BETTER RECOLLECTIONS
Since memory is important for both mind and body, we checked out some new ideas about how we can improve memory in both. We just need to add a little sweetness, joy, variety, and challenge. With a nice cup of coffee to wash it down.
1) More caffeine = better honey
Caffeine increases memory for humans and honeybees.
Consumption of caffeine, in moderation, can have many benefits, including increases in alertness, stamina during exercise, pain relief, and memory. Further research indicates that chemically, it functions as an antioxidant, warding off oxidative stress-related disorders including Alzheimer’s Disease and heart disease.
What happens when bees pollinate coffee tree blossoms? Some coffee species include caffeine in their nectar. And, according to recent studies published in Neuroscience and Science magazines, at optimal levels, caffeine not only attracts but addicts the bees, and it increases the excitability of their Kenyon cells (the bees’ version of human hippocampal neurons), which are involved in long term memory formation. The better the bees remember their way from their hives to the best blossoms and back again, the better the honey.
Coffee with cream and honey is our new go-to breakfast drink.
2) Love to remember
An Australian research study, published in PLOS One, tracked over 700 people over 15 years and found that subjects with intimate friendships scored better on a variety of memory tests. Frequent and deep interaction, as we excite, debate, and help each other, engages the problem-solving regions of our brains, keeping our memory factories stoked. And again, the longer two people engage, the more memory benefits each person receives. Peter Snyder, PhD, chief research officer of the Lifespan Hospital System in Rhode Island explains, "We've found that when people prioritize these relationships, they also protect their brain function."
A loving mate and close friendships create and keep the most beautiful memories and the strongest memory function. Here is a beautiful, funny, and powerful memoir, presented in a TED talk, by John Hodgman, about recollections of love and aliens.
So after sharing a cappuccino with your lover, time for a real mind/body memory work out.
3) Make a muscle
Muscle memory is a physiological blueprint formed by learning something through a mix of challenge and repetition. When you learn a new physical task, you break down muscle tissue, repair, and rebuild it in the process. Once formed, muscle memory may weaken through lack of use, but you never lose it. That’s why you can still do things like ride a bike or play a piano even after years of time off, something both athletes and musician leverage.
It begins in your brain, of course, when neurons spark nerves that signal proprioceptors, sensors in your muscle fibers, tendons, and joints, which then loop back with return messages, from muscles to nerves to neurons. Repetition creates a reinforcing feedback loop, which creates the indelible pathways of muscle memory.
Recent studies, such as those conducted by the University of Oslo, led by Kristian Gundersen, Ph.D., as reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have given us a big leap in understanding how all of this works.
What’s new? We now know that as you build muscle strength, you are creating new nuclei in your muscle cells. These nuclei contain the DNA necessary to make new muscle. And even after long periods of atrophy, in which muscles shrink, the new nuclei remain, lying in wait, in case you decide to activate them again some time in your life. This includes heart muscle as well.
The younger you are when you start your exercise, and the more often you engage, the more new nuclei you build, the better chance you have to stay strong, healthy, and able into old age. “If you have nuclei that last forever, then you would also have an advantage that could last forever,” Gundersen says. Starting younger is also important because you lose the ability to create new muscle as you get older.
Try these muscle memory exercises we found in Women’s Health magazine.
Photo: Brady Tuck
4) Make a fist
This is cool: If you clench your right hand for 90 seconds, you improve memory formation. If you do that with your left hand, you improve your memory recall.
Recent experiments showed that muscles making your fists specifically activate brain regions that are involved with memory processing. And both your left and right hook are important.
"Clenching your right hand immediately prior to learning information and clenching your left hand immediately before recalling it would be helpful to improve memory," Dr. Ruth Propper, lead scientist, of Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ), explained in a recent BBC News interview.
4) Connect memories to art
Making and experiencing art helps you achieve flow, challenges your brain in new ways, helps you experience memory differently, and helps you preserve memory.
Performance artists know they can improve most by using muscle memory to correct mistakes in technique, position, or memorization. The best ones optimize this by pursuing flow. With mind and body muscle, if you break a complex task down into smaller chunks, repeat them, broaden their range and level of challenge, you achieve a state of flow, where the task becomes a masterpiece. Grace Miles, a music educator and blogger, calls muscle memory the “musician’s secret weapon.” Her blog, Artiden, offers ideas for musicians that can apply to anyone attempting to achieve performance nirvana.
Watch Hallberg at Work, a truly gorgeous video of ballet dancer, David Hallberg, as he hones his muscle memory. via Nowness.
As explored in our previous post “Arts of Recollection,” art and memory have intersected at least since Paleolithic cave painting emerged as a way to record more permanently than the mind alone can manage.
Check out “Art, Memory & The Burren,” at Burren College Summer School 2013 (July 13th - August 10th 2013). Explore your artistic vision in Burren, a dramatic landscape that is full of memories of mankind's ancient history. The course is led by Martina Cleary, Head of Photography at BCA, Academic Associate at Cardiff School of Art & Design, and PhD researcher in the field of Photomedia, along with Conor McGrady, Artist-Teacher Fellow in Painting and Drawing at BCA and Lecturer in Fine Art at the School of Visual Arts, and at the New School.
6) Find joy
Joy triggers dopamine release in the brain’s memory centers. According to a 2013 study published in the journal Cognition and Emotion, older adults who experienced positive emotions improved their memory by roughly 19 percent. Study co author Ellen Peters, PhD, professor of psychology at Ohio State University has seen happiness aid in memory recall. Meditation has similar effects.
Additional ideas to help you improve your ability to recall include learning or relearning a new language, getting new hobbies (more than 6 reduces your chance to develop dementia by 38% according to a Columbia University study), and challenging yourself with new work. Read more about these ideas and take a memory quiz in this “Improve Your Memory” article from the Huffington Post.
Want an even more beautiful memory connection? Help researchers learn more about memory, how it works, and how it’s lost. Join the Alzheimer's Prevention Initiative to participate. Sign up at Registry.EndAlzNow.org.
For more information about Alzheimer's disease prevention check out this resource.
Read all our Recollections posts from this past week in Arts/Design, Food/Drink, Nature/Science, Mind/Body, Place/Time, and Soul Impact. And enter our photo competition this week. The theme: Recollections (Deadline, July 7th, 2013).
