How do you help your mind recall long-stored names and/or labels more easily?
Over the last two years, I have experienced a sudden increase in difficulty in remembering labels for things. I know the thing itself and can describe it so someone else can give me it’s name, but I can’t pull the label out myself. These are things I used to never have anything but very occasional difficulty retrieving.
It started when I had to start taking a medicine that has memory loss as a side effect. I’m also at that age where memory typically starts sliding. Of course, being at this age, there’s an enormous vocabulary stored in my memory, and I never know when I will need any particular word.
I guess this isn’t so much a memory problem in the sense of committing something to memory as it is a problem of retrieving something from memory. Is there anything I can do to improve my label recall?
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If you figure it out or get ans answer here, I would like to know too.
About all that I can offer if that I seem to store things by initial. So if I can think of the first letter something starts with, I can then usually think of the word I am looking for.
Well, there is a trick of associating, say a person’s name with an object. Maybe you meet someone named “Doris,” and you envision this person standing next to a door. The next time you see them, you’ll be more apt to remember the association, the door, and then be able to recall their name. Make the same kinds of associations with labels, etc. Make a picture in your mind to go along with the label..
It’s called Mnemonic’s, and it’s a tool we’re supposed to teach our students in class.
http://www.web-us.com/MEMORY/mnemonic_techniques.htm
(Jinx cruiser!)
@wundayatta I wonder what’s up with that. i draw blanks all the time and I use the phrase “hoo-ya” a lot. As in; “where did I out that hoo-ya? Because I can’t think of the word, and I gave up wasting time trying to remember it. Funny thing is, when I stop trying to think of it, I generally get it. Kind of like my brain has to forge a different pathway to the information.
I used to remember nearly everything I read, now I hardly ever do. I suggest you try the memory games and exercises that you can find on various sites on the internet.
Did it start when you started taking your medicine, or when you noticed “Memory-Loss” was a side effect? You may be tricking yourself into thinking you are effected by this “Side effect” when you actually are not, similar to a placebo effect.
This is my girlfriend’s job. Every time I can’t think of a word, usually a tip-of-the-tongue syndrome type stuff, she knows exactly what word I’m trying to say and will remind me so I can spit it out. It helps to have a backup in this case.
@Shuttle128 How ‘bout I put your girlfriend on my speed dial?
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