How to survive life with a short memory
“ The problem is not that I am not persistent, it is that I forget I had a goal….
I set myself a goal to stop drinking coffee. The following days, I had a guest, spontaneously offered him coffee…. And made one for myself as well.
My memory is sooooooo short! If I need to write down on my shopping list in my phone – I am reciting the thing *1000 times until the app is opening.
Which means a lot of times I say out loud to myself toilet paper, toilet paper toilet paper toilet paper toilet paper toilet paper toilet paper toilet paper toilet paper toilet paper toilet paper...
Because by the time the app open – I might forget. “
That’s what I wrote in my journal not so long ago, But today I think differently.
I learned that our brain is like any other muscle, It just needs training.
Thinking I suffer from short memory is also what led me to quit university at the middle of my bachelor's degree.
I believed so hard that I am damaged, and cannot swim like other fish in the stream of
social-science degree, because I could not remember the material I read. I believed that the whole system of learning academic material, memorizing it by heart and then puking it to the exam sheet… was not my idea of achievable.
Lately I have been noticing that my memory is much better than I think it is. It surprise me how much I can remember when it is things I am passionate about.
After learning that adults are able to grow new brain cells (https://goo.gl/uRJZro), After learning about growth mind-set (https://goo.gl/9u9bKg), learning about the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex and how our memories system work (https://goo.gl/GIBUc1);
and finally after learning that meditation contributes to a wide range of skills, training & improving the brain activity - I now believe that my brain works much better when I train it.
I will briefly elaborate on the last one:
“Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self-awareness.
It doesn’t take a lifetime of meditation to change the brain. Some researchers have started to look for the smallest dose of meditation needed to see benefits.” (from the book “The will power instinct”).
With Pranayma, yogic breathing techniques, you can stimulate the pituity gland and the hippothalamus. I wrote about Pranayama here https://goo.gl/YfW3El
You are welcome to explore yourself in the links :) It is great to know that we have these abilities.
It is also great to let go of limiting believes!