Last Updated on April 17, 2023 by Nurse Vicky

 

How to improve memory

 

Other people, on the other hand, either has an eidetic memory or have to put in a lot of effort to recall new knowledge, while some people have excellent memory because it comes easily to them.

There are a lot of things you can do to improve your memory and capacity to recall information, and even if you’ve never had a fantastic memory before, you can still do these things. In addition, as we become older, we see a natural decline in the quality of our memories.

As you get older, especially around the age of sixty, you run the risk of beginning to struggle with problems related to your short-term memory. Nevertheless, putting these strategies for improving memory to use can help you slow down the rate at which your memory is deteriorating.

Games That Help Improve Your Memory

 

You may train and boost your memory by playing one of the many memory improvement games that are currently accessible. Memory games are available for play on a variety of platforms, including personal computers, tablets, smartphones, and gaming consoles.

Your memory will be challenged by a few different board games. Playing games that test your memorization and recall skills will provide you with the much-needed practice you need to build up your capacity to remember additional information in the future.

Because you are able to let your guard down and focus just on having fun while playing these games, they are a significantly more efficient way to train your memory than other memory-training activities.

 

Activities That Are Beneficial To The Brain

 

Consider that your brain is a muscle that has to be strengthened in order for you to increase your memory. Memory games aren’t the only way to preserve your cognitive abilities at their peak; you also need to engage your brain in a variety of other mental workouts. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways.

Activities that include solving puzzles of diverse types, such as crossword puzzles, logic problems, word puzzles, jumbles, and sudoku are among the most effective ways to improve cognitive function.

You can also do research for yourself as a fantastic strategy to keep your cerebral pathways going on all cylinders. This is an option that is available to you.

To be successful, activities designed to improve cognitive function need to satisfy the following four criteria. It is expected that you will learn something new from it, whether it be a new skill or some kind of new information.

You can improve your arithmetic skills by playing math games, expand your vocabulary by playing word games, and learn something new by doing research on an intriguing topic on the internet.

In addition to that, the activity ought to be difficult. Your brain won’t get a workout from tasks that are too easy for you to do.

Consider it a form of physical activity. If you want to grow muscle, you shouldn’t do the bench press with the lightest weight possible. You should also go away from the experience with a skill that you can expand upon in the future.

The challenge should be available in a number of different levels so that you can ramp up the level of difficulty as you progress. Lastly, mental exercises should be enjoyable in order to be effective.

The likelihood of you gaining something from the things that you do increases in proportion to the degree to which you take pleasure in those things. However, if you are enjoying your mental workout, you will reap a lot greater benefit from it. Stress is linked to a decline in cognitive function.

The benefits of exercise for the brain are well known.

 

When it comes to enhancing your memory function, exercising your body is on par with exercising your brain in terms of importance. Exercising and particularly aerobic activity deliver oxygen to the brain, which supplies it with a welcome boost.

In addition to this, it assists in the reduction of risk factors for medical diseases and disorders that might result in a loss of short-term memory. The mental fog may lift after a good workout at the gym.

If you are having trouble concentrating, feel as though you are in a brain fog, or have a hard time remembering information, getting up and moving around will help you achieve some equilibrium.

This is especially helpful if you have trouble remembering information.
Sleep Hygiene A healthy sleeping routine is absolutely necessary for optimal memory function. If you don’t get enough rest because you don’t have healthy sleeping habits, your brain won’t be able to work as readily on the higher levels.

It’s possible that you won’t be able to concentrate as well as you normally would or recall things as well if you don’t get enough sleep or if the quality of your sleep is poor. Even on the days off and during the week, you should try to keep to the same pattern of wakefulness and sleepiness that you have established for yourself.

You should try to maintain a consistent schedule with regard to when you go to bed at night and when you wake up in the morning. You should also make an effort to stick to the same pattern when it comes to going to bed.

For instance, if you spend less time in front of screens, such as televisions, tablets, laptops, and cell phones, the quality of your sleep will significantly increase. It’s possible that you’re not receiving enough quality sleep if, despite sleeping for an entire eight hours, you still find yourself feeling weary during the day and having trouble remembering things.

Sleep apnea is extremely prevalent, particularly among people of advanced age. If you have sleep apnea, both your body and your mind are unable to get a good night’s sleep. If you believe that the quality of your sleep is not adequate, you should probably discuss the possibility of getting a sleep study with someone.

Limit Stress And Anxiety

 

Memory lapses in the short term are a common side effect of mental states such as worry, stress, and sadness. When you are under a significant amount of stress, your mind is unable to concentrate and perform as well as it is able to when you are comfortable.

There are a number of things you can do to reduce or manage your stress in order to prevent it from having an adverse effect on your memory. To begin, you must first ensure that your expectations of both yourself and others are grounded in reality.

You need to be able to set appropriate goals and boundaries for yourself, as well as be prepared to say “no” to other people when it would cause too much stress to say yes. Unrealistic expectations inevitably result in letdowns, which in turn bring on feelings of tension, worry, and even melancholy.

Make sure that you are taking the necessary steps to relax.

 

Take plenty of breaks at various points during the day, and check to see that you are giving yourself an adequate amount of downtime. It is also helpful to make sure that you are expressing your sentiments when they emerge, rather than bottling them up inside of you, and this is something you should do. If you want to improve your memory, doing any or all of these activities can help you minimize and better manage your stress.

Consume Foods That Are Good for Your Brain.

 

It may be hard to believe, but eating certain meals might actually assist improve your memory and brain function. Omega-3 fatty acids, which can be found in particular kinds of fish, are beneficial to both the heart and the brain in addition to being beneficial to the heart.

Walnuts, flaxseed, squash, beans, spinach, broccoli, and soybeans are some more foods that might provide you with omega-3 fatty acids. You need to restrict your consumption of other types of food in addition to eating certain items that are good for your brain.

According to a number of studies, eating a diet that is high in saturated fat can make you more susceptible to illnesses that cause memory loss. Although a little bit of caffeine first thing in the morning can help increase memory, you should still try to

 

keep your caffeine use to a minimum.

 

Treat any underlying health conditions that may be contributing to cognitive impairment. Problems with cognitive capacities, such as memory, can be brought on by a number of different health disorders. Memory can be significantly improved by addressing the aforementioned health conditions and receiving therapy for them. Memory impairment and heart disease have both been linked to this factor.

Patients with diabetes frequently experience a more rapid deterioration in memory than persons who do not have the disease. Cognitive capacities might also be impacted by an imbalance in hormone levels. Memory might be improved with hormone replacement treatment for women who are going through menopause, who have a higher risk of having a hormone imbalance, or both. Finally, it has been shown that certain drugs can cause a loss of memory in the short term.

Eliminating these medications from your routine or moving to a different kind of treatment may enable you to regain some of your memory. Painkillers, antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs, sleep aids, and some cholesterol treatments have all been identified as being among the classes of pharmaceuticals that have been shown to be associated with memory loss.

Memory-Improving Supplements For Those Who Take Them

 

If you wish to boost your memory, there are a few dietary supplements that you should discuss with your physician.nAccording to the findings of one study, taking a supplement that contains phosphatidylserine and Omega 3 fatty acids result in a significant enhancement of memory function in elderly people who do not have dementia. Another study found that people with Alzheimer’s disease who took physostigmine and lecithin supplements had significant improvements in their memories.

Here Are Five Techniques That Will Assist You In Remembering Information:

 

Up until this point, we have gone over several strategies that may be utilized to enhance your memory as well as the general functioning of your brain. You can also improve your ability to learn and recall material on a case-by-case basis by employing a few of the strategies that are presented below. You will be able to improve your memory skills by using these techniques for remembering information, and you will be able to recall more information in a shorter length of time.

Take Care to Observe

 

The ability to concentrate plays a significant part in one’s recall capacity of knowledge. If you want to be able to remember what you are trying to learn in the future, you need to be able to pay attention to what you are trying to learn and concentrate on it.

In certain situations, you will be able to get rid of distractions so that you can focus on what’s going on, but in others, it’s possible that you won’t be able to get away from the things that are distracting you. During the commotion, make it a habit to concentrate your attention on certain minute aspects.

When you are in a restaurant where there is a lot of background noise, you should make an effort to hyper-focus on what the person sitting next to you is saying. Or, if you find yourself in the middle of a busy shopping mall, give your full attention to a book that you really want to read.  Your ability to focus and pay attention in any given situation can be improved by the practice of these exercises and others like them, which will ultimately result in improved memory recall.

Engage All Of Your Senses

 

When you create a memory, using more of your senses will increase the likelihood that you will retain that memory. Try to establish a connection between every object that you are trying to recall and one component of each of the five senses. If you are able to make use of this connection, you will have a far better chance of remembering the knowledge. This is a pretty effective strategy for ensuring that you will keep episodic memories in your head.

Make connections among people.

 

One of the most effective strategies for learning to remember things is to make connections between the knowledge you are attempting to remember and other material that you are already familiar with. If you know that a person’s mother’s name is Harriet and that their son’s name is Harry, for instance, you can

create an association between the two names in order to recall the son’s name. You can also use the associations you have with pictures to help you recall information. For instance, if a man’s surname is Baker, you would visualize a cartoon baker when referring to or conversing with him. You will be able to cement the fact that his name is Baker in your mind as a result of this.

Practice Repetition of Information

 

The more regularly you practice anything, the better chance you have of remembering what you’ve practiced. When you obtain a new phone number, you might have to go over it in your head a few times before you can successfully enter it into your device. This may aid the individual’s ability to remember information in the short term. The repetition of knowledge needs to be done often but also somewhat at intervals so that it can be stored in long-term memory.

For instance, rewriting a list of vocabulary words several times before taking a test will help you remember those words better. If you look at your calendar of appointments multiple times throughout the day and verbally go over each appointment, it will be easier for you to recall them the next day.

Use The 6 Devices for Recalling Memories

 

There are six different mnemonic devices that can be employed to aid in the recall of information. A mnemonic device is an additional method of employing associations in order to assist with memory retention. Different persons or different kinds of information require the use of various sorts of technology. In the beginning, it will be helpful to make frequent use of all of them so that you can figure out which ones perform best for you.

Visual Images

 

It is much easier to remember things when you pair them with an image, whether it be a word or a piece of knowledge. If you want this to succeed, the image you conjure up in your head to go along with the information needs to be vibrant, full of color, and three-dimensional. For the sake of remembering George Washington, for instance, you might imagine a cherry tree.

Acrostic To remember a word more easily, you can use a mnemonic device called an acrostic, which is a phrase or sentence that begins with the letter of the word you are trying to recall. If you want this to be an effective strategy, the phrase or term that you use needs to be connected to the material that you are attempting to recall in some manner. The acrostic “every decent boy does wonderfully,” for instance, is frequently utilized by music educators as a memorization tool for the notes of the treble clef.

Acronym

A term is said to be an acronym if it is constructed by using the initial letters of multiple words that appear in a sentence or phrase. If you want this mnemonic device to be effective, you need to come up with words that are either already recognizable to you or have some sort of connection to the material that you are studying. To help you remember the names of the five great lakes, the acronym HOMES is a good example of an acronym.

Rhymes

 

Rhymes, alliteration, and even just telling yourself a joke can be quite helpful when trying to retain knowledge. If you can find a way to make the connection funny, there is a better chance that you will be able to remember it. If you want to recall the directions of the compass rose, for instance, you might utilize the alliteration “we know something” to help you remember them.

Chunking

 

The technique of collecting lengthy lists of material and dividing them up into more manageable chunks is referred to as “chunking.” Because you will be relating each thing on the list to another, you will have an easier time remembering the broader list if you group items that are similar together. When it comes to recalling word lists or numerical lists, the chunking strategy is the one that comes out on top.

 

Memory Palace Technique

 

The memory palace technique, also known as the method of loci, is a mnemonic strategy in which you arrange the things you want to remember along with a familiar path or in a familiar site. This can be done in a memory palace or in any other familiar setting. For instance, if you want to recall the items on your grocery list, you can picture a banana tree growing in your front entryway, a puddle of milk on the carpet, and a loaf of bread on the table. This may help you remember the items.