On November 5th 2013 my Mum, at the early age of 65, passed away.
She suffered for several years from early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s, in my experience, is one of the cruellest diseases as it not only affects the person but also everybody around them as well. If you’ve ever experienced this you’ll know what I mean straight away. The memory of all that was, and could be, is slowly taken away by an invisible force that you have no control over. And because it happens in reverse order i.e. from present to past, they may eventually not know who you are. This one thing alone is enough to destroy your own sanity. To make this a little warmer and to stop myself from crying I truly believe, or more accurately ‘I choose to believe’ that my mum never forgot who I was to the very end. A mother’s smile says it all.
Living through the stress of this affected my mental and physical heath, some of which has been fixed with time, some I still a battle with every day. Some days I think I’m good and then I watch the opening scene of Guardians of the Galaxy, finishing the film with blood shot eyes saying “We are Groot”.
One of the side-effects of caring for and losing someone with Alzheimer’s is, ironically, suffering from memory loss yourself. This can be due to increased levels of a hormone known as cortisol. It’s the hormone released during stress, which is why those with severe anxiety (and ultimately severe stress) are more at risk for developing memory loss problems, due to cognitive overload. Numerous studies have confirmed that cortisol contributes to memory loss, especially short-term loss, because it is a toxin to the cells of the brain. The longer you deal with anxiety, the more cortisol you’ll have in your system, and that means that you’re more likely to continue to suffer from memory loss until you break the cycle.
After a bit of the fog had cleared, at the beginning of 2015, I started to question everything to do with my own memory – was I doing everything I could to make the most of the privilege I have of an amazing brain? The short answer was no.
So, I decided to rebel. I decided to rebel against thinking I have a selective bad memory, against Alzheimer’s taking my mum away from me, against viewing my Dyslexia as a learning disadvantage and against conforming to traditional methods of teaching, learning and remembering.
This all led me to try and learn about how the memory works and how to improve and look after it. It included why we remember some things really easily but others not, why time seems to drag when we are bored but speeds up as we get older, how to create and utilise mind maps and memory (loci) palaces, how to unlock to potential learning advantage of being Dyslexic, neurotrophics, episodic memory and just anything about the brain in general.
And so MemoryRebellion.com was born. I decided to create it as a place to share interesting information about improving the memory. Its also where anyone can share memory techniques and mind maps on a variety of topics that they have developed or found useful in any given field and learn something new from each other. You can already find some samples in the new Learning Community Forum.
Soon there will be a weekly learning newsletter to subscribe to (one free and another premium) that will teach you how to remember anything. It will also contain every piece of information we’ve written or read that week so you don’t have to check the site constantly to see if you’ve missed anything. We’ll feature something from the community that has caught our attention and maybe it will yours too.
We’ll also try to recommend a book in every edition. It will include books we’ve read, enjoyed and learned something useful from – classic fiction to great biographies to a new take on some aspect of human nature and psychology.
Thank you for reading and please, join the rebellion.
#MemoryRebellion
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