Forgetting someone’s name, where you put your keys, or what you were just about to say, are moments that we all experience. Most of the time we chalk it up to mere forgetfulness and say that it’s a natural part of getting older. Now, for the first time in book form, Dr. Gary Small asserts that this sort of forgetfulness is the brain’s first warning sign of its gradual, inevitable decline towards Alzheimer’s disease. The good news, though, is that through Dr. Small’s “Ten Commandments of Memory Fitness,” we can stop the effects of these plagues and tangles that start collecting in our brains at the age of 25, decades before the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.Dr. Small’s commandments – a comprehensive program of memory exercises where he outlines how control over stress reduction, diet, and lifestyle – can miraculously improve brain performance. For example, by creating mental images to associate with someone’s name who you have just met, the linked associations will come naturally and you will easily remember their name. By actively slowing down and focusing in situations where you are learning new information, you will remember the details much more easily. By opening up your imagination and reviving your natural creative instincts, your recall techniques will become not only more exciting, but also more effective. Dr. Small also guides the reader through a memory aerobics regimen, where exercises and games prove to be a fun and effective way of keeping your memory in check.With his anti-aging brain diet, Dr. Small shows which foods improve memory, and also which drugs (or combination of drugs) are most effective at fighting memory loss. He explains how stress reduction plays a significant role, and shows how people can control their automatic physiological responses such as blood pressure and heart rate to maximize their mental fitness. Dr. Small also includes a workbook, with a weekly and daily calendar for scheduling memory aerobics, planning balanced meals, and following through on critical lifestyle choices that can work as the ammunition to fight the effects of aging on the memory.