What’s the best way to improve memory?

Now Remind Me ...

“They wanted me to stand on one foot – with my eyes closed – to see if I could keep my balance,” my friend reports after a memory test.

“Who stands on one foot with their eyes closed?” I say. 

Eyes open, maybe, if the knees work. Stand on one foot, then the other, while you’re brushing your teeth. Can’t remember who said that. Now I’ve got to do it with my eyes closed? What’s that got to do with why I left that head of romaine lettuce in my suitcase on a recent trip?

Romaine seemed like a good thing to take at the time – eat it on the road rather than let it rot in the fridge for two weeks. Instead, it withered in a satchel for five days until I went looking for something else and spotted it.

So I put it in a trash can in the ladies’ bathroom. What do you do with limp lettuce in a novitiate-turned-retreat center with no public kitchen? Can you imagine the reaction of the bathroom cleaning crew when they found that deposit?

Maybe I need to pay attention to my friend’s recitation.

“They gave me words to memorize in two minutes,” he continues. “Twenty minutes later, I was supposed to remember them.”

I just got my first Palm Pilot to keep track of flotsam like that instead of losing Post-it Notes. 

I look up a word test “The Memory Prescription” by Dr. Gary Small: “Violin, balloon, stereo, building, strawberry, cradle, mast, lizard, teacher, oven.” 

If you remember eight words, Small says, you’re doing well on objective memory recall, though there’s room for improvement.

Thank goodness for the loci memory method of that ancient Greek guy whose name sounds like a car wax. Simonides said to visualize a thought or word in a room in your house.  I start in the foyer and say “in the first place,” which reminds me that I want to start with “this subject isn’t as funny as it was when I was 40.”  Works better, by the way, than easily misplaced personal digital assistants. 

I like this mnemonic even better: Pretend you’re naked. Mentally hang what you want to get at the store on various body parts: Boston butt, hot dogs, milk, etc. Use your imagination. Not a pretty sight, even mentally, but you’ll remember the list.   
  
Kids can recall word-list words in order, backward and all mixed up, say Lawrence Katz and Manning Rubin in “Keep Your Brain Alive.”  They don’t need no stinkin’ system.  

Stress is bad for brainpower. So is the favorite stress reliever – TV.

At the office I saw forgetful colleagues in their 30s. When you’re multitasking for four people who have been laid off, you don’t have spare dendrites to remember yesterday’s lunch. Who cares? One sandwich is pretty much like another. 

Just when boomers thought daily aerobics and an aspirin were the keys to reaching 93 in good health, along come brain gym prescriptions. Are they ever going to give it a rest?

No, apparently. I have this gray rubber brain from some conference. I’m supposed to squeeze it to remind me to play mind games. I keep it near the remote to the left of my chair. Even the term “my chair” sets off alarms about settling in for the duration.

Alas, we can’t blame forgetting on age. Absent disease, the number of brain cells doesn’t change much with age. Disuse is the problem. A challenged brain will grow new connections. Every bookstore I check has books on the topic. 

Thank Simonides, I remembered the leftover salmon I stored in a cool spot. Ate it on the way home. No lettuce.
 

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Betty Booker recalls that she is a retired Richmond-Times Dispatch writer.