p9 'Without adding your attention, you never formed a memory..."

p21 "Memory is stored throughout your brain in the pattern of neural activity that was stimulated when the event or information was first experienced."

p23 "Remembering is an associative scavenger hunt, a reconstruction job that involves the activation of many disparate but connected parts of the brain. We remember memories; we don't replay them."

p34 discusses the choice of being mindful/paying attention to the positive experiences so that they consolidate into memory. When depressed, less likely to consolidate the happier moments.

p51-56 Chapter on Muscle Memory: 3 basic types of memory--memory for information (semantic), memory for what happened (episodic) , and memory for how to do things (muscle memory). Hippocampus essential for forming new semantic and episodic memories. Muscle memory bond together in basal ganglia, and consolidation requires repeated activation through lots of focused practice.

p64 semantic memory is data unattached at any specific life experience. episodic is attached to a where and when.

p66-67 for learning, the spacing effect is more helpful as it gives the hippocampus time to fully consolidate what you've learned, and time to self-test. p69Self-testing greatly increases recall.

p107 "Putting any sensory experience into words distorts and narrows the original memory of the experience." What an interesting statement

Author discusses how different people remember events differently depending on what they paid attention to, how much they have thought about the events. Memory, especially over time, can be right, wrong, or somewhere in between. Some details may be left out over time, other information added, in the retelling.

p125 Baker/baker paradox Easier to remember details of person than name due to associations.
p128 "Neurologically, recognition is always easier than recall."

P132 "Prospective memory is our memory for what you need to do later." Calendars, lists, etc. so helpful for this.

p150 "...two main ways to resist the effects of time on memory: repetition and meaning."

p163 "When performing optimally, memory doesn't remember everything. It retains wha tis meaningful and useful, and it discards that isn't...Our ability to forget is likely to be just as vital as is our ability to remember."

p191 "Memory retrieval is far easier, faster, and more likely to be fully summoned when the context of recall matches the context that was present when the memory was formed. We see this...with prospective (what you plan to do), episodic (what happened), semantic (information you know), and muscle (how to do things) memories."

p204 "Stress inhibits you prefrontal cortex, impairing your ability to think."