Memory reminder

Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.

- Oscar Wilde

The human mind has a limited capacity to remember information, it retains only a portion of it. We remember and forget both old and new events. As a result of maintaining attention at a sufficiently high level and for a sufficiently long time, thoughts and ideas are formed. Their emergence allows new information to be incorporated into long-term memory structures. According to renowned psychologist Endel Tulving, human memory exists on three levels. The lowest, procedural memory, refers to the non-verbal memory of how to perform various activities and depends on the ability to perceive stimuli from the environment (for example, remembering how to swim after jumping into the water). "At the second level is semantic memory, the memory of concepts (necessary for mastering most subjects in school). At the third level, we have episodic memory, which is responsible for remembering events in our lives, such as funny costumes at a childhood costume party or the sense of loss we felt when a beloved pet died."

Declarative memory determines our level of knowledge. In declarative memory, information is stored so that it cannot be forgotten and can be easily retrieved, such as our name. Instead, non-declarative memory, such as procedural memory, is concerned with the performance of activities such as walking, cycling, dancing, and speaking. They require the recall of multiple experiences and information, and are based on habits rather than acquired knowledge, on the relationship between stimuli and responses, e.g., green light - go, red light - stop. It is difficult to translate such experiences into verbal information.

In 2016, Professor Terrence Sejnowski of the Salk Institute in California and a group of scientists proved that memory capacity is much larger than previously thought. The human brain can hold up to 1 petabyte of data, or 1,000 terabytes (1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes). This is because there are many more synapses in our brain (26, not just a few) than previously thought, and each synapse transmits more bytes of information - 4.7. Actually, we are not able to fill our memory with information for a lifetime. Professor Sejnowski also proved in 1999 that mice that exercise have a much better memory than those with a "sedentary" lifestyle. In addition, active mice have about 2.5 times more nerve cells. To the extent that mouse studies are relevant, we share 99% of our genes with mice. Dr. Jane Rogers, who studies DNA, even explained that "we have genes that, when activated, can lead to a tail.

The more connections between synapses, the more nerve cells, or neurons, are activated, the easier it is for us to recall memories. According to researchers at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, forgetting is not a consequence of losing the ability to hold memories, but the result of actively removing them. The human brain can be compared to a jigsaw puzzle; the more pieces we have, the more durable our memories are. The more often we recall memories, the more we refresh them, the easier it is for us to transfer them to long-term memory.

The more associations we have with a given word, the easier it is for us to assimilate it. This is especially useful when learning a foreign language. If we are learning a new word in Spanish, such as caballo [cabajo], and we know the English word eye [aj], we can imagine the eye with the horse next to it. The method of association can also help us remember names and addresses. "Let us imagine that we need to remember the address of a restaurant - 8 Wioślana St. Then we can associate Wioślana St. with the Vistula River, on which we sail in a boat shaped like an eight and row with a large oar. We then associate the name Wioślana with the oar with which we row on the Vistula". Another method is acronyms, where we come up with a word or phrase whose initial letters relate to the information we want to remember. Let us remember the names of the three largest rivers in Poland: the Vistula, the Oder and the Warta. From these three names we can create the acronym WOW, which I associate with the game World of Warcraft. The more meaningful it is, the longer it will be remembered. Another way is to make up stories. "Say we want to buy: laundry detergent, wine, notebook, paper towels, flower soil. Our story could be like this: we enter the apartment with the wine and give it to the tenant. The tenant spills the wine on the table and stains the tablecloth. We take the tablecloth and wash it with detergent. The tenant apologizes for his clumsiness and asks what he can do for us. We replied that we could replant the flowers. The tenant writes in his notebook that he should buy soil for the flowers. The more absurd and funny the invented story, the better we remember it. These techniques are one thing, or in general, we can strengthen memory in general, as I mentioned above, by exercising, but also by hydrating properly.

According to neuroscientist Dr. Jeffrey Utz, the brain is 73% water. Water is the primary nutrient and the primary building material of every cell in our body, with all other nutrients being metabolized and transported to their respective locations through the bloodstream (blood is 92% water). The minimum recommended by WHO experts is 3 liters per day, although this amount varies depending on body weight. When we exercise, we should replenish it, drinking about 350 ml per half hour of exercise. When we drink a lot of water, our brain is well nourished, regardless of diet, it has a great impact on our memory.