seminar where I teach ALL of this. It is held in the Wine Country at the beautiful Sonoma Mountain Village just south of Rohnert Park. The next Circle is May 12th! To reserve a seat, call 707-695-1363, email me at steve@anintelligentheart.com, or click on the following link. Winners

Can you see the triangle?

Of course you can!….but there is really is no triangle there: simply three pac-men looking at each another.  However….if you look long enough, you can almost sense your brain drawing lines between the pac-men to create that triangle.

That’s called Gestalt.

Gestalt is a school of Psychology that began in Berlin at the beginning of the last Century that observes that your brain strives for “order in its universe.” “Order” simply means that you have an idea of what is right – how a piece of cake should taste, or how a car should drive.

For instance, imagine that you went to a friend’s house and saw the picture of the Mona Lisa hanging on her living room wall, except that it’s slightly tilted…and this causes an obsessive urge in you to straighten it! In fact, if you sit down for dinner facing the picture, it would take a great deal of discipline to prevent yourself from running over to straighten that picture.  Why? Because  you know how the Mona Lisa should hang on a wall, and if it doesn’t match, your mind can become very anxious and tense until it does!

It is this tension that causes you to want to resolve the conflict…to fix the problem…to straighten the picture….to close the gap.

But how does relate to meeting your goals?

Simply this….that when a goal deliberately causes a gap between the goal itself and how you presently are, your brain becomes obsessed with closing that gap.  For instance, if you see yourself as a “C” student and keep getting “C” grades, there is no conflict. However, if you have created a goal  IN THE PRESENT TENSE that says, “I love being an A student in all the courses I am taking,” there will be a conflict if you keep getting C’s. Your mind therefore becomes your motivator for closing that gap.

It’s interesting.  Most of the goals we set for ourselves don’t work because we say things like, ““I WILL walk three miles every other day!” Why don’t they work? Because our mind simply responds by saying “Sounds inspirational! Maybe you will…maybe you won’t! How should I know? I don’t live in the future!”  So you just keep telling yourself what you WILL do, and I’ll go take a nap!

You see, any goals that include “I will!” or “I should!” or “I’ll try!” do not give your mind any motivation for change.

So where does that motivation come from?  It comes from the same place where you got
the motivation to straighten the tilted picture of the Mona Lisa. The moment you saw that it was tilted, you found yourself with the energy to run over and straighten it.

This anxiety and tension is actually a form of energy: energy to “close the gap” “Fix the problem” or “Straighten the picture.”

So when you create enough of a gap between your goals and the way you are now, your mind will release the energy and creativity to close the gap automatically. You won’t have to think about it; it is the way your mind works. And putting your goals in the present and making them far more vivid than the way you see yourself now, they become a reality on the subconscious level and your mind works on making them a reality in your life.