Keep a Journal and Improve Your Working Memory

Working memory refers to a brain system that allows us to store and manage information temporarily. Regardless if your are trying to remember a list of letters in a memory tests or your Christmas shopping list that you fail to jot down on a piece of paper, working memory helps us keep these items in mind. Like any memory system, working memory is not perfect and we tend to forget items. This always happens to me when I have a list of errands that I need to make but I do not write them down. I always seem to forget at least one, which can be frustrating at times. Thinking about the frustration I felt when forgetting things made me search for articles that discussed how to improve working memory.

While searching for an article, I found some interesting research done by Kitty Klein, Professor in the Department of Psychology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her research showed that those who write about stressful or negative experiences tend to score better in memory task. The reason for this occurrence is that when we write about our stressful/negative experiences we are able to understand them better because the experience is not a collection of fragmented feelings and events. By writing the story down you see the experience as a whole, which allows us to deal with what happened better and faster. This in turn decreases the amount of unwanted thoughts or emotions that we usually have after an unpleasant experience.

The ability to digest our negative experiences better allows us to regain focus and concentrate better. This explains why people do better in working memory tasks after writing about their painful experience. I do not know how true this is but it makes sense that stressful situations can impair your ability to remember things. I guess that based on this research, keeping a journal would be beneficial.

The research can be found on this website:
http://litsite.alaska.edu/healing/memory.html

For those who want to give their working memory a work out go to these websites:
http://www.memorise.org/memoryGym.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/easysurf/menu.htm