Are you a Scatterbrain?

When you forget a face or can't find your car keys, it's not because your brain is out of storage space. You just aren't filtering out other thoughts well enough, a new study finds.

The research contradicts a popular notion that memory capacity is solely dependent on how much information you can cram into your noggin.

Rather, it shows that if you can disregard some of what you see, you'll do a better job remembering the visual input you deem important.

Researchers measured brainwaves as objects popped into the minds of the test subjects, who watched colored rectangles appear on a computer screen. In one experiment, researchers told the subjects to focus on two red rectangles and ignore two blue ones.

Without exception, one group had all the rectangles in mind, while another group of individuals -- who were already deemed to have high memory capacity -- consistently excelled at dismissing the blue rectangles.

"People differed systematically, and dramatically, in their ability to keep irrelevant items out of awareness," said study leader Edward Vogel of the University of Oregon.

Vogel thinks of this ability to focus as akin to having a thought bouncer in the brain, managing crowd control. The results, detailed in the Nov. 24 issue of the journal Nature, suggest ways to improve memory abilities.

"Being 'scatterbrained' is often a symptom of a hectic modern life in which we are often overcommitted, overworked, and inundated with information," Vogel told LiveScience. "Given such an environment, it would not be surprising if many of our important cognitive control processes become overtaxed and less efficient. Attentional training may be able to improve one's ability to bounce irrelevant information from awareness."

Not that the lack of a bouncer is necessarily bad thing.

"There may be advantages to having a lot of seemingly irrelevant information coming to mind," Vogel points out. "Being a bit scattered tends to be a trait of highly imaginative people." But wouldn’t it be nice to at least have some control over this?

So, I believe that this is yet another great example of how hypnosis can help people. By utilizing simple relaxation induction’s, that alone can help wipe away cluttered thoughts, which in turn can help increase memory abilities and open many doors to a whole new change in peoples’ lives.

Condition Your Mind With Hypnosis