Memory Minders

Stimulating Enrichment Services
to Enhance Memory & Wellness

Elusive Sleep

Ahh sleep-refreshing, rejuvenating and elusive? Our heads hit the pillow after a long day and we just want to relax. We collapse, find that comfortable spot and drift to dreamland, right? Wrong. For many people, especially those who are older, sleep becomes more elusive with age. Scientists and the medical community are educating us all on the importance of sleep for our bodies and brains. So how can we sleep well?

This generation is trending toward less sleep than many before it. Technology advances, never ending options for entertainment and commerce, fear of missing out, bodily changes as we age, are all reasons to explain why we are sleeping less. Sleep plays a pivotal role in our body and mind wellness, yet the processes aren’t fully known.

One things researchers do know about sleep is that is provides a virtual rewind and organizational component to brain and memory wellness. When we get enough sleep, these brain functions occur naturally and assist memory. When we don’t, things get backed up and just like a messy desk or an overgrown garden, it takes longer to be more efficient in our efforts the next day.

We know we need to sleep in order to function well in mind and body, yet our actions don’t always fit our wishes. I’m a perfect example.

I need at least seven hours of sleep to function optimally but that is a rare occurrence. Getting up early for school, work or summer events, carving out a bit of quiet time for myself and/or being so used to getting up early I can’t sleep late anymore are a few of the reasons why I often don’t make that seven hour mark.

My fitness tracker also monitors my sleep and sometimes I catch up a bit on weekends, but my average sleep amount still usually falls short of those refreshing seven. And I feel it. Some days I’m just not physically or mentally sharp due to my lesser sleeping time. Getting to bed and sleep sooner is always a goal and I have made a dent.

My bedtime goal is earlier than it used to be. I’ve learned to manage the thoughts that sometimes make falling asleep difficult. I’ve adjusted my diet, our bedroom and our bed to make them more conducive to sleep. My motivation is not only to keep my body refreshed but also my brain and memory.

So here are a few tips that can help us to grab even just a few more moments of precious sleep:

  1. Keep a regular bedtime and wake schedule. Your body will then automatically sense when it’s time to sleep and awaken more naturally.
  2. Keep your bedroom about sleep. Don’t exercise, eat, watch TV, scroll the internet or be on any other electronic device before trying to get some sleep. Eliminating these things sets the tone to wind down and relax.
  3. Let go of what threatens the drift-off factor. Whether it’s thoughts, worries, moving around, or loud noises adjacent to your bedroom, let them go. Write down or pray about worries or things to do, find a comfy spot and try to stay there and control the noise. These will assist you to drift into dreamland more easily.
  4. Control your evening actions. Don’t exercise or eat a big meal. Don’t consume alcohol or caffeine right before bedtime. All of these can interfere with a more natural wind down time in the evenings.
  5. Work on what you can and when all else fails, talk to your doctor. There are many things we can control but if you’ve tried them all, see if your doctor has another solution. Maybe it’s adjusting your medications or trying another sleep producing alternative, but seek professional help if necessary.

Quality sleep is paramount in our efforts toward wellness in our body and mind. If we truly want to savor these last moments in our #SummerToRemember, we need to get enough sleep. See if these help with your sleep and overall memory and let’s remember our summer moments well!

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Your Future Brain Will Thank You!

We don’t think about exercising our brains as much as our bodies, but we should.

In order to age well, we not only need to take care of our bodies, but also pay attention to maintaining our brains, too. Studies have shown those who stay mentally engaged retain cognitive function longer than those who don’t exercise their minds. This week in our #SummerToRemember series, let’s explore ways to stay mentally sharp.

How do you exercise your brain? In our middle years, we have numerous mental challenges bombarding our brains all day long. We long for the day when we can physically and mental relax a bit in retirement. But that attitude can lead to golden years of lackluster cognitive function. In order to have sharp minds now AND later, we need to stimulate our minds daily, no matter our age.

Retirees may feel they deserve a break-as well they do. However, if we choose to not engage in mentally challenging activities as we age, we will lose the ability to think and function at a high level. It’s the ‘use it or lose it’ adage that applies to both physical and mental ability. When we exercise our brains, we then have more brain power to call upon when needed. It’s that simple.

When life shifts into retirement or a different season of life, how can we continue to challenge ourselves? By being creative!

Daily life offers a plethora of choices and options to stimulate our minds, but are we capitalizing on them? Whether it’s working, raising a family, juggling both children and parents, caring for grandchildren, or just managing our aging lives, we all have choices. How we choose to spend our time truly matters.

Are we engaging mentally in something that stimulates our brains or do we choose easier, more passive ways of spending our days? Are we using our time wisely or taking the path of least resistance to just get by? What we choose will make a difference in our mental capacity later in life. If we always choose the easy path and don’t challenge ourselves mentally, we’ll have less ability to do so later.

Let’s pick the road less travelled as Robert Frost put it. Let’s do simple things like take a different route or figure it out without relying on GPS. Let’s do the math in our head instead of using a calculator. Let’s create a new recipe instead of making the same old thing for dinner. Let’s try a new game, read a different type of book, join a new club or make a new friend. All these simple choices can make a world of difference in how our brain functions now and when we’re older.

The added benefit of challenging ourselves mentally is the good feelings it evokes. Trying something new or different feels uncomfortable at first. But after a while, we settle in, find our groove and eventually can take pride in even attempting something outside our box. Endorphins are released and happier, more satisfying feelings result. WIN, WIN, WIN!!

Give it whirl. Try something new, step out of your normal routine and stimulate your brain more than usual. Do it today, tomorrow and the next day so your future self will thank you.  Make it a #SummerToRemember by challenging yourself mentally!

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Make Everyday Moments Memorable

Birthdays, anniversaries, and other circled dates on the calendar remind us of past memories and those yet to be made. Among the routine of every day, special dates give us something to look forward to, to anticipate; a time to make memorable moments. But let’s also not forget how memorable everyday moments can be as well.

April in my world brings a plethora of special dates-typically Easter and so many birthdays abound. It’s an opportunity to make special memories around special people and events with importance in our lives. But everyday moments can often bring about the same specialness-if only we are present and aware enough to experience them.

Much of memory making comes from being fully present in the moments we want to capture. Younger people have a proclivity to capture anything and everything in a photo or selfie and then broadcast it to the world. While that may be fun and helpful in many ways, if we are only focused on capturing the best picture, we may lose truly seeing and encoding the moment in our memory.

A study years ago demonstrated those who take more pictures have a lesser memory of an event. We’d tend to think the opposite was true, but when we fully experience a moment instead of just snapping it onto a camera, we can fully remember it better. Yes, the picture may jog our memory, but really experiencing it encodes it more fully into our memory.

For me, it comes down to balance, like most of our memory habits. One of my focuses this year is to strive to be more fully present. On my other blog, I wrote a series on how I’m trying to #BePresent and am striving toward this in all I do. However, I love photography and my new camera is a new favorite toy.

Yet while snapping away recently, I realized how marking a memory comes more than from a picture. It’s about the moment, the people, the feelings and their impact in our lives that matter. Yes, the picture may help evoke a moment, but the memory needs to be made in our hearts and minds first.

Just having returned from time away and sharing special days with those I love has reinforced my goal to be even more present in the everyday. Memorable moments stem from both the every day and the special to bind our lives and memories together.

Look around today. What people, events, or stolen moments can we truly be present with to experience more fully? How will we remember and how will they shape our days and futures? How can we plan for a special day for ourselves or others that we can circle in anticipation of future memories to be made?

Life is full of moments both routine and remarkable. Let’s be present and focus on what is happening in our small little corners of the world today. Circled special days are wonderful to look forward to, but let’s not miss the small moments that make up the fabric of our lives. It’s in these where we make all our moments memorable.

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Turn Lemons into Lemonade

Life sometimes hands us lemons especially as we grow older. Memory changes, bodies don’t function as well, loved ones are lost and living situations change. But what if we took these lemons and turned them into lemonade?

Along with the obvious life changes, aging also affects how well we focus and subsequently can remember.  As we get older, our ability to tune out distractions becomes less acute. Distractions steal our focus and attention and with it, our ability to recall things later. But a recent study sought to examine if they could use this changing level of distraction as a tool instead of a hindrance.

In the study, young adults and older adults were asked to remember faces and name pairs. They found older adults were able to remember more pairs when the faces and names were shown again but as a distraction to ignore. This improvement didn’t occur with the younger group of adults. It appears this would be ‘lemon’ phenomenon of being easily distracted is really a processing technique that changes as we get older. Using the fact that distractions register more with older adults could even be called upon as a technique to aid in recall. Now that’s making lemonade out lemons!

Just like in the study we too can take what might be considered a liability and turn it into an asset. Often this can be done simply by adjusting our attitude. The way we think matters just as much as what we think. Taking a lemon of a situation like being more prone to distraction and using it to help with another lemon like remembering less as in this study, is proof.

How can we make lemonade today, this week and for the rest of our days? We all have issues which change daily and especially as we age. Shifting our perspective of how we see and adapt to our daily challenges is one of the cornerstones of our mission here at MemoryMinders. The research lends credibility but we all know if we shift how we think, we can wind up with lemonade and not simply lemons. So don’t just sit there, go make some lemonade today!

Journal Reference:

Renée K. Biss, Gillian Rowe, Jennifer C. Weeks, Lynn Hasher, Kelly J. Murphy. Leveraging older adults’ susceptibility to distraction to improve memory for face-name associations.. Psychology and Aging, 2018; 33 (1): 158 DOI: 10.1037/pag0000192

 

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March Madness

The Madness of Spring has arrived! Even though the calendar says spring won’t officially arrive until tomorrow at 11:15 AM central time, weather, sports, and St. Patrick’s Day madness has already ensued. Spring is a great time to celebrate and gather with friends and family, whatever the reason. Better yet, meeting with others also benefits your brain and memory.

Did you attend a St. Patrick’s Day celebration, watch some basketball or experience our crazy weather lately with others? If so, you not only (hopefully) had fun, but helped your brain and memory too! Being with others and socializing activates our brains in different ways than we can do on our own. With others we engage, respond, think quickly, and make decisions using various parts of our brain which contribute to memory wellness.

Using these different areas of the brain keeps them strong for when we need them in our future. We create more cognitive reserve as we socialize and simply cannot replicate this interaction by ourselves.

Recent studies highlight the significance of socialization as we age and with exercise. One study in England showed how dementia care and quality of life in a residential care home improved simply by increasing socialization with the residents. Often those with dementia are not engaged with as much due to communication limitations, difficult behaviors or lack of understanding of their symptoms. But everyone, including those with dementia, can benefit from the engagement of others around them.

A second study demonstrated how people who walked in groups were more apt to stick to the exercise regimen than those who did not. This is not a revelation; however, it’s nice they’ve proven it. 🙂 Most of us benefit from the accountability of a partner or friend with healthy habits such as exercise. Even better, continuing to exercise not only helps our bodies but also our brains!

So let the madness march on! Get together with friends, family and meet new people. The good news is when we socialize, we are not only strengthening our relationships but also our memory wellness!

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