Chapter 2

How Not to Treat Your Memory

Everyone needs to give their memory the attention it deserves.

One of the main reasons why we wrote this guide was to show you how to improve your memory, and we will be discussing that in chapters three, four, five, and eight. But before you learn about how to treat and improve your memory, you need to first learn about how not to treat your memory.

We believe that if you avoid treating your memory in a certain way, it is likely that your memory will improve over time, even without conscious efforts on your part.

Your first goal should be to avoid those things that can damage your brain, and then your second goal should be how to improve your memory.

Generally, you should first learn about how not to damage your brain before learning about how to improve your brain. This order is important because just a single day of treating your brain badly can have a long and lasting effect on it.

In this section, we shall be learning about how not to treat your brain.

Practices That Ruin Your Memory

Scientific research works and observations have clearly shown that some actions have a damaging effect on human memory.  We need not say that we all should try as much as possible to avoid any actions that can damage our memory.

If you want a superb memory, there are certain things you should never do. Some of these things are mentioned below.

1. Sleeping too little

Not getting enough sleep is perhaps the greatest unappreciated cause of forgetfulness. There is a complex relationship between sleep and memory. In fact, some authors have noted that sleeping might be the best tool to learn/remember more.

In addition, science has shown that memory are consolidated when we sleep. It means that if you want a superb memory, you should make sure that you get adequate sleep every day.

Lack of sleep or inadequate sleep has many bad effects on the brain and the whole body. Some of the effects of lack of sleep or inadequate sleep on the brain include:

1. It impedes the ability to retain or learn information ^[1].
2. Inadequate sleep may push adolescents towards riskier decisions and impedes their ability to control their behaviors^[2].
3. Lack of sleep is linked to dementia^[3].

Lack of sleep also affects the general health of the human body; for example, lack of sleep may increase the chance of having accidents and doing below one’s potential standard.

We recommend you consult your doctor if you are having problem sleeping.

We will not want to conclude this section without mentioning the number of hours of sleep you should get if you want to increase your brainpower.

Sleep is an integral part of life, but the amount of sleep we need varies from one individual to another. Sleep recommendation varies across age groups,^[4] and some people even perform excellently without following this recommendation.

Sleep recommendation is just a general recommendation, and many people will benefit more if they can get a custom recommendation. In fact, too much or little sleep can affect your memory^[5]. Having a nap in the afternoon may also help your memory ^[6].

That said, it will be difficult to give the exact number of hours of sleep you need (as an individual) to increase your brainpower.

However, if you are an adult, working towards seven hours of sleep per day may bring some benefits. Taking afternoon naps might also help.

2. Eating too Much

Eating too much and obesity have a direct relationship. It is practically impossible to be obese if you are starving yourself or you don’t have enough to eat.
Although there appears to be no undisputable direct relationship between being obese and memory decline, we can’t rule the fact that one may exist.
However, since having too much weight (which results from eating too much) affects the health of an individual, it is scientific to believe that the brain will also be negatively affected.
Eating less also lowers your risk of illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension, which are illnesses that can also impair your memory^[8][9][10].
In addition, a study has linked obesity to depression^[7].
That said, more research works are needed to be done to fully understand how our weight affects our brain. But whether more research works are done or not, always avoid too much food.

3. Isolating yourself excessively

Get around and about with friends. It is good for your memory and brain.

Too much isolation can result in loneliness, and loneliness is not good for your mental health^[11][12]. If you are feeling lonely, why don’t you make efforts to connect with friends and families physically or simply take a walk in nature? This will not only decrease your feeling of loneliness but may also help your memory.

4. Stressing yourself out

While stress is an inevitable part of our lives, it is one of the most damaging conditions to our concentration, and thus, our memory-forming abilities. Excessive stress is an enemy, and you should do your best to treat it as one.

Uncontrolled stress can give rise to a lot of health challenges, and one of them is that it negatively affects your memory^[13][14][15]. We have already written a detailed guide on the relationship between stress and memory, you can find it here.

5. Taking alcohol

There have been many buss/fuss about alcohol. Experts have disagreed on whether to avoid taking alcohol totally or to take it moderately. However, there is one thing that most people quite agree on – it is safer to avoid taking alcohol in any quantity.

Alcohol has been implicated in diseases and health challenges, and one of them is that it can negatively affect your memory^[16][17].

We believe you deserve to read a thorough article or the relationship between alcohol and human memory, and that is why we have written a comprehensive article on the subject. You can find it here.

6. Smoking

Smoking has been implicated in many health challenges and we need not say that you are far better off without it.

Scientists quite agree that smoking is very deadly, and it is just a matter of time before you begin to enjoy the bad effects it brings. When it comes to smoking, the question is not if it will kill you, but the question is about when it will kill you. That is, smoking is a perfect way to commit apostosis. No-pun intended.

Sadly, before it kills you, it will first damage your brain^[19][20], and that is more reason why you should avoid smoking as much as possible.

Unfortunately, you may also get the same bad effects of smoking by inhaling secondhand smoke^[18]. Secondhand smoke is a smoke you inhale when people smoke or burn cigarettes or tobacco products around you. In other words, secondhand smoke is the smoke exhaled by a smoker or smoke that comes out when burning a tobacco product.

You should say no to smoking and secondhand smoke. In fact, to save society and yourself, you should do everything needed to stop people from smoking or burning tobacco products around you.

To even learn more about why you should never smoke or why you should stop smoking, please go here.

7. Missing out on brain food

We need not say that some food items benefit your memory than others. If you don’t want to ruin your memory, we will recommend you deliberately take foods that help your brain.

Food or food items like berries^[23], avocado^[21], leafy vegetables^[23], egg^[22], milk^[24], olive oil^[22], among others, have been shown to be good for your brain. We will recommend you include more of them in your diet.

8. Taking wrong medications

This is just another name for unintentional abuse or misuse of drugs.

It is now known that many medications do more than just treat what they are meant for; they are also actively involved in causing memory loss, especially when wrongly used.

For example, cholesterol-lowering statins have been linked to memory loss^[25]. So also are prescription sleeping pills^[26]. We need not add that these two drugs are also among the most consumed in this worry-filled world of ours! No wonder memory problems and forgetfulness keep getting rampant.

If you want to have a good memory and you are currently taking any of these two popular categories of drugs, you should conduct a thorough investigation on their effects on mental health. They might actually be the culprit behind your persistent forgetfulness.

Tranquilizers, antidepressants, some blood pressure drugs, and other medications can also affect memory, usually by causing sedation or confusion. This can make it difficult for you to pay attention to new things^[27]. And hence, birth you memory problems.

9. Untreated Depression

Depression is a kind of mental illness characterized “by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies” on the sufferer’s part.^[28] All these symptoms just don’t appear in a day. They come over the sufferer gradually.

Depression can be severe if untreated or managed effectively.

Yet, many people are engaged in the uphill task of fighting their forgetfulness while they are already suffering from the early symptoms of depression! It will almost certainly be a lost battle if the depression is not treated first.

Forgetfulness can be a sign of depression or a consequence of it.^[27]

 Have you been experiencing too much of unexplained sadness recently? Inactivity? Difficulty in thinking and concentration? A significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping? Feelings of dejection and hopelessness? Or having suicidal tendencies?

It is time for you to visit your doctor. These kinds of symptoms cannot stay in the same body that is also striving to acquire a better memory. It will be a “lose-lose” situation.

If you have any or all of these symptoms, get them treated before you even consider applying the other entries in this article.

10. Consuming certain foods and Beverages

Today, our food and beverage choice is almost unlimited. Sadly though, their variety is as much as their harm.

As far as processed food goes today, none of them is totally and completely good. Even some of those advertised as natural products don’t always prove 100% to be so.

Among all these confusions, foods that might be harmful to your memory include:

(a). Sugary Foods and Beverages

Many of us like to take toffees and all sorts of sweetened things. However, excessive consumption of these results in higher levels of sugar in the blood.

 Studies prove that higher sugar levels in the blood not only result in excessive body weight and increase the risk of diabetes, but they also expose you to the risk of dementia^[29]. Dementia is a severe mental illness that, among other things, leads to memory impairment.

That is why replacing sugary drinks and foods with healthier products is essential. Consider consuming water, natural fruit juice, unsweetened dairy products, among others, instead of filling your stomach with sugary foods.

 (b). Trans Fats

As much as you can, try to limit the amount of trans fats you consume if you want a superb memory.

We are recommending this because trans fat has been linked to worse memory^[30]. Trans fats are commonly used in processed foods to improve longevity and taste, and that is why you should cut down drastically on processed foods.

In addition, trans fat is bad for your heart^[30].

Generally, we recommend that you reduce your consumption of processed food while increasing your consumption of natural food products rich in fruits and vegetables.

We surely hope your next mouthful of food will be the next morsel you have dedicated towards improving your memory.

Note: The list given above is not exhaustive, and you should always be on the lookout to learn about what damages your brain so that you can avoid them.

References:

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2. Scn.ucla.edu. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.scn.ucla.edu/pdf/Telzer(2013)Neuroimage.pdf [Accessed 2 Dec. 2019].
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