The night of the elementary school talent show, we came home to celebrate with ice cream when my mother took out her iPhone to show a video she’d taken of my 10-year-old daughter’s performance. My daughter had played Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect” on the piano by ear and sang along. Despite More
If you have a pen and paper handy, let’s do a little experiment. Picture a cashew. Now pick up your pen and draw a little sketch of one, then put the drawing face down somewhere you can’t see it. We’ll come back to it later. Yes, this is a weird More
All day every day, your brain is bombarded with new information. Confronted with this tsunami of sensory and cerebral input, it’s no wonder much of it slips through your memory’s grasp. But if you feel like you’re forgetting more than you should—or if you just want to pump up your More
Imagine being held up at gunpoint. Do you trust you could remember the perpetrator’s face? The gun? Or would you have a better recollection of how loud the birds were chirping at that moment? “The memory does not operate like a videotape machine faithfully recording every single detail,” said Richard More
Most people, when tasked with remembering something important, jot down a note. But a study published recently in the journal Experimental Aging Research says there may be a better way to keep memories fresh: draw a picture. Drawing works your brain in ways that writing alone does not, forcing it More
The Washington Post recently asked readers to anonymously share their most vivid memories, and these were some of the responses: “Sitting on my bathroom floor after my father died.” “My face being forced down to do something I didn’t want to do.” “The day I heard the voice of God More
