Supercharge Your Memory

Read these situations—You come across a familiar face; exchange pleasantries while rummaging through your mind to place that face. Needless to say, you failed. You ambled to your colleague’s desk to say something important and forgot what you had come to say. Went to supermart to buy something important and kept staring at the aisles, thinking what brought you there in the first place. Do these situations sound like you? Before you jump on to the verdict that they are tell-tale signs of Alzheimer’s, take heart. Dr.Manjari Tripathi, Associate Professor, Department of Neurology at AIIMS says, “Senior moments like these are not unnatural, though they do come as a setback for your alert and agile mind. It is normal if you are worrying about the loss of your memory, but it is not normal if others start worrying about your memory.”

“Memory is something that we take for granted and never take notice of unless it starts failing. The biggest enemy of memory is time”, says she. “Just like rest of the body, ageing begins a process of degeneration in the human brain. There is a loss of neurons resulting in the reduction in the size and the volume of brain,” she adds further.

7 steps for an ageproof mind

1. Food for thought–your brain cells need two times more energy than the other cells in your body. Neurons, the cells that communicate with each other, have a high demand for energy because they’re always in a state of metabolic activity. The kind of glucose that fuels brain comes from complex carbohydrates. Simple sugars—white bread, cola, cakes and candies give us a sugar spike, whereas complex carbohydrates from—wholegrains, corn, fruits and vegetables are more like time release capsules of sugar. They release slow and steady supply of glucose.

• B vitamins for better brain power. “Most of the B vitamins have a role in brain function, as they help in the breakdown of blood sugar, or glucose. Since the brain relies on a perpetual supply of glucose for energy, this is very important”, says Dr. Manjari. “Deficiencies of both vitamin B12 and folic acid have been associated with memory loss. When someone complains of problems with memory, a doctor usually begins an examination by checking for deficiencies of these vitamins”, adds she.
• Take high-protein snacks often. We get protein from meat, eggs, lentils, fish, poultry, cheese, milk and soybeans. Amino acids in proteins build our neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are the brain chemicals that motivate or sedate, focus or frustrate. Their complex interaction is what shifts your mood and changes your mind. A high protein breakfast will keep you energetic during the day, because it raises tyrosine levels in the blood and brain – causing neurons to manufacture norepinephrine and dopamine, two neurotransmitters that promote alertness and activity and a diet rich in complex carbohydrates at night will soothe you to sleep by increasing the brain’s tryptophan levels.
• Eat five a day. We’ve all heard about antioxidants as cancer fighters. Eating foods that contain these molecules neutralise harmful free radicals. This is especially good for your brain. Free radicals break down the neurons in our brains. Many colourful fruits and vegetables are packed with antioxidants, as are some beans, whole grains, nuts and spices. There is good reason to believe that antioxidant nutrients, especially vitamin E, can help prevent damage to brain cells. Studies say that vitamin E can, not only prevent deterioration of the brain, but also actually reverse an important element of deterioration.

2. A brisk jog sharpens your wit.

Wear those ignored sneakers and start pounding the ground. You will cut down your risk for degeneratative diseases—diabetes, osteoporosis and heart diseases and also save your memory from getting impacted from these. A study reported in Nature and first featured in the Journal of Neuroscience, found that exercise flushed out a toxic molecule from the brain and replaced it by a beneficial molecule instead. That molecule, the researchers said, helped to protect brain nerve cells. Studies say that the hippocampus region of the brain is responsible for a number of memory functions and any kind of physical activity is going to increase the manufacture of new hippocampus cells and protect the existing ones. This could be why jogging is beneficial to the memory.

3. Use your mind.

For an active brain it is crucial that you use it rather than putting it on autopilot all the time.

• Solve crossword and Sudoku puzzles.
• Learn new hobbies.
• Drive on a new route.
• Make friends.
• Read books on subjects you do not know.

4. Stay calm.

While challenging your brain is very important, remaining calm is equally so. Traumatic stress is bad for your brain cells. Physical exercise is always a great destressor, as are calmer activities like yoga and meditation. Do not forget the therapeutic powers of a good laugh.

5. Sleep on it.

Missing out on sleep may cause the brain to stop producing new cells, a study from Princeton University has suggested. The results suggest that elevated stress hormone levels resulting from sleep deprivation could explain the reduction in cell production in the adult brain. Researchers at Harvard Medical School have looked at the conditions under which people come up with creative solutions. In a study involving math problems, they found that a good night’s rest doubled participants’ chances of finding a creative solution to the problems the next day. The sleeping brain, they theorize, is vastly capable of synthesizing complex information.

6. Watch out.

Foggy memory may stem from vitamin B12, iron and thyroid deficiency. Get yourself tested for these. Sometimes failing memory can stem from something serious like kidney, liver dysfunction and be a result of vascular stroke.

7. Multitasking

Multitasking is in vogue but it is not good for your memory, says Delhi based clinical psychologist Dr. Jayanti Dutta. “Our memory has a designated space and it operates in a systematic and organised manner for storing and categorizing information to which it has been exposed to. In case of multitasking we hop and switch from one task to another thereby depriving the brain of the time needed to file the information from our short-tem memory field to long-term memory.”

Finally few things in life get better with age. With age people become sage, because they have more mental information to draw upon than younger people do. They’re the ones we turn to for the best advice, the ones we want to run our companies and our country.

As Barry Gordon, author of Intelligent Memory: Improve the Memory That Makes You Smarter, puts it, “It’s nice to know some things get better with age.”

Doc Speak

Dr. Manjari Tripathi advises ways to make friends with your memory. 

• Practise the tenets for a good health—eat nutritious food; exercise five times a week and destress.
• Use your brains. This means watching programmes, or doing something, like reading, solving crossword puzzles that stimulate your mind.
• Stay away from oily grub and food items dripping with transfats, like—French Fries, cookies– because they raise the level of triglycerides in our blood stream.
• Interact with people and try to stay socially active.
• Control your risk factors for hypertension, diabetes and heart disease.

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