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How to Improve Your Memory and Prevent Memory Loss
Tasha S Garland
School of Behavioral Sciences, Liberty University
PSYC 380: Physiological Psychology
Dr. Albert Pace
October 9th, 2023
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How to Improve Your Memory and Prevent Memory Loss
Our memory is an essential to one’s meaningful life, it has the capacity to store,
organize, retain, and remember one’s information they have learned. Our memory represents one
of the main functions in our body that controls so many things within our body, our brain. The
brain’s ability is to actively forget some of the intelligence created of mankind. Memory loss is
not always an underlying disease, it can be from a tragic event as well. So many key factors play
a role when it comes it memory loss such as depression, sleep deprived, an infection, or
sometimes due to a side effect from different medications. Forgetting the details of several
similar experiences helps you abstract the important common features (Kalat, 2023). One’s
memory can remember the behavior that went on in that event. Memories gives us a sense of
continuity throughout time. A benefit with a memory is it allows us to relive an event, plus to
create, and become more flexible within making new memories. Looking back on memories of
important events or of loved one’s some may have lost can be very important to most. A memory
can be a learning experience as one’s expresses what one has acquired. Memory is a skill that
one acquires in the first few years. The more one tends to use their memory, the stronger it
becomes. The power of a memory is how it stores all our information in one compartment, just
like that! The importance of memories is to fall back and lets us determine what is worth
keeping, as well what the meaning is behind it. Let’s come to an understanding of our memory.
A Memory is Developed
First, what is a memory? A memory stores, retains, acquires, and later retrieves
information that one has processed psychological. Our memory is a powerful mental process that
implicates our life and how we experience a variety of things that may happen. A memory is
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formed based on guidance, emotional reactions, sense of self, thoughts and decisions, and it
allows one to learn from their memories. In the first two years of our life, our brain goes through
dramatic changes in the memory department. The hippocampus recovers information from one’s
memory and starts to change the brain’s physical neural wiring. The hippocampus and other
related structures within the temporal lobe help contain within memories. Our brain function
improves the memory work through new neural pathways. We stressed that to obtain a complete
understanding of memory, researchers could capitalize on replications of memory-related studies
by using, for example, Registered Reports (Howe & Otgaar, 2020). A registered report a
publishing format that emphasizes the importance of the research question and the quality of
methodology by conducting peer review prior to data collection (Howe & Otgaar, 2020). Helps
collect data among other researchers, so they can share and have a strong feeling of what is going
on within one’s memory. Our brains thrive for activity to store as a memory. Researchers
measure the cognitive functions and everyday functions to gather one’s data to try to help
improve one’s memory. In the current study, we conducted a head-to-head comparison of a web-
based and a classroom-based memory training program in terms of their impact on memory and
everyday functioning outcomes within a pilot randomized controlled trial, the ACTIVE Memory
Works (AMW) (Otgaar & Howe, 2023). For participants to be studied in this training they must
obtain from the baseline interview. So not everyone can do the study.
Memories Effects with Adolescence
Sometimes the ability to form memories as adults seem to be supplement than recognition. Age
can affect adolescence’s recognition memory. A large body of evidence suggests that working
memory maintenance of information leads to enhanced recognition and recall of that information
relative to passively viewed or attended information, although the literature is somewhat mixed
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(Skalaban, et. al., 2022). As one ages the working memory and recognition memory shows
patterns within one’s brain. At the age of twenty is when our brain and memory are at their
strongest peaks. When trying to study the working and recognition memory, one must first study
their age as well. To determine developmental patterns in recognition memory, researchers must
examine (trial by delay by age) were associated with working memory demand, we analyzed
recognition accuracy separately for the ()-back and 2-back conditions, with the latter condition
more closely aligning with definitions of working memory (Skalaban, et. al., 2022). The goal
within this study is to determine the effects of working memory demands on recognition
memory. Adolescents with learning anxiety (n = 30) and typically developing (n = 30)
adolescents completed the emotional 2-back task with both facial emotion and gender as target
stimulus (Shen, et. al., 2023). To further increase the clinical usefulness of the results, we
investigated to what extent results were sustained over time and whether the outcomes were
moderated by ADHD presentation, medication status, age, and sex (Hasslinger, et. al., 2022). As
an adult our brain becomes more sensitive, especially if one uses drugs, anxiety, stress, etc.
Anxiety can cause a physical response within the brain, that can result in a short-term memory
loss. Our memories and anxiety are connected, so if anxiety takes over one’s memory is affected.
So many factors play a role within adult’s memories and brains. Sleep can help improve one’s
memory though, but as adults we do not get as much as we truly need. Teenage ages are the most
important when it comes down to memories. When facial emotion was the target stimulus, angry
and sad faces significantly interfered with working memory performance in the learning anxiety
group. When facial gender was the target stimulus and facial emotion was the background
stimulus, the interference effect of negative emotion was greater and the accuracy was lower in
the learning anxiety group (Shen, et. al., 2023). This is when the forming memory is forming
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structure. Key roles that play an important within our memory process is the learning experience
and environmental influences, whether it be good or bad. The main change is that unused
connections in the thinking and processing part of one’s child’s brain (called the grey matter) are
pruned away (Hasslinger, et. al., 2022). Everyone’s brain responds differently, just like teens and
adults as well do. Hormones can sometimes affect an adult’s memory. Teens apparently learn
faster than adults, so they can store information as they are learning. Psychopathology studies
analysis of the adult’s memory to fully know the effects. When someone tends to lose their
memory, they also tend to lose their self-confidence and to misplacing items which can be
bothersome. Some other weaknesses that inability our memory is often due to head trauma,
illness, alcohol, or the effects of drug use. Acute memory loss and progressive memory loss are
other types of memory loss. Acute is known as amnesia, it just happens suddenly and progressive
happens gradually. When the brain does not get enough oxygen, the memory tends to weaken.
Those that tend to struggle with losing their memory, may also withdrawal from social situations
or stop doing things one’s like due to self-confidence. Some of these weaknesses cannot be
excusable, as to others can. While we are in within the stages of deep sleeping are memories
tend to become more stable in the brain.
Ideas of Improving One’s Memory
Can one’s memory ability be improved? There are so many different things that could
help improve a memory. One can exercise, music memories, more sleep, become more organize
with labels, avoid stress, train one’s brain, meditate, reduce sugar intake, a healthy diet, dark
chocolate, learn new things, etc. This is only a few of the things that can help improve one’s
memory. People with a lower ability at manipulating the inferred information and later excluding
it from memory, incorporate negative false events into their memory and are no longer able to
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distinguish them from true events (Mulligan & Pietro Spataro, 2023). Challenging one’s brain is
an excellent way to strengthen one’s memory by doing crosswords, word games, Tetris, or
anything along that line. A study includes that training one’s brain with mild cognitive
impairment games for eight hours over four weeks will indeed improve one’s memory (Kubala,
2023). Staying mentally activity can help prevent memory loss and keep one’s brain in shape.
Enhancing one’s memory to boost the growth of brain cells and neurotransmitters is for one to
exercise on a regular basis. The trick to improving one’s memory is basically changing one’s
lifestyle and making good choices. It is never too late to try to improve one’s memory, all it takes
is some effort. Now it is too late to improve one’s memory if they have developed a disease that
had cause memory loss such as, Alzheimer’s disease. The reason we tend to have a poor memory
is by the bad decisions one makes, such as stress, anxiety, overuse of medication, drugs, alcohol,
depression, etc. Emotions play such a huge role within our brain and memory (Mirandola &
Pazzaglia, 2021). As one might have figured out most of the things are psychology that can
cause one’s memory to become a loss. The older people get, the worse the memory tends to get,
especially after age forty-five. About 40% of us will experience memory loss after we turn at
least sixty-five years or older (Mirandola & Pazzaglia, 2021). Sometimes too many distractions
in life can cause a memory to start to slip, which is in a result of memory loss. When one tends to
forget things easily, there is another word for it called transience. Transience is where one tends
to use it or lose it right after learning something. Target detection enhances memory encoding
but does not enhance, and appears to impair, memory retrieval but the evidence for impairment is
not yet decisive (Mulligan & Pietro Spataro, 2023). People with a lower ability at manipulating
the inferred information and later excluding it from memory, incorporate negative false events
into their memory and are no longer able to distinguish them from true events (Mirandola &
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Pazzaglia, 2021). Does this make people want to change their whole lifestyle to keep their
memories for keepsake?
How Does Biblical Worldview Effect Memory or Memory Loss?
In a Biblical worldview, forgetfulness is a sin to Christian, even though we all do it, it
happens. So many Bible verses preach about forgetfulness or memory loss. Some Christians
believe that forgetting can be a blessing, as other may believe it is a curse. In Revelations,
“Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I
will come like a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come against you” – Revelations
3:3 (ESV). God wants us to remember his teachings, as he is not just telling us this for nothing,
he wants us to hear him out and learn from it. He wants us to recapture his gospels and speak
loud of them to others. In Proverbs, “The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of
the wicked will not”- Proverbs 10:7 (ESV). In proverbs it teaches us knowledge, offers advice,
teaches morals, makes an argument and much more. Refusing to live an unhealthy lifestyle can
harm a memory, that is why it is best to change one’s lifestyle to keep those memories reliving.
God commands us to remember his word and teachings, so we can live right by God. The only
thing God wants us to forget is when we forgive others of their wrongful doing. God wants us to
remember and hold on to certain experiences that happened with God throughout the Bible. If
one reads the Bible over and over, they will then tend to memorize it verse for verse. The main
thing one should remember is that God created us all, we are not perfect, but he loves each one
of us. Memorizing scriptures is basically learning a new skill. Nothing can separate us from the
love of our God, not even an illness like Dementia or Alzheimer’s. God wants to have a close
relationship with each of us, so this is why he forgives those of their sins. He may not forget
what sin we done, but he will forgive us, because he loves everyone. For us to forgive someone,
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we must put those painful memories to the side or out of mind. If God can do it, so can we. We
are all God’s children!
Conclusion
Our memory is an essential to one’s meaningful life, it has the capacity to store, organize,
retain, and remember one’s information they have learned. Can one improve their memory if it
has resulted in a memory loss? Yes, if it is not from any type of illness or disease. It will be a
challenge to change one’s lifestyle, but there are so many benefits within changing one’s lifestyle
for the better. Improving one’s sleep can be difficult, because first one needs to determine why
they are not sleeping well, cannot fall asleep, or even getting enough sleep. Eating right is
another thing because you know we all crave or strive for something sweet every now and then.
Everyone loves having those memories to cherish, especially if one has had a loved one passed,
or they want to relive a special event. Take lots of photos and videos that may also help bring
forth those forgotten memories. Just like the articles said word games or cognitive games can
improve one’s memory, those are the games I enjoy. I feel as if it not only helps my memory but
also gets me to thinking and builds my brain muscles. The more one works on trying to train
their brain, the more they will strengthen their memory, and the better one will be able to process
and remember information. Sometimes people may react different to more of an emotionally
situation than might be expected because they are either not thinking clearly or loss of tragic
memories. When emotions take over one’s brain or memories, they tend to lose control over their
feelings, then may react differently. Can medication help with memory loss? Yes, Donepezil was
approved to help stages of Alzheimer’s disease. This is the most effect, although there are a few
others too. There is so many ways to improve short-term memory loss naturally by drinking
green tea, eating right, staying active, doing word or cognitive games, mediating, omega-3, cut
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back on sugar, etc. As I know children and adults do not well with having test does for their
memory if they have ADHD. Even with memory loss, people still live their life day by day. One
movie comes to mind for short-term memory loss and that is “50 First Dates.” She thinks it is the
same day over and over. Then in the end they create a video to help her realize she is
experiencing a trauma that will not get better. I couldn’t imagine losing my memories, my dad
has recently passed, and I do not want to lose those memories ever. Our memories provide us the
ability to learn from our mistakes as well and adjust. Without our memories how are we to
operate and function right. Our ability to live our lives depends on our memories and our ability
to learn. Our memories shape us into who we are and who we become. Although some look at
memories as living in the past, but technically one is not, one is reembracing their memories.
Memories are keepsake and treasures that we can look back on to not relive but cherish them.
Sometimes memories could be recalling facts, like for a test if one was a student, or something
important. A journal, diary, scrapbook, or photo album is another way to help hold memories if
one cannot remember every event or important fact that happened within their life. Although if it
is a bad memory, does one really need to hold on it, or just let it go!
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