•  Quiz: Memory Loss

The Memory Bible: An Innovative Strategy for Keeping Your Brain Young
By Gary Small, MD
Hyperion
304 pp $25.95

I'm an aging baby boomer. Not a day goes by that I don't forget someone's name, lose my keys, or walk into a room only to forget why I'm there. Clearly I'm not alone. In the last decade, several best-selling books on memory improvement have hit the market, along with a spate of powerful memoirs written by family members of people with Alzheimer's disease. Forgetfulness and its cure have even popped up on the covers of several of the country's news magazines. Dr. Gary Small's book The Memory Bible is the latest entrant in a book genre catering to stressed-out, multitasking people worried that their memory glitches may be a sign of something worse.

Small wonder that when I heard about Dr. Gary Small's book The Memory Bible, I thought it might be my salvation -- if only I could remember to read it.

Because when it comes to memory, Small knows what he's talking about. A neuroscientist who heads the UCLA Memory Clinic and the UCLA Center on Aging, his research focuses on the early detection and treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

As we age, Small writes, brain cells die and brain tissue degenerates, creating areas of decay known as plaques and tangles. These areas accumulate in the brain like cobwebs in an attic. Though the latest research suggests they don't cause Alzheimer's disease, they're associated with it. Plaques, in fact, are thought to trigger a set of damaging events that results in the death of countless brain cells known as neurons. The bad news, according to Small, is that this process of brain deterioration starts in our 20s -- the good news is that we can take steps to slow it down.

Small offers down-to-earth tips that for the most part I found helpful, although some were overly complicated. He's accessible and reassuring, and he manages to make memory exercises fun. Here are some examples of the exercises you'll be doing if you follow his plan.

Before starting on any memory improvement regimen, Small suggests that you get an accurate picture of how healthy your memory is now. First, he invites you to take a subjective memory test that asks you to rate your memory in different circumstances, such as how well you remember what to buy at the store or how easily you recall people's names. While it might seem that rating your own memory is too subjective to be useful, Small writes, tests measuring physical brain deterioration confirm the accuracy of such self-assessments. The second test, an objective memory test, requires you to memorize a list of words and see how many you can write down 20 minutes later.

Your scores on the two tests will give you an idea whether your memory's in fine shape, whether you need to flex your brain a bit to improve your memory, or whether you might have a problem requiring medical attention. I was relieved to score reasonably well on both tests -- that was worth the price of the book right there! I had been worried that my memory was much worse than it actually was.

That kind of discovery is not unusual, according to Small. In fact, if your two test scores are widely different, stress may be the reason. Worrying about memory loss can make it seem worse than it is -- or may actually make it worse. When we're extremely stressed, our bodies release hormones that can, in high doses, hamper our ability to remember. Researchers also believe that a long-term low level of stress can be just as damaging to our memory as shorter periods of extreme stress. So relax already! Small includes a chapter full of suggestions on how to do just that.

It turns out that some old-fashioned health tips for your body -- exercise, eating healthful foods, and getting plenty of rest -- are also good for your mind. Physical exercise keeps oxygen and nutrients flowing to brain cells and may even help grow new ones, Small says. As for mental exercise, the old adage "use it or lose it" applies. Continuing to learn new things, doing brain puzzles and crosswords -- anything that stimulates your brain -- can help delay memory loss and brain aging.

Small cites a study that found that people who remained mentally active in their 40s and 50s were three times less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than those who had not. Of course, Small doesn't claim that anything will prevent or cure Alzheimer's, but you can increase your odds of staying mentally agile longer by following a healthy lifestyle. To help you get started on your brain workout, Small includes a chapter of brain puzzles.

Eating a lower-fat diet that is rich in omega 3 fatty acids (found in certain fish such as salmon and tuna) and antioxidants (found in many fruits and vegetables) can also help our brains stay young and healthy, according to Small. He also advises taking a multivitamin supplement and vitamin E, C, and folic acid supplements.

Of course, you can eat right, exercise, get plenty of rest and still have trouble remembering your best friend's birthday or your boss's wife's name, so Small includes a number of techniques to help you remember things. In fact, much of the book is devoted to the instruction and exercise of these techniques. The simplest one he calls, "Look, Snap, Connect." Look closely and take in all the details of what you want to remember; take a mental snapshot of that visual picture, and connect the snapshots in a chain. The more outlandish the memory cues you come up with to fix your mental picture, the better.

So let's say you meet your friend's Aunt Lucy at a family picnic and she invites you to her sewing circle on the 15th of the month. You might memorize her face and take a mental snapshot of her standing in a circle of sewing needles, holding a picture of Charlie Brown's friend Lucy, with a big number 15 on her head. (I tried this technique to remember the scientific name of a flower I wanted to look for at the nursery to plant in my garden and it worked -- sort of. I did remember the name of the flower, but I realized later that I had forgotten the memory tricks I used to do it.)

The book goes into a lot of detail on these memory techniques, and a few of them seem like way more trouble than they're worth. Small's so-called "Peg Method" of remembering phone numbers, bank account numbers, or other numerical sequences for example, calls for assigning a certain word for each number from 0 to 9. Each assigned word should be something visually memorable, like an animal or an item of clothing. Then, instead of remembering a phone number, you visualize the word for each number and hang it on its "peg." Sound confusing? It did to me, too.

Still, there's plenty of valuable information here for people looking to improve their memory or keep their brains active and healthy. Small supports his ideas with scientific studies, but his writing never gets bogged down in tedious medical jargon. His friendly, chatty style makes for easy reading, even when he's talking about neurons and synapses. And his ideas work.

After finishing the book, I decided to test myself again, using Small's memory techniques. This time, I scored 10 percent higher on the word-memory test -- not a huge difference, admittedly, but enough to convince me that aids do work and to keep using them.

"It is never too late or too early, to start beating the brain-aging game," he says. And in my case, it wasn't.

-- Nancy Montgomery is an associate editor at Consumer Health Interactive.

Last updated February 25, 2009
Copyright © 2004 Consumer Health Interactive

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