Your mind is an amazing resource, but as you age you will find that your memory is adversely affected. An excellent way to improve your memory is to recognize each improvement as a succession of small victories to be built upon each other.

Classification
Your memory can be divided into 8 different types: Episodic, Factual, Semantic, Sensory, Instinctive, Skill, Collective, and Past Life memory. These divisions describe the function that each part of the memory is responsible for. For example, factual memory is used for remembering facts such as the date of Christmas is the 25th of December. Skill memory is interesting, in that all skills involve your memory as well. Learning to ride a bike, or baking, involved using your brain to remember each particular skill.

There are many ways of classifying the human mind and its ability to retain information. One of the most often used classifications are based on the duration of memory retention, specifically the sensory, short term and long term memory. Short term memory refers to the recent memory, and is usually only held for a very short period of time. A common example would be when you meet many new people, cursorily introduced at a party. Long term memory, on the other hand, can be thought of as a database where all the information that you have learnt is kept. Sensory memory is conveyed through your senses of sight and sound, where you keep these “images” in your mind.

Memory loss may begin innocently by forgetting your house keys or being unable to remember someone’s name. Fortunately, memory loss is not inevitable and can be circumvented by taking preventive measures. The first step is in identifying the possible causes of memory loss. Some common causes of memory loss include old age, trauma, smoking, alcohol abuse and medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Individuals that possess eidetic memory, or photographic memory, are able to recall with precision a large amount of information, images or sounds. Whilst many have claimed to possess this ability, it is found in less than 5% of children, most of whom lose the ability as they mature.

It is said that monks in the Middle Ages enhanced their memories by creating images to store and use information. Many famous people are also purported to be in possession of this skill, including Mozart and Monet, but this cannot be proven. There have been some individuals who earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for having atypical memory abilities, and people suffering from memory disabilities have been shown to have photographic memories.

A photographic memory refers to being able to recall every minute detail as if you had the object right in front of your eyes. As you can imagine, this is an extremely useful tool to have, and the amount of people who possess this wonderful ability is greater that you think it is. What are the advantages of a photographic memory, you might ask.