"Smart pills" used for attention deficit disorder (ADD) mess with dopamine metabolism. Something similar happens with other substances not intended to be used for ADD. Somebody told me that Kung fu panda's bear began using GHB some time ago, and realized that in low doses his short-term memory increased very much. But, in higher doses, continued for a long time, his memory used to screw up very much. I am not encouraging you to use GHB, i just wanted to set a precedent, MJ is supposed to do the same, to some extent. Try to keep it on the low and you should have no problem.

Docohexanoic acid (DHA) has been proven to influence in the development of cognitive process. My advice here is to start taking Omega-3 pills (1000 mg) 3 times a day and see what happens. Also, meditation and memory exercises help a lot .

Good afternoon.

Vitamins, minerals, and etc. can definitely help, but everything that I have learned points to one very important concept: use it or lose it. You mentioned that you focus most of your time playing video games. The brain attempts to "move over" parts of the brain it's not using and create useful connections that will aid you in whatever you do most often. This is seen repeatedly in journal articles and other sources of mainstream science.

That being said, consider the book Crashing Through. In it, the man developed a sort of "echolocation" because he lost his sight at the age of four. His brain tried to make use of neurons that went unused in the visual cortex. When he regained his sight (a very rare and novel procedure indeed), he could see objects but 3 dimensional tasks were incredibly difficult for him (mainly because those neurons were already in use).

What I'm saying is this. You may be inadvertently teaching your brain to make use of superfluous, unused language cortex for other tasks which you are using more often. I ran into a similar situation where I had trouble interacting with people and holding onto verbal information, so I made use of my mild schizophrenia to interact with the beings in my head during my meditations. It's good that you're now focusing on pulling down that information and holding onto it. It's slowly but surely teaching your brain to prioritize that task. And remember, drink lots of water!

Peace,

~MindBolt~

The administration of CO is very euphoric, and rather poisonous. It dampens brain activity (and in large doses leads to death). That's definitely a more significant factor than nicotine. Having said that, nicotine constricts arteries and vessels, and as a result all blood flow in the brain is temporarily impaired to a variable degree. To the ACh specifically, it exerts its major activity. It is why it is a very effective insecticide, due to its ACh inhibition mechanism. To top it, who knows what the rest of the substances do.

All in all, the chronic, low-dose administration of these substances, is very possible to cause significant memory problems.

mhh, my experience is the same IF you smoke on a daily basis as "recreation". it certainly releives anxiety but has the mentioned side effects. but cannabis is the weirdest of em all. if i smoke rarely, but heavy doses, it is the best translator from hyperspace there is. it translates your trancendental breakthrough of your knowledge into your native language, or rather catalyses that process. this also holds true if you have been wrapping your mind around something you need to understand, but cant get closure.

honor the plants!


ps. i realize the OP subject is a tad diffent, its one thing to calculate and store data, another to access it. still i needed to post this

Only read the OP (sorry!) but nutrition is a possible cause.
Use proper vitamins. Instead of a multi, I take krill oil, c 1000, d 5000, magnesium 500, spirulina, kelp and k. Makes me feel so much better than without them.

Thanks Neural for that thorough explanation of the negative effects from smoking. I would include dampened breathing as a result from damaged longs as another possible factor in memory deficiency. (even less oxygen to the brain)

My mind is doing much better at the moment. I am theorizing a lack of sleep is a detrimental factor. Chronic lack of sleep and some memory reinforcing mechanism (dunno?) is missing as a result.

Marihuana tends to reduce quality of sleep as well!

http://www.ted.com/talks...ter_why_do_we_sleep.html

Spot on, add impaired lung function to the list.



The majority of memory consolidation processes happens during various sleep stages. Correct again.

If you ever want proof of how important oxygen is, start breathing incredibly long inhales and exhales. Focus on your breathing and do this for 5 to 10 minutes. After doing this, you should notice a "flood" of oxygen to all parts of the body and an increase in focus, among other benefits. Shallow breathing can also inhibit sleep. It is for this very important reason that you want to exercise--this is why athletes often report "feeling good" throughout their exercise routines. As a personal aside (I realize the lack of value in anecdotal evidence), I was sick recently and couldn't breathe because I couldn't stop coughing. This prevented me from sleeping. Well, one night I only received 3 hours shallow sleep. I "watched" my brain freak out in multiple ways as I rose to consciousness. This manifested in the inability to do more advanced cognitive processes and horrible short term memory.