How To Improve Memory

Are you someone who keeps on forgetting important dates, numbers and names and never really seem to remember easily where you last left your car keys? Well, take heart for you aren’t the only one. Human memory is very selective and as such, it is not possible to keep a track of everything. You may not be able to remember everything, which is quite natural. However, if you feel your retention power slumping day by day, you need to address the issue immediately. Unbalanced diet, diseases, lethargy, stress, medicines, etc. can nail your memory. Whatever is the reason, you need to address the issue. All humans have strong memory and have the potential to remember everything. It’s all about exercising your brain adequately. Your memory needs regular updation just like your computer memory. So, it’s time now to upgrade your memory, no matter how aged you are. Human brain has an amazing ability to adapt to change even in older age. Utilize it. Read on and learn about how to improve your memory.

Improving Your Memory 

Exercise
Regular exercise helps you develop amazing memory skills. Wonder how? Physical exercise helps increase blood circulation to the brain, thus providing your brain with ample oxygen. This keeps your brain active and healthy and helps reduce risk of memory loss.

Sleep
As mentioned in the causes, lack of proper sleep can eventually result in memory loss because studies reveal that the memory-enhancing activities occur during the deepest stages of sleep. So, make sure that you get enough shut-eye daily. Lack of sleep not only affects memory, but also other capacities like creativity, problem-solving abilities, critical thinking skills etc. may also get affected.

Maintain Healthy Relationships
Social life is the lifeline of all humans. It is impossible to live in absolute isolation. In fact, it is found that relationships stimulate brain and interaction is the best exercise for brain.  Strong relationship provides ample emotional support, which is very important for your mental health, which has a direct impact on your brain and memory. Researches revealed that people who lead active social lives have lower rate of memory decline.

Open Up, Laugh
There is no better medicine than laughter. It fills oxygen in your lungs and brain. This helps brain to remain active and thus provides better observation and better memory. Additionally, laughter has been found to reduce three key stress hormones namely cortisol, epinephrine and dopac, thus helping fight major enemy of memory — stress and depression. 

Regular Meditation
Meditation is a very effective method to improve memory. It helps improve focus, concentration, creativity, learning skills and reasoning skills. Brain images of people who meditate regularly, appears to perform more activity in the left prefrontal cortex, which is associated with feelings of joy and equanimity. In addition, this activity helps in increasing the thickness of cerebral cortex and thus, increases the connection between the brain cells.

Consume Brain Food
Your brain needs proper fuel for better performance. You always care for your body but have you ever thought what food would benefit your brain? Probably not! It’s time now to think about brain food to keep your brain active and healthy. 6mega-3 fatty acids, fats, protein, glucose, vitamin B complex and iron are very important nutrients for proper brain functioning.  In order to make sure that you get all these in your regular diet try including lots of fruits and vegetables in your diet. Food like fish, dry fruits, milk, fish, meat, egg, green leafy vegetables, liver, legumes, cereals, pulses etc. are important brain foods.

Give Your Brain A Workout
Brain follows the rule “use it or lose it”. Unless you engage your brain in some healthy workouts, you will gradually lose many of its skills. You have plenty of things to do. You may try to learn a new language, instrument, sport or may try to solve a crossword Sudoku puzzle.

Bed-time Activity
This is very effective method to improve your memory. Try memorizing the entire day in a sequence and recollect important developments if any. Memorize things that are to be done the next day. Doing it on a regular basis will definitely help you develop good memory.

Grouping
Grouping helps to keep your thoughts organized and this helps you remember things easily. For instance, if you need to remember something like a boy, a girl, a hotel, ice cream, money, bus etc.,try to organize it into a story – A girl and a boy went to a hotel and ordered for ice cream. They paid the money and got into a bus.  This is how you group things and memorize it. Also try to remember this number 018437473645629. Finding it difficult? Don’t worry; group it like 018, 437, 473, 645 and 629. It will be easier for you to remember it now.

Rhyming
This is probably the oldest and most effective memorizing technique, popularly used even nowadays. How do you memorize the number of days in a month? April, June, September and November have 30 days. February has 28 days in normal years and 29 days in leap years. All the other months have 31 days. Finding it hard to remember? Try this:

“Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November;
February has twenty eight alone
All the rest have thirty-one
Except in Leap Year, that’s the time
When February’s Days are twenty-nine”

These kinds of tools are named as Mnemonics.

Some General Tips

• Use some positive, pleasant, clear, colourful and sense-laden images to relate thing you see. This will help you to recollect things easier.
• Use all your senses to code the information you collect and try to add sounds, smells, tastes, touch, movements and feelings as well as pictures to your imagination and then relate things to this imagination.
• Use humour! Funny things stay in mind for long time.

Mentioned above were some tips to improve your memory. Practice them on a regular basis and feel the difference.