10 ways to improve Your memory

A good memory is often seen as something that comes naturally, and a bad memory as something that cannot be changed, but actually there is a lot that you can do to improve your memory.
However, it does mean taking responsibility and making an effort. Here are the experts’ top tips.

1 Take an interest – make an effort

We all remember the things we are interested in and forget the ones that bore us. This no doubt explains the reason why schoolboys remember football results effortlessly but struggle with dates from their history lessons! Take an active interest in what you want to remember, and focus on it consciously. One way to ‘make’ yourself more interested is to ask questions – the more the better!

2 Repeat things

Repeating things is the best way to remember things for a short time, e.g. remembering a phone number for a few seconds. ‘Chunking’ or grouping numbers helps you to remember them, e.g. the following numbers would be impossible for most of us to remember: 1492178919318483. But look at them in ‘Chunking’, and it becomes much easier: 1492 1789 1931 8483.

3 Form a mental picture

Another way to make something more memorable is to think about something visual associated with it. Form a mental picture, and the stranger the picture the better you will remember it! If an English person studying Spanish wanted to remember the Spanish word for duck, ‘pato’, he/she could associate it with the English verb ‘to pat’ and imagine a picture of someone patting a duck on the head.

4 Invent a story

To remember long lists, try inventing a story which includes all the items you want to remember. In experiment, people were asked to remember up to 120 words using this technique and when they were tested afterwards, on average they could remember ninety percent of them!

5 Organise your ideas

If we Organise what we know in a logical way then when we learn more about that subject we understand that better, and so add to our knowledge more easily. Make well-organised notes. Be sure things are clear in your mind. If not, ask questions until you understand!

6 Listen to Mozart

Many experts believe that listening to classical music, especially Mozart, helps people to organise their ideas more clearly and so improves their memory. Sadly, rock music does not have the same effect!

7 Take mental exercise

If you do not want to lose your memory as you get older you need to keep your brain fit, just like your body: ‘use it or lose it’ is the experts’ advice. Logic puzzles, crosswords and mental arithmetic are all good ‘mental aerobics’.

8 Take physical exercise

Physical exercise is also important for your memory, because it increases your heart rate and sends more oxygen to your brain, and that makes your memory work better. Exercise also reduces stress, which is very bad for the memory.

9 Eat the right things

The old saying that ‘eating fish makes you brainy’ may be true after all. Scientists have discovered that the fats found in fish like tuna, sardines and salmon – as well as in olive oil – help to improve the memory. Vitamins C and E (found in fruits like oranges, strawberries and red grapes) and vitamin B (found in lean meat and green vegetables) are all good ‘brain food’.too.

10 Drink coffee

Caffeine may not be too good for you, but like exercise, it increases your heart rate and sends more oxygen to your brain. A cup of coffee really does help you concentrate when you sit down to study. And if you don’t like coffee, don’t worry – experts believe that chewing gum has the same effect!

The Father of Soul Music

Ray Charles Robinson was born in 1930 in Georgia USA. but he grew up in Florida. He lived with his mother, Aretha, and his younger brother. They were very poor. When Ray was five years old, his brother died and then two years later Ray went blind. Aretha Robinson sent her son to St Augustine’s, a school for blind children, He studied classical music there.

When Ray was fourteen, his mother died and he left school. For two years he played the piano with some local bands to earn the money for a bus ticket to Seattle. There he played in clubs and bars. He didn’t earn a lot of money, but he loved music.
‘Music,’ he said, ‘was like food or water for me.’

At first he sang songs by other famous singers, but he soon created a new kind of music. He used blues, jazz, country, and gospel music and he created ‘soul music’. He changed his name to Ray Charles, and by 1955 the poor black boy from Florida was rich and famous.
He gave a lot of his money to schools for blind black children. His life also had a dark side. He took heroin for many years. He was married and divorced twice and had twelve children.

In 1988, a film director, Tarlor Hackford, started planning a film about the singer’s life. He Called it Ray. The film’s star, Jamie Foxx, won the Oscar for Best Actor in 2005. Sadly Ray Charles wasn’t there. He died in June 2004 at the age of 73.

Interpreting the results

A DAREDEVIL
You are generous, true, but you are too often reckless. You identify yourself more by what you do with money than by who you are, which means that somewhere along the way you’ve lost a sense of your own identity.

B PENNY-PINCHER
You are a penny-pincher. You have more than enough money, but you won’t spend your money. You are afraid of never having enough.

C SPENDTHRIFT
Your spending is way out of control. Sooner, rather than later, financial reality will catch up with you – with huge credit card interest or, in the worst case, bankruptcy. Wouldn’t you rather put a stop to it before that happens?

D ON THE RIGHT TRACK
Congratulation! You are creating a life where people come first, then money, then things. You have learned to value who you are over what you have. You are on the right road.

What’s your attitude to money? Are you a penny-pincher, a spendthrift, a daredevil, or on the right track? Take this quiz and find out.

Circle the letter corresponding to the answer which best applies to you.

1 Saving
A When you receive a gift of money. You don’t even consider saving it. Instead, you buy something extravagant.
B Every month you save as much money as you can, even when it means doing without ‘luxuries’ such as some new clothes, a new CD or a movie.
C You have no money in savings, you owe people money and you have no savings account.
D You save a manageable amount of money every month, and you have specific ideas about what you are going to do with it.

2 Spending
A You buy what you want, when you want it – on credit if necessary – because you just know that you’ll earn the money to pay for it.
B You often put off buying the essential things you need, although you can easily afford to buy them.
C Shopping is a competitive sport for you. If a friend buys the latest watch, jacket or trainers, you have to have them, too. Your wardrobe is full of clothes you’ve hardly ever worn.
D You buy what you need. you aren’t often tempted by what you don’t need, and most importantly you understand the difference between ‘need’
and ‘want’.

3 Bills and records.
A You can’t be bothered to look at records of what you spend and don’t spend. Shouldn’t the banks keep track of your money?
B You check all your account statements frequently, either by phone or online, to make sure your records match exactly. You keep your cash point receipts, credit card vouchers and cancelled cheques for years.
C Because you don’t pay your bills on time, you often owe a late fee, and sometimes you can’t even find your bills amid the clutter on your desk. You pay the minimum amount due on your credit cards.
D Your accounts are balanced and your bills are paid as soon as they come in.

4 Giving
A When it comes to giving things to people, you tend to be impulsive and you’re likely to give more than you can afford.
B You give things to people but you give relatively small amounts compared to what you can afford to give.
C You repeatedly give away large amounts of money, especially for social events and raffles, even though you don’t have any savings.
D Every month, you donate the same affordable amount to the causes of your choice. You’ve carefully budgeted your money and your time to support the causes that are important to you.

Count how many of each letter you have circled and record the number below. The biggest number will reveal your attitude to money.


A.............. B.............. C.............. D..............


Interpreting the results

MACHINES BEHAVING BADLY

Everyone, it seems, has a mobile these days, even children in kindergarten. Billions of text messages fly round the world every day, and computers and call centres run every aspect of our lives. But is all this really making life better? Here are seven good reasons to hate modern technology.

A it doesn’t save you time
Many people make the mistake of thinking that technology is there to save you time. Wrong. It is there to give people new ways of filling their time. Take personal computers. Learning how to use all the features of a new PC uses up all the time that having a computer saves. And what about all the hours you spend staring at incomprehensible instruction manuals for your new phone / TV / digital doorbell?

B
Of course it's wonderful to have a CD player, a mobile, a home computer, or an electric toaster, for that matter. But do you really want to play computer games on the 4 cm screen of you mobile phone? Do you need your computer to answer the phone, or your TV to make toast?

C
Digital TV is a perfect example. When it arrived, we were promised a better quality picture and more choice. But at eleven o'clock at night as you flick through the 97 channels you can now get, it is not the quality of the picture that you worry about. More the fact that not one single programme is worth watching.

D
After several frustrating weeks of finding all the right software for you new PC, then phoning ‘help’ desks when it doesn’t work, you will proudly show off your new machine to friends only to hear ‘Oh, are you still using that one? I’m thinking of buying the new PYX 5000, myself.’ A few months later, when you try to buy some minor spare part, you find it is no longer manufactured, and that it would be much cheaper to replace the whole computer with the new PYX 7500.

E
This is easy. Because very few people really understand how the machines they have bought work. So you phone the software company and they will tell you it’s a hardware problem. You then phone the hardware company and they tell you it’s a software problem. Call centres are the worst. Phone the so called ‘customer care’ number, and after waiting on hold for fifteen minutes you will be told you need the sales department. The sales department assure you that it’s the technical department you need, but surprise, surprise, the technical department put you back through to customer care. People can spend weeks of their lives like this.

F
Apparently, teenagers now do so much texting and e-mailing that their thumbs are getting bigger. Unfortunately, they are also forgetting how to spell. One American schoolgirl recently wrote her entire essay on ‘My summer holidays’ in text speak. It began ‘B4 we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 kids. ILNY it’s a GR8 plc.’
Or for you and me: ‘Before we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three kids. I love New York it’s a great place.’

G
A recent survey showed that more than eight out often young people would rather text their friends or family than actually speak to them in person. And according to the same survey, twentyfive percent of people would answer their mobile phone even during a moment of passion. I ask you, is this really a better world?

The Visual and Communication Arts Department (VACA) offers majors in studio art, art education, communication, digital media and photography. These majors provide preparation for students to pursue professional jobs in a variety of careers and to pursue graduate work in a variety of programs.

Careers in Visual and Communication Arts* include:

artist, art educator, photographer, graphic designer, video producer, web-producer, industrial designer, visual artist, web designer, video editor, journalist, photo-journalist, fine artist, interior designer, communications, art therapist, community arts activist, production craftsperson, CD-ROM developer, advertising, broadcasting, screen printer, photographer, exhibit designer, gallery director, curator, fashion designer, theater set, lighting or sound designer, illustrator, arts administrator, framer, gallery preparator and graduate study in visual art, communication or film and video.

*Some art careers require education beyond the undergraduate level.
Burapha University