What Happened Along the Way?
Seriously, what happened along the way as we grew from children to adults? Sure, as adults we need to be more responsible, but becoming an adult didn’t mean we had to give up child-like ways altogether. Somewhere along the way from the magical time of childhood to becoming an adult it’s like someone flicked a switch and everything changed…. and not necessarily for the better.
3 of the most effective things a human can do are:
1) Be Decisive - we need to make healthy decisions for our lives to be better in any way
2) Accept Change - Children not only accept change but have a strong desire for continual change.
3) Be Creative - Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Now let’s take a look at how children use these 3 factors as opposed to adults… Read more
April Foods Day….
By Deborah Yaffee, CH, CN 
April is International Humor Month and I’d be a fool if I didn’t share some April Foods tips with you to bring in the month with a smirk on April 1st. Don’t be shy… go ahead and throw a huge dinner party. Serve the courses in reverse…starting with dessert, then the entrée, then the salad, and finally the appetizer. Sure, let them eat dessert with the butter knife and give them a spoon to attack the salad with. Don’t forget to put salt in the sugar bowl…oh, right, this is a nutrition article: remember to put the Celtic sea salt in the Succanat bowl. And how about some hearty tomato soup in the coffee cups?
A Guide on How to Improve Your Memory
Improve Memory
Many scientific experts will tell you that we just do not have the ability to recall facts, images or events perfectly as if we had a photographic memory. Unfortunately, although people may say that they do have a photographic memory; this simply isn’t true, as it does not exist.But do not worry as through this book we will show you the steps that you can take to help improve your memory. In fact, with a little time and a lot of practice, many people are able to gain the ability to memorize what seems to be an impossible amount of data and information.
Even if you just want to remember where you actually left your keys from the night before, then this book should help you.
You know that in order to gain muscular strength you need to exercise, well the same goes for actually increasing your ability to remember things. Your brain needs exercise, as well as being nurtured. So your diet needs to be good, and you need to look at taking up much healthier habits.
Unfortunately, because our brains are so complex, they need a lot of effort in order to get them in the best shape possible. There are a number of things that you can look at doing which will help you improve the capacity of the retrieval mechanism in your brain. But first, let us take a look at how it is we remember things.
To put it in simple terms, our memory is the activity carried out in our brain to recall information that we have gained through experiences in our lives. However, it is a complex process which involves various parts of the brain, and serves us all in very different ways. It can either be short term or long term.
With short term memory, you will find that your brain is able to store certain pieces of information for only a few seconds or minutes. Unfortunately, the problem with this memory is that it is very fragile, and if it were to retain all the information it receives, your brain would soon be telling you that it has no more space. Plus, each person’s short term memory is only meant to hold around 7 items at any one time, and this is why, although you may be able to remember a new telephone number for a few minutes, you will often find that when you are going to buy something online with your credit card, you need it beside you, because it actually has more than 7 items on it.
Long term memory is all to do with the information that you are making an effort to retain, both consciously and unconsciously. This is because the information may be particularly personal and meaningful to you, or it is because it is something that you need in order to complete a task or to take some exams. However, there is some information that you retain in your long term memory which will need you to make a conscious effort in order to recall it, such as a personal memory which relates to a specific experience or time in your life, known as episodic memory, or it may be some factual data that you need to recall, and this is known as semantic memory.
The other type of long term memory that we all have is known as procedural memory, and this is where your memory will recall skills or routines that you use so that you do not have to consciously need to recall them.
There are certain parts of the brain which are especially important in relation to not only the formation, but also the retention of memories, and these are as shown below.
Hippocampus - This is found deep in the human brain, and plays the largest role in the brain processing information as memory.
Amygdala - This is an almond shaped piece of the brain which is found close to the hippocampus and processes a person’s emotions. This particular area helps to imprint memories into the brain which involve emotions.
Cerebral Cortex - This is the outer layer of the human brain, and is where most long term memory is stored in various different sectors. It will all depend on where particular memories are stored, as to what process the information involves. So language will be stored in one sector, sensory input into another, problem solving into yet another sector and so on.
As well as the above, the memory also involves communication occurring between the brains various network of neurons and cells (millions of which are activated by chemicals in the brain known as neurotransmitters).