Improve Memory...

If you want to remember something, you have to pay attention to it. This may sound simple, but the most common reason healthy adults forget is because they fail to focus. Distractibility can account for memory lapses no matter what your age.

Attention is the most sensitive aspect of intellectual functioning. It is therefore quite vulnerable to being disrupted. In order to acquire information so we can later remember it, we must be mindful and focus on what we are trying to learn. In other words, the problem isn't that we forget, but that we don't "get" what we want to remember from the outset. Does this sound easy to you? It is. But think for a moment of all the things in your daily life that you really don't pay attention to. Consider the following questions about information we encounter every day:

* What color is at the bottom of the stoplight?
* What word appears over the image of George Washington
on a quarter?
* What letters, if any, are missing from the telephone dial?
* How many light switches are in your house or apartment?

How did you do? Chances are you don't know the correct answers to some of these questions, even though these are things that you come across, sometimes frequently, over the course of a typical day. Why? Because we are not always mindful of things we do or see every day. Only by focusing our attention can we adequately acquire information and have it later when we need to remember it.

Can we improve our attention? Absolutely. How? Here are two basic habits we can develop to improve attention and maximize memory fitness immediately:

1. Be Aware: If you are aware that you are hearing or seeing something you want to remember, you will be more likely to pay attention to it, to "get" it, and to "have" it later when you want to remember it. Increased awareness of the need to remember will increase your attention toward that information.

Have you ever lost your car in a parking lot? Or forgotten whether you turned off the oven? Well, imagine if you had been more aware that you needed to be mindful of where you parked or whether you turned that knob. If only you had thought to yourself, "Okay, I need to pay attention now so I will remember what I'm doing." Being more aware in those situations would have encouraged you to pay closer attention and made it more likely that you would remember that information later.

2. Make the effort: Next, you must try to focus your attention. Being aware that you need to pay attention without making the effort to do so is like sleeping with the unread text book under your pillow the night before final exams. It never worked, did it? Well, the same rule applies here. It isn't enough to know you must be mindful of something you want to remember: You must then do it. So when you park your car at the mall and want to be able to find it a few hours later, simply make the effort to look around and pay attention to where you are. Most likely there are some signs or other landmarks to help you remember where you've parked.