Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

meditation

16 Actions You Can Do to Improve Your Memory

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Be the Butterfly – Enjoy life and remember

I’ve been studying memory and what I can do to maintain and improve my own. My mother and father-in-law have both suffered from Alzheimer’s related dementia and memory loss. It has been heartbreaking. What has been even more an issue is the effort those around them go to looking for ways to hold back or even turn back the loss of memory our loved ones suffer.

My father-in-law’s memory of all children, grandchildren, friends and even his wife was completely gone in the last year, and his death in late last year was gut-wrenching. For all of that loss, we kept reminding each other that it was his last three years that were the most troubling. Not such a long period of time when we remembered that he lived to 93 in good health and gleeful about life and family.

What did he do that probably helped stave off a disease that had been diagnose early in his 70’s?

  1. He was active all his life and played competitive tennis into his 70s, practicing daily when not competing in seniors tennis.
  2. He played tennis into his 80s. Then played vicariously via watching the US Open and other major tennis meets. Did you know your muscles will actually be stimulated if you watch a sporting activity with interest and interaction?
  3. He watched his diet, eating balanced meals and taking appropriate levels of vitamins, minerals and herbs.
  4. He treated everyone respectfully and with kindness.
  5. He was strongly involved in his church and spent many years with his wife as a marriage-encounter teacher.
  6. He wrote his children letters often (not typing or email).
  7. He maintained a positive attitude and encouraged others to as well.

But as I said I’ve been studying memory. And there are numerous ways to maintain memory even against debilitating diseases.

  1. Stay active – tennis, walking, indoor skydiving, yoga, jogging, jumping rope, ping pong – get your heart rate up and move around. Physical activity and Risk of Cognitive Impairment and Dementia in Elderly Persons
  2. Eat intelligently and selectively. There are numerous foods that are said to help your body combat illness and disease – blueberries, cranberries, cherries, coconut oil, olive oil, fish, garlic, oatmeal, broccoli (I’m one of those people who think broccoli is nasty tasting, but broccoli spears don’t seem to bother me) Can blueberries assist in maintaining memory?
  3. Listen to music, classical, instrumental, music from your favorite memories, jazz, new age, etc.
  4. Learn to play a musical instrument – kazoo, harmonica, guitar, flute, piano – anything that forces you to learn the musical language and reproduce it with sound. Heck, play your armpit. How Music Affects the Brain for the Better
  5. Reduce stress in your life and develop ways to combat and deal with it when it arrives – exercising maybe or the next suggestion Chronic Stress Can Hurt Your Memory
  6. Get enough sleep, not too much nor too little too often. Routine sleep habits that provide the amount of sleep your body needs can help deal with stress, reduce stress and even help you not approach stressful situations as stress inducing Too Little Sleep, and Too Much Sleep, Affect Memory
  7. Hang around positive people who care about you and enjoy your positive company Optimism and Your Health
  8. Marry the person that makes your life complete and whose life you bring happiness and security to
  9. Take vitamins (cautiously, of course. Do your research) Vitamin Bible
  10. Challenge yourself daily to recall memories important to you The Effects of Aging on Memory
  11. Write a book – you’d be surprised how demanding it is to create lives for several other people, plot out the difficulties they are going through and figure out how to get them out of the inescapable corners you back them into. Write flash fiction if you want the same challenge but on a much tighter scale
  12. Meditate – you don’t have to turn your legs into a pretzel. Lay down on the couch and decompress for fifteen minutes. Meditation Benefits
  13. Simplify – I don’t mean sell everything and move into a tiny house. Just remove some of the complications in your life
  14. Research your family history – keeping track of all those ancestral lines is going to work your mind and give you an alternative to think about when life is handing you tough stuff.They got through it; you will too.
  15. Garden, keep a bonzai or raise koi – being involved with something that takes time, and takes it slowly will give you time to reflect and gain strength in watching your efforts create beauty in nature
  16. Don’t do everything listed above – pick out a few to add to your life (activity) and a few to alter your life (diet)

#memory
#meditation

There are advantages to being a 50something writer

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50+ years of experience

I’ve been gathering experience for 50+ years

  1. I have already been told numerous times I was wrong and proved that I was right.
  2. I have been wrong before and survived and I will again
  3. I have paid my bills, and when I didn’t, I learned to pay them the next time.
  4. I found out I don’t have to answer any questions I don’t want to.
  5. I have learned how to ask questions so people want to answer them (they don’t always, but they want to).
  6. I refuse to sit in the corner and cry about it.  But I know some times a good cry works wonders.
  7. I know what my body does when it is terrified.
  8. I know what my body does when it is tired.
  9. I know what my body does when it hasn’t slept for three days. (My husband and I laughed our heads off about nothing funny, but it was a blast) Not recommended more than once a year.
  10. I know that how I react is not necessarily how another person will act.
  11. Now I decide what I am going to do about it and do it.
  12. I wrote a book.
  13. And then I wrote three more.
  14. I published a book, and then I published three more.
  15. So I am writing another book.
  16. I plan to publish it.
  17. Creativity is in the mind, of the mind, doesn’t always mind, but mind you, it never really leaves.
  18. There are days I don’t want to write.
  19. There are not many days I don’t want to write.
  20. I love my parents despite and in spite of all they did, tried to do and never got around to doing.
  21. I am a parent, and I think she’s going to love me in spite of and despite of all of it.
  22. I married the right man, and he agrees.
  23. What I really know, really experienced and really care about can be a great help with writing about the things I didn’t know until I looked it up, didn’t experience but have an idea about, and don’t care much about but can see how someone would.
  24. I know that crying is not proof that someone is hurt 
  25. I know that not crying is not proof that someone does not care.
  26. I know that silence is not agreement, and taking a stand is far more reliable.
  27. I know my opinion needs to matter to me more than it matters to anyone else.
  28. I have learned that opinion is not fact.
  29. I know that some believe opinion is enough to hang a hat on.
  30. I rarely wear a hat.  Don’t have the head for it.
  31. I can wait a long time, I already have.
  32. I will not wait long for things not worth waiting for or things that should not be allowed to wait.
  33. I have learned that criticism can hurt, but even that sort can be learned from.
  34. I have learned to give criticism that teaches.
  35. Nothing is forever except ideas.
  36. Escapism is not a bad thing.  Writers depend on it. Readers need it well done.
  37. Every day I need to seek out knowledge.
  38. As often as possible I need to share knowledge.
  39. I know how to say I am sorry and mean it. 
  40. I have learned that some of the closest friends a person can have shed, and their only flaw is the amount of hair that can accumulated in the corners.  Dogs, kindness in the warm, occasionally wet-nosed package, that renews itself every morning and sometimes numerous times in the course of the day if you step outside enough times and make a big deal every time you come back in.
  41. I have been an infant, a toddler, a pre-teen, a teenager, a lover, a newlywed, a pregnant woman, a new mother.  I remind my daughter I am old enough to be a grandmother, but I am not ready, nor is she ready to make me one.
  42. I have struggled with self-consciousness and reached a point of mostly not caring what people think about me.
  43. I have found meditation has numerous benefits
  44. I have struggled with achieving a pregnancy, giving up, gone a decade believing and accepting that it was not possible.
  45. I have lost a pregnancy, and helped a friend deal with losing her own pregnancy.
  46. I went preterm and held out for a full term delivery.
  47. I have had a child remind me to pay attention. And I listened. I held her sitting in the crook of my arm.  She placed two chubby hands on either side of my face, turned me to share an eye-to-eye look, and she said, “Momma?” with the firmness of a drill sergeant. 
  48. I know how to hide the fact that I am a shy person. (Head up, chin up, eye steady)
  49. I know how to say no and mean it.
  50. I found out why mothers are never shy when a child is involved.
  51. I learned how to give orders so students do what I say (but don’t ask me to explain how it works).
  52. I have made friends and lost friends and will forget neither.
  53. I have been lied to and lied, and carried the burden of both.
  54. I have fallen in love and worked hard not to climb out because holding onto love is not an easy thing.
  55. I know how it is to lose a parent to cancer.
  56. I know how it is to lose a parent to unexpected death.
  57. I know how it is to lose a parent to dementia.
  58. I have petted the family dog and felt her life flow out and cried for the loss. And I have explained to my daughter why she will not be coming back.
  59. I know how it is to watch my sister lose a child to a brain tumor.
  60. I know how it is to witness a miracle of survival.
  61. I have lived on the East Coast, the West Coast, the Northwest and South Coast.
  62. I have hiked the beginning of the Narragansett Trail and the end of Oregon Trail.  Missed the middle.
  63. I know the reality of not doing something now.  Do it now or it will never happen.
  64. I have graduated high school.
  65. I have graduated college, three times, different degrees.

I figure I still have plenty to learn, and all of it will be useful to me as a writer and a person.

Advice: Increase creativity with meditation

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take ten and monitor some meditation

There are so many recommended activities for writers to increase their creativity.  Join a writer’s group, take a writing class, get feedback from fellow writers and read the works of great writers.  Here’s one more: meditate.

According to an article at Science Daily, Lorenza Colzato and her colleagues at Leiden University in the Netherlands have found that a specific type of meditation increases creativity better than other variants.  In the article “Meditation Makes You More Creative,” the form of meditation calling for open monitoring offers more freedom in the generation of ideas which would seem to be a benefit to writing creatively.

In other words, rather then focusing on a specific object, idea or concern, the writer free thinks, monitoring what comes to mind but not forcing or focusing on anything particular.  (Think of mental free writing practices or stream of consciousness.) So if I am having difficulties with a scene, I could lay down and just let creative ideas enter without prelude or pressure, and by observing the different thoughts that entered my mind, I would come up with a variety of ideas which ultimately lead me to a solution to my writing problem.

Colzato compared this technique to Focused Attention meditation which does maintain concentration on an object or idea with the individual seeking just one solution as opposed to several possible or combined solutions.  Focused Attention meditation according to her study, and a few others I have read about, does not invite greater creativity.

The broader meditation style of open monitoring appeared to provide greater creativity because it was more receptive to all possible solutions and subconscious invention.  Colzato’s study examined particular brain reactions and abilities to problem solve.

Colzato’s study was briefly explained in Science Daily, but it sounded worth trying, as it coincided with what I often do to prepare for writing.  I just lie down and see what rises to the surface ready to be put into words in my novel.  Sometimes what rises belongs to another story I am working on which may not be my original intent for that day, but if that is what is rising to the surface, who am I to argue, which explains why I have numerous short stories and another novel unrelated to my series drafted out.

Another article which explains three meditation styles, two which were studied by Colzato gives a brief description of each.  I found the article at The General Thinking blog. “The Buddhist Brain” does not just list descriptions but also supplies a link to the talk given by Andy Puddicombe  and posted at TED Blog about meditating just ten minutes a day.  I found it equally interesting and motivating.

I was looking at what aids creative thinking and ended up reading several articles on meditation.  This is a small sampling of what I learned and thought useful to writing, and it is worth practicing if it brings about greater creativity, not to mention a healthier mental outlook, heart and brain.