Memory

One of the toughest things to do when getting to know people professionally is remembering their names. And it's also an extremely useful skill to have when you're networking. Showing a stranger that you remembered her name can portray you as someone who pays attention and even someone who cares. Here are some tricks to remembering any name:

• Ask for their business card: When you meet someone in a networking situation, ask for their business card. Jot down a few notes about the person and his appearance so you can differentiate him from the other people you've met. You can always refer back to the card if you forget someone's name.
• Repeat it in your mind: After you've met someone, repeat her name in your mind a few times until you feel like you got a hang of the name.
• Write it down: Some people write down people's names in a private place like a bathroom on a scrap of paper or a notebook.
• Ask again: At the end of your conversation, ask the person you're speaking with to repeat his name just to make sure you have it right. Hearing it again will help you memorize it as well.
• Visualize an image: Attach an image to the name. For example, if you meet a Catherine, then try to connect the image of a cat with the woman. That way, when you meet the woman again, the image of a cat will pop up, and it will be easy to work out what her name is.

Remember more names by reading these tricks below.

We are pumped to share one of our fave stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

By Mandy Oaklander, Prevention

Leave it to scientists to burst our bubble. For years, studies have told us that chewing gum can boost memory recall, and as such, we’d pop Chiclets during noggin-twisting times: exams, high school reunions, Jeopardy. Did it ever work for us? Honestly, we can’t remember — and there might be reason for that.

A study out of Cardiff University in the UK found that not only does chewing gum not help your short-term memory, but it also impairs it. Though there are certain activities that surprisingly boost brain health, gum chewing isn’t one of them.

In a series of three experiments, 97 university students were asked to recall either a short sequence of letters or identify the missing item in a list. They performed significantly worse when chewing gum, no matter how vigorously or how lazily they chomped. Researchers speculate that the tongue, mouth, and jaw movements of gum chewing disrupt short-term memory (For a fun way to refresh your mind, try these seven brain games).

Nine Surprising Reasons You Can’t Concentrate

You can still fight short-term memory loss, hand to mouth, with these five tricks!

Have a pregraduation final or an upcoming important presentation to nail? It may help to take a step back from your notes and go for a run or a bike ride. A new lab study, reported in The New York Times has found that exercise can improve your memory and learning skills.

In the study, scientists fed a group of mice certain drugs that mimic muscle changes from exercise and compared them to sedentary mice. The mice who "exercised" ended up performing much better on memory and learning.

Previous studies have already found that exercise can make you smarter, but investigators in this lab test say that it could shed light on exactly how exercising affects your brain; they think that exercise releases an enzyme into your blood that travels to your brain, where it has an effect on learning and memory.

The researchers note that sustained aerobic exercise is most effective if you're trying to improve your smarts, since endurance cardio increases blood flow (although they also say that a good strength training session may be effective as well, but wasn't tested). Want more ideas to make you smarter in time for your big brain-testing event? Read our tips on what to eat to be smarter here.

If there are certain things you need to remember and you have a smartphone, perhaps you should take a quick snapshot of it and leave the picture in your phone's photo album. It reduces the clutter in your bag — you don't have have to dig around your bag for strips of paper — and it's super easy to do. All it takes is one snap and you don't have to key in any information.

Apartment Therapy suggests to take pictures of where you parked, clothing sizes of all your family members, travel confirmation numbers, prescription pill bottles, and recipes.

Before keeping sensitive information on your phone, remember to secure it properly. It's advisable not to keep the most confidential data, such as your social security number and passport number, on your phone in case you lose it.

I used to constantly forget to charge my phone overnight and would spend my day furiously switching my cell on and off just to conserve battery. That's until I bought another charger to leave in the office. I know that some of you with superhuman memories don't have this problem, but for my forgetful peers, here is a nice list of things you should keep in the office . . . just in case!

• All Types of Chargers: Keep an extra set of chargers, be it phone or computer or some gadget you can't do without, at your office. This is so you won't beat yourself up over forgetting to charge your electronic devices the night before. You can alternatively choose to leave another fully charged battery at the office, but it seems like the chargers are generally way cheaper!
• Feminine Products: It's the time of the month, but you keep forgetting to bring some feminine products to work. If the office bathroom doesn't have a dispenser, remember to keep a full pack of it at work so you don't ever have to run out to the nearest pharmacy when you're on the job.
• Mini Whiteboard: If you're really forgetful, you might not remember completing things on your electronic to-do list. I know it's really easy to dismiss and click away the alerts when you're on your computer. Increase chances of remembering by placing a small whiteboard on your desk to scribble down urgent items.

For more items a forgetful person must keep in the office, read on!

If you've got too much on your plate, chances are you'll start forgetting things you need to do. Fortunately, there are plenty of tricks when it comes to remembering things. Here are a couple of them:

Tying a string around your finger. You can go the old-fashioned route and tie a string around your finger to remember something. Having a string on your finger is something out of the ordinary and will cause you to reflect back on the reason you tied on the string, which will then help you recall what you wanted to remember more easily.

Physical Post-it notes. If you want to remember a task, write it down on a Post-it note and stick it somewhere visible or someplace you know you're going to check regularly.

Digital sticky notes. If you're always on your computer, perhaps it's better to use digital sticky notes such as the Stickies app, which lets you leave notes on your desktop. You'll be saving paper and you'll have a less messy desk.

Writing on your hand. Writing what you have to remember down on your hand is a very effective way of reminding yourself what you need to do. The benefit of this method is that you can write out what you're supposed to do, but the downside is the not-very-professional look of ink on your hands.

Read on for more.

More often than not, I read about alcohol having detrimental effects on your health, rather than positive effects, so it wasn't shocking to learn that a recent study found a correlation between binge drinking and sharpness of memory.

The study administered memory tests to college students — 62 who were binge drinkers and 60 who were not — and found that the binge drinkers experienced a lowered ability to remember lists of words. But, on a separate test, the binge drinkers did fine, so it's not clear whether alcohol is to blame for the previous results or not. Researchers have noted that there is a link between binge drinking and memory, they just aren't clear if alcohol reduces memory skills, or if there are any long-term effects of binge drinking.

When we polled you on how much you drink, a majority of you said you have about a drink a week — so you're well within the "healthy" range of alcohol consumption. The recommendation for women who are not pregnant is up to one alcoholic beverage per day.

And while researchers weren't able to draw any direct conclusions from this study, it does encourage us to think about the effects binge drinking may have on memory. Do you think there is a connection between the two?

I'm always envious of people with photographic memories, but according to a New York Times article, it's apparently a "detestable myth." People with great memories don't usually have brains that are more biologically advanced than their peers. Instead, being able to retain information is actually a skill you can hone on your own.

Memory is a great tool to have in your work life, networking, or when you're trying to build up other skills. I used to think my friend's method of learning a foreign language was ridiculously time-consuming — she did extensive research of the origins of each word before trying to learn it. Now I'm realizing that there may be a point to her laborious efforts. Here's how you can become a memory athlete:

• Repetition Is Key: You're more likely to remember items if you practice memorizing it over and over again. Rehashing events and rereading something will make the impression last longer.

For more memorization tactics, read on.

I hated it when my preschool and kindergarten teacher cued us to take out our nap mats — why nap when there was coloring to be done? Before I blame them for ruining my chance at becoming the next Picasso, it looks like they might have been on to something: a new study suggests that an afternoon nap might make you smarter.

Pitting nappers against non-nappers, researchers gave a group of 39 healthy, young adults a memory test before and after a 90-minute nap. When taking the memory test the second time, the non-nappers' scores dropped an average of 10 percent. Meanwhile, the nappers did even better the second time around. The University of California, Berkeley researchers also found that how much sleep the nappers got was much less important than the type of sleep they received. The more "stage 2 non-REM" sleep the participants had — a lighter form of non-dreaming sleep — the better they did.

Apparently, our brains get clogged during the day with information overload and taking a nap helps it recharge. After a brief resting period, it's able to consolidate the information it's picked up through the day, while also clear itself to be more adept at learning new information. While many of us don't have 90 minutes to snooze during our lunch break, even a 15 to 20 minute nap can help too.