Did you remember when..?

Memory can be a playful thing. It collects minute details from childhood events, yet leaves us wondering where we left our keys.

There are several types of memories, and the brain has a unique way of forgetting each kind. at the University of Michigan found that when people spent an hour outside, their attention span and memory performance improved by 20 percent. The study authors speculate that interacting with nature has the same effect as meditating, another brain-boosting activity. In the irony of all ironies, taking a photo to remember a significant moment in time actually makes our memories of that moment worse. One study published in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition found that subjects who didn't take a photo of a painting had better recollections of it than those who took a photo and only spent 15 seconds actually analyzing the artwork.

“The human brain had a vast memory storage. It made us curious and very creative. Those were the characteristics that gave us an advantage—curiosity, creativity, and memory. And that brain did something very special. It invented an idea called ‘the future.”

—David Suzuki