1. Stress, Anxiety and Your Memory by Ron White
If you want to improve your memory….

RELAX!!

Stress is one of the worst enemies to your memory. When I trained for the USA Memory Championship in 2009, former U.S. Navy SEAL TC Cummings reminded me that one of the things that made the SEALs such ultimate warriors is that they remain calm under pressure. To train under pressure, TC would suggest that I train in environments with distractions such as restaurants, bars and even while SNORKELING!

I am not going to suggest that you must avoid being stressed; after all, it is part of being alive. With that said, you must learn to manage the stress effectively or your memory and health will be shot.

If you have a high level of stress over a long period of time, it can hurt your brain function in a major way. When you are stressed, your body releases a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is known for increasing belly fat and heart disease, but it also hurts your ability to remember and think straight.

How do you manage your stress? Here are some tips:

• Listen to soft music or even sounds of the rain forest or crashing waves. I have this application on my iPhone!
• I will routinely get massages in the weeks before a memory tournament to remain relaxed.
• Work! Oftentimes stress is a result of worry. If you work toward your goals and do everything you can, then the worry should disappear because you know that you have done everything that you could.
• Exercise. Exercise releases energy that might otherwise be bundled up and cause stress.
• Resolve conflicts. I have learned if I am training for a memory tournament and upset with a family member, it creates anxiety and hurts my ability to focus, which KILLS memory. So I resolve conflict not always for the relationship… oftentimes for my MEMORY!

There you have it….relax and improve your memory!

Creativity
“The most important thing I learned from big companies is that creativity gets stifled when everyone's got to follow the rules.” —David Kelley

“Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud. Any of us will put out more and better ideas if our efforts are appreciated.”
—Alexander Osburn

“Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.” —Rollo May

“Artistic creativity is a whirlpool of imagination that swirls in the depths of the mind.”
—Robert Toth

“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.”
—Samuel Johnson

“A person's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.” —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsch

“Creativity is our true nature; blocks are an unnatural thwarting of a process at once as normal and as miraculous as the blossoming of a flower at the end of a slender green stem.”
—Julia Cameron


We must never allow a day to pass without finding the answers to a list of important questions such as: What is going on in our industry? What new challenges are currently facing our government, our community, our neighborhood? What are the new breakthroughs, the new opportunities, the new tools and techniques that have recently come to light? Who are the new personalities that are influencing world and local opinion?

We must become good observers and astute evaluators of all that is going on around us. All events affect us, and what affects us leaves an imprint on what we will one day be and how we will one day live.

One of the major reasons why people are not doing well is because they keep trying to get through the day. A more worthy challenge is to try to get from the day. We must become sensitive enough to observe and ponder what is happening around us. Be alert. Be awake. Let life and all of its subtle messages touch us. Often, the most extraordinary opportunities are hidden among the seemingly insignificant events of life. If we do not pay attention to these events, we can easily miss the opportunities.

So be a good observer of both life and the world around you.