Text: *Memory Drinks & Pills* There are several chemicals with proven effectiveness as memory enhancers. Caffeine is the most popular. Caffeine is thoroughly proven as an aid to memory in rigorous studies. It is often the case that a caffeine user gets best results by remembering something he learned while having had caffeine. So, if you drink two cups of coffee every day, and you have an item to remember, drink the coffee, then come up with the item. Then, when you want to remember it, be sure to have your two cups of coffee. Caffeine may be taken in coffee, tea, bufferred aspirin, and directly as no-doze or similar pill. Ginseng and gingko biloba are also useful in enhancing mental alertness, a factor which is often tested with memory trials. Ginseng has similar effects to caffeine in helping wakefulness, and is found in some teas and in various dietary supplements. There are a few different types of ginseng, including one from Siberia. Some are harsher than others, and as with all chemicals, allergic reactions can be prompted by exposure. Your individual mileage will vary. Gingko biloba is an herb, generally found in supplements. I don't know of any foods that have it commonly. It has been shown to aid in the mental alertness of the elderly, including some sufferers of the preliminary stages of Alzheimer's and related disorders. *Health & Memory* In addition to these overt aids to memory, which are cheap and plentiful, other vitamin supplements may be helpful in the general promotion of health. People who are sick, under great stress, or otherwise feeling poorly don't have as much success with any mental function. So, B vitamins for stress, vitamin C for immune function, ginseng for immune function, and vitamin E for plenty of sex should all be considered helpful. Good brain function is assisted by protein, so eat your meat or if you have a vegan attitude, get your rice and beans. Fish and walnuts have omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids, so called essential fatty acids; fish has long been called "brain food" on account of the importance of these fatty acids to brain function. In addition to oily fish, such as kippers and sardines, and nuts such as the walnut, these essential fatty acids are found in purslane and a number of other vegetables. Don't forget trace minerals with some sort of generic multi-vitamin and multi-mineral supplement, excluding iron unless you are a woman who is presently menstruating as iron is readily available in foods and quite toxic taken excessively. Your body won't function well without the trace minerals you find in generic multi-mineral supplements. Your multi-vitamin and multi-mineral supplement that gives you "100%" of the US Department of Agriculture "recommended daily allowance" or RDA is not enough if you have any significant stress in your life. These "daily allowances" are bare minimal values needed to avoid scurvy, beri-beri, and other nutritional deficiency diseases, if, and only if, you have no stress factors. If you get upset every few minutes, try increasing your B vitamins, because these are consumed by stress very rapidly, and aren't stored in your body. *See it, Think it* Beta carotene, carrots, and carotenoid complex vitamins, including our friend alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) are useful for eyesight. Eyesight is a tremendous aid to memory, as we are a visually oriented species. So, eat your veggies. Vitamin A, on the other hand, can be poisonous at fairly low doses, is fat soluble and often stored by the body, and can be generated by your body from certain items, such as beta carotene rich foods. *Parlor Tricks* There are a great many books and ideas about memory tricks. These can be found at many public and college and in some private libraries. I'm sure an Amazon.com search and a Bananagold.com purchase is a workable way of finding such books, or a trip to the local bookstore would be good, anyway. People who know more words and more jargon may have an advantage in coming up with good passwords. There are a huge number of ways of relating numbers to words so that the passphrase is composed of both (and thus has more randomness or entropy) without making it harder to memorize. For example, we all know individuals whose phone numbers we've memorized; a combination of their name and phone number, with the elements interspersed such as joe713bob990briggs9536 would be easy to remember if you know Joe Bob Briggs has that number; there are an effectively infinite number of names and phone numbers to choose, and any variation on the distribution of the parts could make for an effective pass phrase. *More Examples* Other name and number combinations which have easy mnemonic cues (mnemonic comes from the Greek muse for memory, Mnemone, and refers to how a thing is memorized) include historical dates and names such as william1066conqueror, highways and cities such as houstonus59texas, and chemical elements such gold79silver47copper29 (which elements appear all in the same column of the periodic table of elements, a fascinating aspect of the chemistry of these items). It isn't difficult to come up with plenty of ways to vary these password generating ideas, with capitals and lowercase letters, with the odd punctuation mark, and so forth. The trick is to find ways of relating the letters and numbers so that they mean something to you, and are not totally random. *More Tricks* Most memory books use a related technique which teaches you to think of something for every item you want to memorize. For example, if you are trying to relate names to people you've just met, think of something each person is wearing as you get their name, and then use that name and visualize the item of clothing. I find this works for me very well with women I meet, much less well with men. Your mileage may vary. With a set of letters and numbers that appear random, each can be assigned to some popular name. For example, the main sequence of stars can be remembered by the words sequence associated with their color designators: Oh be a fine girl, kiss me O B A F G K M and many other mnemonic nonsense phrases are used. Acronyms are often intended to be mnemonic, although this technique is made difficult by the frequent use of the same acronyms in different industries.

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