How to increase memory power. Facts about human memory.

Here are 12 interesting facts about the human memory—if you can remember them!

1. Scientific research has shown that the human brain starts remembering things from the womb. In fact, memory begins to work 20 weeks after conception.
2. Memory has two components—short term and long term. Most short-term memories only last 20 to 30 seconds.
3. Also, memory is influenced by a variety of factors. For example, visual memory is based on what you saw, not what you hear.
4. The storage capacity of the human brain is virtually limitless. Yep, limitless.
5. Caffeine doesn’t maintain memory performance. However, it does increase alertness.
6. An adult can remember twenty to one hundred thousand words.
7. Also, sleep is important to memory. While scientists don’t know exactly how it affects the brain, it has been shown that sleep aids the storage and retrieval of long-term memories.
8. Many people associate memory loss with aging. However, the memory loss we see the older we get is generally because we tend to exercise our brains less as we age.
9. Your memory can associate a scent with a certain event or occurrence. A smell can trigger the memory in your mind associated with it. This is because the hippocampus is the part of the brain largely responsible for the formation of new memories and directly interacts with our sense of smell.
10. Also, there is such a thing as “false memory”. Researchers are beginning to understand that the human mind can create, exaggerate, distort, or re-invent a memory after a traumatic experience or something that impacted them greatly.
11. You must exercise your mind just like any other muscle in your body. The harder you think about a memory, the more likely you are to remember it accurately. Thinking will create a stronger link between active neurons.
12. You are more likely to remember information that is provided if it is in a weird, difficult-to-read font. We were tempted to test that for this post, but decided that might be going too far.

How to increase memory power....👇👇👇

• Some people have photographic memories

The idea that some people have is of a "photographic memory"; that they can take a snap shot of a scene or a page in a book, and then bring it to mind whenever they want to.

It's tempting to invoke such an ability to explain the achievements of celebrated memory champions such as Lu Chao. In 2005, he set a new world record (as recognized by the Guinness World Records) by reciting the first 67,890 digits of pi entirely from memory. However, studies of memory champions reveal that they depend on mnemonic devices and thousands of hours of practice.

• Memory acts like a video recorder with Limit Less Memory

A US survey published in 2011, 63% of 1,838 respondents said they believed "strongly" or "mostly" that memory works like a video camera, "accurately recording events we see and hear so that we can review and inspect them later". Memory is, in fact, a creative, fallible process, highly prone to suggestion and other distorting influences.

According to Paul Reber, Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University, the human brain can store an estimated 2,500,000 gigabytes. That’s equivalent to 300 years worth of TV shows.

• Traumatic memories can be repressed and "recovered" years after they occurred

While subscribing to the erroneous idea that memories of emotive events are highly accurate, many people also often hold the somewhat paradoxical belief that traumatic memories, such as of abuse in childhood, are prone to repression. A related belief is that such memories can be "recovered" later in life, dug out with the help of a skilled therapist, or perhaps a hypnotist.

• Hypnosis can be used to retrieve forgotten memories

Many people believe that hypnosis can be used to unearth not only past traumas but all manner of long-forgotten memories, including recollections way back to the womb or even to past lives.

Hypnosis is something which is often associated with magicians and after dinner entertainment rather than the police. But, now-a-days hypnosis can result in obtaining important additional investigative leads which lead to the solving of crimes.

• People suffering from amnesia typically cannot recall their own name or identity

A persistent myth is the idea that people suffering from amnesia have lost their long-term memory, including any recollection of their identity. In fact, amnesia caused by illness or brain damage typically manifests as an inability to lay down new memories. Specifically what is broken is the ability to convert short-term memories into long-term memories. An amnesiac will usually be able to tell you who they are and share stories about their earlier lives, but they won't be able to tell you what they had for breakfast.

• Once you have experienced an event and formed a memory of it, that memory does not change.

"Memory is not a single brain process,As a result, it appears that people can have an emotional memory that says,"I'm sure about this,'that differs from what the factual memory part of our brain actually recalls.And then we have other areas that may fill in the details of what we forgot".

Much like the falsity behind the video camera, humans do not have a permanent memory recall; subsequent events and beliefs and expectations can change and re-mold a person's thoughts.

• Scent Can Be a Powerful Memory Trigger

First, the olfactory nerve is located very close to the amygdala, the area of the brain that is connected to the experience of emotion as well as emotional memory. In addition, the olfactory nerve is very close to the hippocampus, which is associated with memory as you learned earlier in this article.

The actual ability to smell is highly linked to memory.

Research has shown that when areas of the brain connected to memory are damaged, the ability to identity smells is actually impaired.

• New Brain Connections Are Created Every Time You Form a Memory

Researchers have long believed that changes in brain neurons are associated with the formation of memories. Today, most experts believe that memory creation is associated with the strengthening of existing connections or the growth of new connections between neurons.

The connections between nerve cells are known as synapses and they allow information carried in the form of nerve impulses to travel from one neuron to the next. In the human brain, there are trillions of synapses forming a complex and flexible network that allows us to feel, behave, and think. It is the changes in the synaptic connections in areas of the brain such as the cerebral cortex and hippocampus that is associated with the learning and retention of new information.

• A Good Night's Sleep May Improve Your Memory

In addition to aiding in memory, sleep also plays an essential role in learning new information.

In one study, researchers found that depriving students of sleep after learning a new skill significantly decreased memory of that skill up to threes days later.

• Memory Failure in Old-Age Might Not Be Inevitable

While Alzheimer's disease and other age-related memory problems affect many older adults, the loss of memory during old-age might not inevitable. Certain abilities do tend to decline with age, but researchers have found that individuals in their 70s often perform just as well on many cognitive tests as do those in their 20s. Some types of memory even increase with age.

As mentioned previously , high levels of chronic stress have been connected to deteriotion in the memory  centers of the brain.

 

• The average brain has between 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts a day. Upsettingly, the majority (an estimated 60-70 percent) of the thoughts are negative.

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