how do i allocate more memory to a program

Hi, you can't really, OSX handles all that behind the scenes, and when out of real memory, (RAM), it uses Virtual Memory, (Hard Drive).

Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on CPU%, any indications there?

How much free RAM & free Disk space do you have also, click on the Memory & Disk Usage Tabs.

In the Memory tab of Activity Monitor, are there a lot of Pageouts?