Improving Your Memory for Dummies

Rating:
Summary: Real help for memory
Review: As a mental health professional I am always looking for practical information and techniques which are accessible and understandable to the average patient. This book provides many accurate and useful facts about memory in an organized and interesting format. It speaks to the concerns of many who would benefit from specific exercises to enhance memory. It also cautions against the all too tempting urge to find a "quick fix," such as inappropriate and/or exclusive reliance on vitamins or suppliments. This book encourages a balanced and effective response to concerns about memory.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of fluff, some good stuff
Review: I'm a professor of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and memory is one of my main areas of research, so I'm pretty familiar with this area. This book has some good suggestions, many suggestions that are largely irrelevant, and some material that is incorrect.

The helpful part of this book is Part IV: Exercising your memory every day, in which the author tells you how to improve your memory in school, at work, and in other everyday contexts. The advice provided is not remarkable--it boils down to using mnemonics--and can be found in many other sources. But the author writes with a lively tone, and the specificity of the suggestions is welcome.

Much of the rest of the book is not worthwhile. For example, there are large sections on what to eat for memory, what specific vitmins are thought to do for the brain, etc. The fact is that taking B vitamins, or C or anything else is not going to help your memory. If you are *deprived* of one of these vitamins it will impact memory, sure, but taking supplements will not do anything. I was also disappointed to see Ginko and Ginseng mentioned in a positive (if cautious) way. They have been exhaustively researched, and there is no evidence that they help memory or any cognitive function. Similarly, the author recommends exercise, and also recommends that one "keep mentally active." These are good ideas, but they are not going to do much to help your memory.

Improving your memory takes a fair amount of work. It requires using the tricks and techniques that the author describes in Section IV of this book. The book would be much better if the author had elaborated this part of the book and skipped the rest of the material, except perhaps to debunk it as having a significant impact on memory. (Except in the case of people who are nutritionally deprived, or alarmingly inactive.)

I would recommend one of Harry Lorayne's books over this one.