Do you remember?

(This is the text of my Advanced Project 4 speech from the Humorously Speaking manual that I delivered at my club yesterday evening)

I can’t remember the number of umbrellas I have lost  or the number of times I have misplaced my keys.

Sometimes when I have left home for work – I have the “Did I” moment.  Did I switch off the iron?  Or Did I lock the main door?

Distinguished guests, fellow toastmasters and friends –

In this fast-paced world with a growing population we have to remember so many names, so many phone numbers, facts, figures, internet passwords – it is really mind boggling.  But technology gave us paper , the printing press, the typewriter, the computer, the internet and the smartphone and we have progressively outsourced our memory to these gadgets.

Inside our brains temporal lobe is the hippocampus (sounds like hippopotamus) responsible for converting short term memory to long term memory and the amygdala (sounds like a queen from a fairy tale) which processes emotions and can record events..

When I was a child I could remember times tables,  Gandhis date of birth and when the battle of Plassey was fought.  Then when I was going to get married I could remember my wifes birthday and even her mothers birthday.  I had the memory of an elephant.  But after marriage I find it hard to remember our anniversary date, birthdays etc.

The most effective way to remember your wifes birthday is to forget it once.

When I go grocery shopping I always keep a list with me lest I should forget one item and go all the way back.

A University of Cornell study found that women remember better and can multitask whereas men are more focussed on a single task

In the movie Finding Nemo – Dory, one of the main characters can’t remember if she’s coming or going and Winnie the Pooh also had a poor memory.

Just 2 weeks back I attended a seminar to improve my memory organised by Singapores only memory champ and guiness book record holder Nishant.

He said that the reason that we have a bad memory is that we do not exercise our brain enough

A toastmasters meeting is the ideal place to exercise our brain – A speaker can throw away his script
The TME, language evaluator , General evaluator, timer and Ahcounter also have to pay attention throughout the meeting and  have to be alert all the time.

Do we ever forget to brush our teeth, take a bath or eat our  lunch?  We are creatures of habit and unless we make it a habit to remember we will tend to forget

A man was invited to some old friends’ home for dinner. He preceded every request to his wife by endearing terms, calling her Honey, My Love, Darling, Sweetheart, Pumpkin, etc.One of the friends was impressed since the couple had been married almost 70 years, and while the wife was off in the kitchen he said to his buddy:

“I think it’s wonderful that after all the years you’ve been married, you still call your wife those pet names.”His buddy hung his head. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I forgot her name about ten years ago.”

 

As we grow old, our brain can suffer from dementia and Alzheimers disease due to atrophy or lack of use.  So some ways to improve your memory are

–       Get a good sleep – stress is not good for our memory and a good nap can recharge you and leave your mind fresh to grasp like a sponge

–       Llead an active life – we lead a sedentary lifestyle – so it becomes important to exercise – because as the saying goes  ‘a  healthy mind in a healthy body’

–        play games not on your smartphone but just do some crosswords or play Sudoku at times & finally

–        have some smartphone free time every day.

 

 

 

 

 

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