American Geriatrics Society (AGS)

On the off chance that you aren't a neurologist, here are a couple of definitions: Neurons are cells that make up your central nervous system — your brain and spinal column, and the nerves connected to them. Synapses are tiny connections between the neurons in your brain. When synapses are working correctly, they allow your neurons to communicate with each other, which keeps your nervous system functioning the way it should.

Hatice Yardım @ UnsplashReading retention is a big issue in educational circles. Having the ability to read a sentence, pronounce all the words fluently, and have a vocabulary wide enough that doesn't necessitate referring to a dictionary is one thing. But having the ability to remember what you read is something else entirely.

Rote learning is the regurgitation of unattached and meaningless facts. These facts are prone to be forgotten because you haven't incorporated them into a body of knowledge. You have no context in which to remember them.Unfortunately, too much of what's taught in school is still based on rote learning. Your job is to deepen the meaning of what you learn and put it in context so that you can remember it later.

As you age, you need to exercise your brain to prevent some of the natural shrinkage. Starting at age 50, your 3-pound brain gradually loses its volume in weight, so that, by age 75, it weighs roughly 2.6 pounds. A lot of the shrinkage in your brain is from a loss of water. Different parts of your brain lose their volume at different rates.

You don't know less in your old age; you know more due to your years of life experience. However, during your advanced years, your information-processing speed slows down a bit. But don't worry; your long-term memory remains intact, and your understanding of what you already know is broader, more thoughtful, and wiser than during your early adulthood.

The American Psychology Association has summarized the consistent memory change patterns that researchers identify in normal older adults compared to younger counterparts in the following categories: Episodic (what did I eat for supper last night?) Source (who told me that I should see that new movie?) Flashbulb (where were you when President Kennedy was shot?

Not all mnemonic systems are equally effective for everyone. People are unique, and so are their needs and preferences. What you find useful as a mnemonic may be totally useless to your neighbor, and vice versa. Picking a mnemonic that works for you Choose the mnemonic that fits best with your experience. Doing so can increase your chances of remembering your memory-aid in the future.

You retrieve your long-term memories via multiple pathways. The pathway you use to retrieve a memory has a lot to do with how you learned the information in the first place. You may be a visual learner, so you learn by seeing and remember by visualizing the images that you saw. Or you may be an auditory learner, meaning you learn by hearing sounds and retrieve memories by recalling the associated sounds.

Word pegs are so named because you do just that — you peg a word to another word or number that's easier to remember. Pegs are "hooks" that you can use to hold the word you're trying to remember, just like a coat rack peg holds your jacket. By thinking of the peg word, you think of the word you want to remember.