Do You Have A Bad Memory?

If you think you cannot remember dates of appointments, special events and occasions, such as birthdays, where you have put your keys, the names of people you have just been introduced to, you may think you have a bad memory, or, worse, the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In truth, you may "think" you have a bad memory; it is just your mental perception. Epictetus, the famous Greek philosopher once said: "People are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them." In other words, it is just your perception of your bad memory that is bothering you.

Why do you hold this belief? It is because you are comparing the conditions of your present memory with those in the past. Has your memory really gone from bad to worse? Can it be just your subjective perception rather than a factual or scientific validation of your memory decline? More importantly, you have added more years to your life, and therefore you have more data stored in your memory, and that may explain some of your problems in retrieving the extra information stored.

Believing you have bad memory will not help your memory loss. Quite the contrary, such a belief may only add insult to injury by creating undue stress that inhibits good memory.

The process of your memory involves encoding, which is turning information you wish to remember into some sort of a code to be stored in your brain for future retrieval, Bad memory is your inability to retrieve at will the information stored in your brain. Your inability to retrieve the information is often due to your anxiety. In other words, the more you are anxious about your bad memory, the more difficult it is for you to retrieve the desired information.

The bottom line: don't even think you have a bad memory; relax your mind through diaphragm breathing and meditation to increase your mind power; most importantly, learn the techniques to improve your memory.

UNLIMITED MEMORY

Stephen Lau 

Copyright© by Stephen Lau