Increasing Your Memory

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a bad memory. I’m getting older and my memory is getting worse.

When I was young, I used to be fairly good at chess. I haven’t played in a while and I recently picked it back up. I feel like I’m starting over. I used to plan several moves ahead for me and my opponent. Now, don’t pay any attention to my opponent’s moves, and I’m only planning two moves ahead. Needless to say, I’m losing the game.

I’m a musician. I play guitar and sing. I can’t think of a single song that I can sing from memory.

I can solve Rubik’s Cube in less than a minute. I don’t use a speed-cubing method- just the basic method with attention to the patterns to solve it as efficiently as possible. I haven’t worked the cube in several months, so I can’t even remember how.

I forget simple words, like tree and cow. I draw a blank when I’m trying to tell someone something and I can’t recall a common word. I’m starting to stutter because I can’t remember what I was trying to say.

I forget names. I sometimes go to someone’s desk at work to see their name-tag so I can send them an email. These are people that I’ve worked with for years.

I don’t want my memory to get worse. I want to be able to concentrate and focus on a game of chess and recall the name of the person I’m playing against. I want to remember the words to the songs I write. I want to be able to remember Scriptures that I’ve studied for years.

I’ve tried several things to improve my memory. I’ve taken vitamins, but after taking them for a few months I would forget to take them. I’ve tried writing a Scripture for hundreds of times, over and over, only to forget the verse a few minutes later.

I can read something and not know what I just read. If I look around for a second, I don’t know which page I was on.

I have to perform something continuously to remember it. When I stop for a while I lose it. This is normal, but for me it takes longer to learn it not long at all to forget it.

It’s amazing how many times I forgot what I was going to type in this article before I could type it.

This has caused me to look closer at my memory and mental abilities. What is causing this and how can I fix it? I’ve identified several areas that are affected:

1. Focus
2. Recall
3. Retention
4. Comprehension
5. Concentration

Everything you do uses these abilities and I think they are directly affected by memory. But how do you fix it? I’ve identified four areas that affect memory:

1. Diet
2. Exercise
3. Stress
4. Rest

I can see issues with each of these from my childhood, and now in my adulthood. I am looking closer at each of these areas to build my memory. Over the next few weeks, and maybe even months, I will be posting information that I’ve gathered on all of these points and give my own tips for success in building memory and increasing concentration, focus, etc. If you have any thoughts or tips, please share.