It will start with some small incident like forgetting the birthday of a colleague. Then you will start to forget the birthdays of people close to you. After that, it will be the turn of the directions to your favorite restaurant and then god forbid, you will forget your own keys inside your home. We all suffer from moments of forgetfulness but sometimes, things go worse that you find ways to make your memory better.
Although we are not all blessed with a photographic memory, there are ways to at least improve what we are given and make us a little less forgetful. This is especially true with people who are already growing older. As we age, the neurons in our brains also age. Some die while others perform slower than usual. This is why people who are older have faultier memories than their much younger counterparts.
But hey, as mentioned, there are ways to improve memory. Here are some of them:
1. Use visuals or sounds
Depending on what kind of learner you are, people can either use visuals and sounds to remember something. For instance, if you are trying to remember a to-do list, all you need to do is stare at the paper and you will be able to see in your mind the list. There are people however who need to hear the list of their to-dos before they can remember everything that they have to do. To find out which technique will work for you, try remembering how you memorize in school. Do you read the words silently or read them out loud?
2. Use associations
Our brains also need help when it comes to remembering things. The easier we make the remembering task for the brain, the better it will be able to remember the information. This is where associations come in. Associating information with things that we already know or things that we can see is a technique that has been utilized in improving memory. For instance, have you heard of mnemonics? When memorizing a set of words, we often take the first letter of that word and then form a sentence or words from those letters. Associating the word that we are trying to memorize with the first letter makes it easier for our brain.
3. Visualize it
Do you ever wonder why photographic memory is the term use for people with really excellent memory? This is because people who really memorize well or have great memories do not see one item or one information when committing them to memory. They see a picture of the words in group. For instance, a person with a grocery list will usually memorize the items one by one but people who learned to improve their memories will memorize it as a whole. They will look at the list and visualize it as a whole until they can see the list in their mindís eye.
4. Eat right
Another important way to improve memory is to check what you eat. Your diet will factor a lot in your ability to memorize things. Eating nutritious foods will help your brain perform better and faster. This is especially true when eating known brain foods like tofu, milk and fish.
There are many ways to make your memory better but the most important thing is to commit to the task and promise to improve it no matter what.
Through time, there are many techniques that are being developed to help enhance one’s memory. There are various ways that you can opt to do if you want to better your memory. The first thing that you have to take note of is your lifestyle. If you want your brain to be active and retain as much vital information as it could even if you are already old, you must help keep it healthy. What can you do to help you achieve such goal? You may want to focus on improving your lifestyle.
It will be to your advantage if you will not drink too much alcoholic beverage. This can still be done but keep it at a moderate level. You must also refrain from trying prohibited drugs because these may cause damage to your brain as you age. You may not feel the bad effects of these vices at first. But eventually, you will notice how these are causing health risks as well as negative effects on how you remember things.
To help improve your memory, you must also engage in activities such as exercise to keep a good supply of oxygen on your brain. It is also favorable to get enough rest and sleep.
Understanding Memory at a Deeper Level
Memory is defined in psychology as the organism’s mental capability to absorb, keep and recall information. The study about this field started as part of philosophy. During the late 19th and early 20th century, the studies about memory are placed in the paradigms of what is known as cognitive psychology. In recent years, it has become part of cognitive neuroscience.
How the brain works is simple yet magnificent. This all starts when the brain receives information and it registers into your memory. After it has received and processed what came in, it will store the encoded information. When you need to use any of the information that has been absorbed by the brain, it will try to recall and retrieve such data to that you can utilize it on the spot.
If you will not take good care of your brain, these are the possible disorders that you may develop. Amnesia can occur as an outcome of an accident. It will vary depending on the impact of the scene and how healthy your brain is when such incident happened. Alzheimer’s disease affects not only your memory but your ability to recognize. This is usually being experienced by older people. There is also an organic brain disease such as the Korsakoff’s syndrome that gravely affects your memory.
Card Games to Help You Improve Memory
There are things that you can do to enjoy while you are exercising your brain in order to improve your memory. By engaging in activities that require your brain to react in certain ways, you are helping it to stay healthy. You may want to start learning a few card games that can help you achieve this goal.
A good sample of this is when you aim to improve your concentration. You may want to try card games like Pairs. You must be alert to retain the location of the pairs of the cards that you are holding. There are online versions of the game if you want to start learning and applying various techniques as you play it more often. While you are at it, you may also start your research about other types of card games that can help better your memory. You can choose to gather family or friends to play with you or you can also opt to play the games online.
As you age, you may feel like your memory is slowly losing its ability to store as much information like it used to. Although this is a natural occurrence, you can do things and various exercises to help yourself not easily lose its grip when it comes to remembering things and better your memory. Memory is defined in psychology as the mental ability of an organism to retain and store as well as recall information.
In the older days, the study of memory falls under the fields of philosophy. People even dig up on techniques to artificially enhance the memory. In the late 19th up to the early 20th century, the study of memory became part of the paradigms of the cognitive psychology. As of today, this is one of the major fields in the branch of science known as cognitive neuroscience.
How the Memory Works
There are three stages that happen when you form and retrieve information as part of your memory. First, the information is encoded or registered once it is received by your brain. After that, your brain tries to create a permanent record of the information and store as much as it could. Whenever the need arise, your brain will help you recall the stored information and retrieve whatever will help you on the circumstance that you are in.
Disorders Associated with Memory
The most common disorder that is being incurred in this regard is the loss of memory, also known as amnesia. There are many types of amnesia and studies are being done continuously to know more about the field as well as to solve the dilemma. Other known disorders that usually hit older people is the Alzheimerís disease. There is also a disorder that centers into oneís autobiographical memory or when they cannot dismiss even the littlest details. This is known as the hyperthymesic syndrome.
Better Memory
You donít have to wait until a disorder hits you before you act on to improving your memory. When you are aware as to how your brain works in getting and storing the information that come from various sources. You can compare your brainís ability to store information to how a computer functions.
Your computer will eventually crash if you donít do certain steps to take care of it. You must let it rest and cool off after you have used it for a long time. You must also do a regular checkup to see if it is still virus free and there are no potent errors that may lead to its crash. This is also what you must do on your brain to make sure that it wonít give in or gain lapses through time.
You must treat your brain right so that you will benefit from its superb performance as you age. By leading a healthy lifestyle, you will help your brain retain its usual performance. Even if you think like you are good in remembering things, you must not abuse such ability. You can help your brain to stay at the top of its game by leading a healthy lifestyle. You must not engage on drugs and other substance abuse. You must also refrain from drinking too much beverages.
Your brain needs a healthy supply of oxygen for it to function well. You can achieve such by exercising regularly and also by getting enough sleep. By resorting to these techniques, you will better your memory in the long run.
Leading a healthy lifestyle can cause so many benefits and that include helping you better your memory. This is a very important aspect because if you will not take certain steps in order to nurture it, you may end up with the disorders that are associated with this function of your brain. Your memory is your brain’s ability to encode information, retain and store them and recall vital data whenever needed.
Steps to Improve Memory
There are many things that you can do to help your brain perform at its best. This can be achieved by avoiding unhealthy vices like drinking too much alcoholic beverages, smoking and turning to prohibited drugs. You must learn how to control your vices if you can’t stop immediately. Exercising also helps in giving your brain good supply of oxygen. This will enhance its performance and will make you remember things easier. It is also a must to get enough rest and good amount of sleep. The way you think will be gravely affected if you are tired, especially when you only got some hours of sleep that may leave you feeling weak and you also cannot think straight.
There are exercises that you can do to help your brain improve. You can resort to various card games that promote such benefit. You should also be active in learning new things all the time even if you are already. This must not stop you to learn by reading and training. You must also engage in different physical activities that will help regulate the blood circulation on your brain. You must also learn how to control your emotions, especially the stress that you feel as a result of thinking too much about your problems. Depression causes a major impact on one’s memory as well as emotional instability.
Eating Right
You must eat right for your brain to function well. It will not help if you will be distracted by your hunger for your thoughts to come out fluently. By eating right, it means that you have to eat the kinds of foods that are healthy in proportions that will help you stay fit and vigorous. If you are into some type of diet, just be sure that you follow the recommended intake of the food that you are allowed to eat. Here are some foods that can help you achieve the goal of attaining better memory.
1. Sunflower seeds. Nuts contain healthy fats that you can incorporate on your diet. These seeds contain abundant source of Vitamin E, an antioxidant that help out in improving your memory as you grow older. Other rich sources of Vitamin E include hazelnut, spinach, kiwi, broccoli, wheat germ oil, mango and dry almond.
2. Salmon. This contains Omega-3 fatty acids that are important in developing your brain and helping it to function better. Such acids can also be found in walnut, soybean, shrimp, scallop, tofu, winter squash, flaxseed and walnut.
3. Blueberries. These are rich in phytochemical elements that can affect one’s memory in a very good way. These are also good for your overall health.
4. Lean beef. This is rich in iron that will help you boost and help better your memory if taken in moderate proportions. But make sure that you do not eat much of this because you may encounter weight problems if you do so.