Struggling with memory issues; is it my diet or something else?

I'm trying so hard to study for the SAT tests so I can get into college next fall, but I am struggling with retaining knowledge.

It's hard enough to get myself motivated to study and I even have to go to the library just to get anything done so I don't get frustrated and default back to playing video games, watching anime, or hanging out on PC.

What's making things even harder for me is that I simply can't retain complex information no matter how hard I try. I get easily distracted and daydream when I get bored and when I am finally able to sit down and read a chapter or two in a text book or watch a few videos on Khan Academy, I have trouble remembering everything that I read or watched.

I know a big reason why I'm like this is because I am so behind on a lot of my general education, particularly math, and as such, catching up feels like doing an entire 4 years of math coursework just to be on an equal footing with everybody else which is making it difficult for me to even care.

Still though, I was wondering if I can get over some of my memory retention issues off changing my diet. I can't afford to eat whole servings of fruits and veggies every day so I rely on supplements to fill that void at least somewhat. I also eat a lot of tuna and I buy those dollar pasta sides bags and mix tuna with it to make tuna alfredo which I eat every day as a primary meal and I consume protein shakes for breakfast made from this soy protein shake mix that I buy at Walmart because it's only $10 for 15 servings. Other than that, I fill my diet with soups and sometimes frozen burritos when I'm feeling starved after donating plasma which isn't healthy but my options are limited due to financial restrictions.

Most days I struggle to reach 1200 calories and on average, I consume maybe 700-800 at most.

Could this be the source of my memory retention issues and possibly my moodiness and lack of motivation? If so, is there any cheap ways for my to solve this problem? If I do make such a change to my diet, would it improve my ability to study and retain information? If so, would it be a significant difference?

Sorry if I'm rambling at this point it's just frustrating dealing with all of this when I have a hard enough time as it is just getting through the day.

Thanks.

It's hard for anyone on here to offer much advice concerning the potentiality of you having a memory deficit. That requires psychological testing to verify. Some people just believe they are having recall problems. You being under stress from knowing you will be taking the the SAT soon may be a factor.

A suggestion for studying would be to invest in either books that are like a study guide for the SAT, or a service that would give you a crash course. Trying to do some random vids on khan academy is probably not going to get you anywhere.

What bothers me more is the fact you are putting your body into starvation mode. That has serious health risks if it goes to far. It can effect your heart (conduction system) and other vital organs. If you are a woman, the min you should be eating, unless a doctor tells you otherwise, is 1200 calories. A man should eat 1800. You need to see a physician and get some help with this before you go to far with it. You will have far worse than an SAT to deal with.

So another words, I should just stop wasting my time until I get a more stable income?

Because I currently cannot afford books or courses and I can't afford a full 1800 calorie diet without resorting to eating highly processed crap that is probably more unhealthy for me than consuming fewer calories.

Once again, money seems to be a factor. What a drag.

Feeding yourself a full calorie diet is #1. I would take care of that first. There are resources available for this. Even if you must go to a soup kitchen.

I would guess that if you filled out the FAFSA, you would qualify for a fair amount of educational financial aid. You could enroll in a community college without the SAT. Most will start you with remediation courses in subject areas you are deficient in and then move you into regular coursework. Many community colleges have programs in software/app development which (if I remember from another post) is something you might be interested in. Once you have taken a year or two of successful coursework at a community college, you can generally get transferred into a university based on your proven community college grades and the SAT never even comes into play.

Another option is that many public school districts offer adult education classes. That might be another way to remediate your math skills under a bit more structure and with more academic support -- again, generally very affordable.

As far as nutrition goes, most communities have food banks/charities that may be able to help you obtain healthier food.

Even if you have no experience, you might be able to find a job that will certainly bring in more than $300/month and allow you to eat a bit healthier without putting your health at risk through constant plasma donation.

The more that I think about it, the more that going to Community College seems like the more logical decision. Still though, perhaps the primary reason why I have been obsessing over university so much is because I still have a looming fear that I won't be able to take care of myself and pay my living expenses in 7 months when my housing grant expires; I was planing on living in student housing afterwards which Community College doesn't offer.

Perhaps I could get stared sooner than this fall? Maybe they do summer classes? I can find out.

Either way, having the help of an instructor or tutor would make things easier for me because I have such a difficult time doing so many things on my own.

In the meantime, I have been focused on building quality references while I wait on my DRS application to complete which should be soon; it's taken as long as it has because the mental health center that I receive services from was taking their sweet time sending medical documents but I have 2 people on the DRS side of things avocating for me and the lady that processed my application even moved me to priority 1 to get me in faster, so I have no doubt that I can get a job within the next 1-2 months.

In the meantime, I can upgrade my diet a bit more since I am spending roughly $20-24 per week on average on food. I can throw in things like lunch meat, bread, and lettuce and possibly some peanut butter and jelly which should get my caloric intake to around 1500-1800 while spending only roughly $10 more or so per week which is still not too bad. Still though, 1800 calories is asking too much since food is so expensive these days and I refuse to go to a food bank because my pride won't allow it.

Community College is definitely a good option and most colleges have summer classes. That would be a good way to get started.

As for memory issues, that could be related to your diet, or depression, or anxiety or other disorders.

Best of luck!

I feel the same way. Always depleted with no energy or life to me. Little things make me tired easily. I match that with my boughts of depression. Mine is usually matched with seasonal changes and amount of natural light I'm receiving do some good artificial sunlight lamps do give me a little boost of energy most of the time. Maybe it would help others?

It's settled. I toured my local Community College yesterday and filled out a FAFSA and college application and as long as there are no problems with my FAFSA (which there shouldn't be), I'm starting college for web design on June 5th!

If this works out, I will also be able to get a job through the school through the work-study program which should help me pay for my living expenses and help me build experience and references, while also possibly allowing me to qualify for food stamps to help pay for my food expenses so I don't have to under eat some days.

I can't lie, while I am excited, I'm also scared. Even though logically I know that I shouldn't have any issues with the FAFSA since I don't have any student loan debts, drug convictions, or issues with the IRS, I can't help but to feel all of this good news is too good to be true and they will find something wrong and use it against me.

Still though, I will try to be hopeful because if this works out, it will help with a lot of my problems.

Great News! I'm sure it will be fine! I'm actually a self-taught web designer. My strengths are HTML and CSS. I'm weak on JavaScript. If you ever have any questions while you are working on your classes, let me know. I'd be happy to give feedback or advice if you want it.

Thanks. JavaScript sucks to learn. I've tried to self teach myself but never could find the motivation to do so because of how confusing it is haha

Well I'll tell you what people keep telling me, "you can do it"! Good Luck!

Oh - in preparation, spend some time on either of these sites (if you haven't already). Both provide free resources for HTML, CSS and JavaScript and much more:

https://www.w3schools.com/
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/

The mozilla site is more accurate while w3schools is more user friendly and easier to navigate. I personally haven't found any errors on w3schools, so I think they have cleaned it up.

Some areas to make sure to cover independently if they don't cover in your coursework:

• Mobile first design
• Responsive Design
• Bootstrap and/or flexbox
• JQuery
• Make sure you learn to hand code, don't count on a WYSIWYG editor to do it for you. I have never been able to afford Dreamweaver so I have always used html editors and taught myself hand coding.
• There are others too.

Let me know if you have any questions.

From my POV, diet and brainpower are linked and I read somewhere that male brains continue maturing even in their 20s. Quality calories = quality energy and you need energy to focus and build your body. The brain is made up of 60 percent fat so I think a "smart" diet might include high quality fat instead of a large amounts of carbs (of course we need some carbs). While tuna has high quality fat it also contains traces of mercury which is not good for our brains. Because of this, tuna should be limited to one can a week--try canned sardines or salmon instead. A quick and simple calculation for the calories we need is to multiply our ideal weight by 10 (females) or 11 (males). So since I think my weight should be 120 then the calories needed to maintain that weight would be 1200 calories a day. For a guy that should weigh 170 pounds, it would be 1870 calories a day. Many jobs in the food industry (the types of jobs college students sometimes have) include a free meal with every shift (I have heard this straight from young people and experienced this in a high school and college jobs). Good luck in your academic pursuits!

Not trying to be rude, but can you verify the source on tuna containing mercury? Because as of now, I am heavily reliant on tuna for a source of cheap protein and omega 3 since it's only $0.75 per can and I have trouble affording better things like salmon so as of right now, I can't afford to stop eating tuna. Not to mention that I haven't noticed any difference in my loss of memory since I started consuming tuna regularly; I've had this problem as a young adult even back when I didn't eat tuna at all.

With that being said, I did start consuming more calories since I was able to add in things like chicken sandwiches with lettuce and burritos for raw calories into my diet so I am already starting to feel a little better.

I think I will have plenty of resources to help me through this when I start college.

Here is one:
https://www.edf.org/oceans/mercury-a...-tuna-safe-eat

I think you can get canned sardines for about a $1.00 a tin--since they are smaller fish, you do not have to worry about the mercury content. Don't completely give up on tuna--it is only bad for you in large quantities. Some fish aren't especially beneficial--tilapia is cheap but it doesn't contain the types of fats that make most fish so good for us. Eggs have high quality protein and fats. Because it is Easter--eggs are on sale at many stores. One of my local store is advertising a price of $1.15 a dozen. I will be buying and eating plenty of eggs this week--eggy potato salad, omelets, deviled eggs, quiches, egg sandwiches, eggs in your stir fry rice, eggs with panfried potatos, chile rellenos--these are all cheap meals...

You can improve your memory by challenging yourself--it's one of the benefits of attending college. Overconsumption of alcohol is not our brain's friend. I used to go have a drink after studying with a friend on Thursday nights--from what I have read, that practice did not help me remember more. Apparently, if you study right before bedtime or a good nap--you will retain more. And of course we concentrate better when we are well rested. Exercise is great for our brains too!

Man if only I wasn't such a terrible cook, I would cook more which would expand my options but right now I couldn't cook most of those egg based meals to save my life.

I also can't cut tuna down to 1 can a week right now because like I said, I'm bad at cooking so tuna mixed with those bags of pasta sides that cost $1 have become a regular staple for me. The most I can cut down to without messing up my food budget is 3-4 5 oz cans a week. There is only so much I can do on a $30-35 a week grocery budget.

I'm trying to get better at planning meals and cooking but I had nobody to teach me so I'm trying to learn everything on my own.

Making an omelet "scramble" is as easy as can be. I use a $7.00 (Walmart) ceramic-coated (nothing sticks) omelet-sized skillet. Saute some onions and cabbage (very cheap vegtables that take forever to go bad) with some salt and pepper, add a bit of salsa, beat 2 or 3 eggs in a cup, pour into veggie and salsa mixture. Try to cook one side then flip, put a little shredded cheese in the middle and fold but if you can't flip it--just cook it like it is scrambled eggs, put a bit of cheese on top and put under the broiler to melt the cheese. Experiment with how well done you like your eggs--my H likes them well cooked while my children like them on the softer side. If you try it on the softer side and don't like it--just put it under the broiler again. This is a very easy meal that will keep you full for a while. Try it!

Of course, you can put other things in it like asparagus, ham, spinach, etc., I just mentioned onion and cabbage because they are so cheap and long lasting....

You should eat a healthy diet if you are struggling with memory issues. Also indulge yourself in brain games. That will help too.

I'm considering reactivating my Lumosity subscription. It costs around $7 a month but gives you access to a bunch of different brain training games that are said to improve different cognitive functions such as memory, reaction time, processing speed, ect. not to mention ways to monitor your progress and tell where you are strong in and where you could use work.

There is only so much I can do when I'm making an average of $400-500 a month