Like many others, you may experience retrieval glitches on a daily basis. A retrieval glitch is the inability to effectively retrieve some or all bits of information stored in the long-term memory. A retrieval glitch, or the tip of the tongue experience as it’s colloquially known, alludes to the sensation of being absolutely certain that a particular piece of information is stored in the long-term memory, but experience an inability to retrieve all or some pieces of that information.

The tip of the tongue experience, however, is not an all-or-nothing experience. In most cases, people are able to recall the first letter of the word in question; the correct amount of syllables contained in the word; or recall other words with a similar sound or meaning. The latter of these sensations — recalling words similar in sound or meaning to the word on the tip of the tongue — is referred to as cued recall. Cued recall can be used to combat the TOT experience in many instances by calmly letting the mind run through a list of words that should eventually trigger the original word in question to come to mind.

Studies have also shown that the TOT experience usually resolves itself within two days after the initial failure in retrieval. This substantiates the age old cliche used to overcome TOT — that is, by simply forgetting about the word altogether and letting the subconscious deal with it. However, if waiting forty-eight hours for a bit of information to surface on its own is not an option, their are methods that can be employed to overcome TOT. The main hurdle in combating TOT is to simply remain calm. Anxiety and stress do nothing but cloud the mind, and beating ones self up over a failed retrieval is no way to deal with TOT.

One can either use the aforementioned exercise of letting the mind run through a list of associated words similar in sound or meaning to the TOT word — called cued recall; or simply let the anxieties and thoughts associated with the TOT experience fall away. This latter approach, which seems more like an act of Zen than a proactive method of retrieving a memory — hinges on remaining calm and not becoming anxious or stressed about the failed retrieval. If done in a calm, collected manor, both these methods — separately and in conjunction with one another — can be used to effectively retrieve information from the long-term memory and combat the TOT experience.

The Chinese wolfberry, commercially know as the “Goji” berry, has long been hailed as the premier “brain tonic” in Asia. Goji berries have been cultivated and used for memory improvement for over 600 years.  Claims have also been made that wild goji berries increase exercise endurance and stamina, eliminate fatigue, and even restore and heighten the libido.
The berries are usually picked and dried for consumption, although they can be rehydrated as a delectable addition to any smoothie.  These berries grow wild in Asia as well as southeastern Europe.
Claims aside, gooji berries contain betaine, which is then converted to choline – an “essential nutrient”.  Choline is labeled an essential nutrient because it is required for normal body functioning and either cannot be synthesized by the body at all, or cannot be synthesized in amounts adequate for good health – and thus bust be obtained from a dietary source, such as Goji berries.  Choline is usually grouped with the Vitamin B complex and is essential for cell membranes and neurotransmission.
The goji berry is also a tremendous anti-oxidant, boasting a very high number of ORAC units.  ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity Scale) is a measure of the anti-oxidants ability to absorb oxygen “free radicals” – which have been implicated for biological mutations such as DNA breakdown and mutation, cancer, premature aging, dementia, Alzheimer’s, etc.
Although there are truckloads of reputable sources supporting the health benefits of anti-oxidants, goji berries in particular, I would warn against buying into every boastful medicinal herb or berry purported as having anti-oxidant powers.  The recent anti-oxidant craze in the health/nutrition community has paved the way for some unsubstantiated and exaggerated claims regarding anti-oxidants.  The fact is that the scientific community has not yet addressed all the claims made in the recent years, but evidence up to this point has sided with the more moderate claims as to the healing properties of anti-oxidants.

Many people often wonder which part of the brain their memories are stored in. However, due to the complexity of the memory process and the human brain, memories aren’t located in one particular place.

The brain creates, stores, and retrieves memories through multiple processes, which involves numerous regions.

While you can go for weeks without any food, just a couple of days without water would spell death even for Gandhi.   Our bodies consist of roughly 60 percent water; and as for our brains – they’re made up of about 75 percent water.
The brain needs enough water to function properly, otherwise the brain will dry out– also know as dehydration.  The more subtle, and initial stages of dehydration are a scratchy throat, light headedness and thirst.  This results in short-term memory problems and difficulty in paying attention.
The average adult needs about 1 ½ liters of water per day, with this minimum demand obviously increasing on hot days or during strenuous exercise.  If we neglect our brain and bodies this minimum quota, our brain begins to function below optimum levels – making simple tasks, such as recalling something from our short-term memory, an unbelievable feat.
Also keep in mind that many of the beverages found in the average adults’ diet are diuretics, meaning they make you urinate, causing further dehydration.  Coffee, teas, beer, wine, and spirits actually do more harm than good.  While one would assume that they are liquefying their body with one of the aforementioned beverages, they are actually dehydrating themselves.
Some people are reluctant to drink ample amounts of water throughout the day because of the blandness in taste.  If you are one of these people, coconut juice has been found in recent studies to actually be a better hydrator than water.  Coconut juice is made up of 95 percent water, and is a considerable source of calcium oxide, nitrogen and iron.

Many of the foods we eat supply the raw ingredients for manufacturing a specific and particularly important chemical in the brain, called neurotransmitters.  Neurotransmitters play the part of relaying, amplifying, and modulating signals between a neuron and another cell.  If these vital chemicals are below optimum levels, our general mental health – and most importantly, our memory – suffers.

It is imperative that we induce certain foods into our diet that correspond to each of these different types of neurotransmitters.  Your body synthesizes specific amino acids that are contained in the foods you eat, forming neurotransmitters.  Just to give our readers a small glimpse of the vital importance of neurotransmitters and the corresponding foods that aid in producing them, we’ll go over just three of the forty different types of neurotransmitters that are most essential to our everyday memory function and overall mental health.

For example, when your body digests the amino acid L-Glutamine from foods such as peas and sunflower seeds, your body synthesizes it into the neurotransmitter called GABA.  GABA plays a central role in your ability to stay calm, and when your calm – your remember things with relative ease.

You can find L-Glutamine in the following foods:

Avocado

Eggs

Peaches

Granola

Grape Juice

Peas

Sunflower seeds

The amino acid L-Tryptophan affects the neurotransmitter serotonin.  Serotonin regulates your mood, and when level are low you can get thoroughly depresses – and when you’re depressed, so is your ability to remember.

You can find L-Tryptophan in the following foods:

Almonds

Milk

Shredded wheat

Soybeans

Turkey

The amino acid L-Phenylalanine affects the neurotransmitter norepinephrine.  Norepinephrine increase energy levels and keeps you from suffering depression, consequently helping with your memory.

L-Phenylalanine can be found in the following foods:

Chicken

Lima Beans

Milk

Peanuts

Soybeans

Yogurt

Keeping your mind active is one of the best ways to maintain a healthy memory and well functioning mind.

Brain games, puzzles, and daily mind exercises are an excellent way of giving your brain the workout that it needs on a regular basis.

Today’s activity focuses on subtraction and reversal. Although they may seem easy at first, these increasingly difficult mental tasks will test your cognitive abilities:

1. Beginning at 96, count backward, deducting 4 each time (96, 92, 88…)
2. Starting with the letter Z, recall the alphabet backward by skipping a letter (Z, X, V…)
3. Starting at 188, count backward, subtracting 13 each time (188, 175, 162…)
4. Beginning with the letter Z, recite the alphabet backward by skipping 2 letters (Z, W, U…)

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In order to improve our memories, we must first have a solid understanding of how memory works.

In the first part of this series, we’ll look at the three basic steps that occur in the memory process.

Encoding – The method of converting information into a structure that can be entered into and preserved by the memory system. For example, in order to remember a name written on a piece of paper, you would encode the patterns of lines as letters that fit together to form a name that could be stored in your memory.

Storage – The process of preserving information in memory so that it can be used later.

Retrieval – The act of reacquiring stored information and being consciously aware of it.

This three stage model is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding how our memory works. Next week we will be looking more deeply into the different kinds of memory and how our brains process each one.