Ways to Improve Your Memory

Exercise Your Brain
Keep your brain active. The brain is not a muscle, but regularly “exercising" the brain actually does keep it growing and spurs the development of new nerve connections that can help increase memory retention. Developing complex, new mental skills such as learning a new language or learning to play an instrument -- can keep your brain active and improve its physiological functioning. When “exercising” your brain, supplement the mental activity with regular aerobic exercise to improve circulation and efficiency throughout the body. This can help ward off the memory loss that comes with aging. Exercise also makes you more alert and relaxed, and can thereby improve your memory uptake, allowing you to take better mental “pictures."

Reduce stress
Chronic stress, although it does not physically damage the brain, can make remembering things much more difficult. Even temporary stresses can make it more difficult to effectively focus on concepts and observe things. Try to relax, regularly practice yoga or other stretching exercises, and see a doctor if you have severe chronic stress.

Eat well and eat right
There are a lot of herbal supplements on the market that claim to improve memory, but none have yet been shown to be effective in clinical tests (although small studies have shown some promising results for the “memory vitamin”, ginkgo biloba, and phosphatidylserine). A healthy diet, however, contributes to a healthy brain, and foods containing antioxidants—broccoli, spinach, and berries, for example—and Omega-3 fatty acids appear to promote healthy brain functioning. Feed your brain with such supplements as Thiamine, Vitamin E, Niacin and Vitamin B-6. Grazing, eating five or six small meals throughout the day, instead of three large meals, also seems to improve mental functioning (including memory) by limiting dips in blood sugar, which may negatively affect brain activity.

Use mnemonics
Mnemonics, also called “mnemonic devices" are memory aids. There are a wide variety of mnemonics suitable for different tasks. Some are very simple, such as “first-letter" mnemonics: the nonsense name Roy G. Biv, for example, uses the first letters of each of the colors of the spectrum in order of their wavelengths. Mnemonics of increasing complexity, such as creating a story which includes things you need to remember, or creating a sentence out of the words which correspond to a series of digits (the number of letters in each word is the next number in the series) can be used to remember longer or more complex ideas. One of the most powerful mnemonics is the “memory palace," a mental journey that can be used to remember almost anything.

Mental Associations
Most people’s brains are not very good at remembering abstract information such as numbers. The key to being able to recall such things is to build associations and links that evoke the memory. This is why almost anybody with normal brain functioning can dramatically improve their ability to recall things using mnemonics. Building a memory palace, for example, actually makes you "remember" more by associating the things to be remembered with other things (emotions, other memories, images, etc.). You build more mental "links" to the memory, thus making it easier to access.

Visualize
Immediately write down the event or task to be remembered. If you don't have a pen, one thing you can do is change the time on your watch; later on you will remember why it is set at the wrong time. You could also wear your watch upside down. Write in a diary or journal every day without fail. Even small issues should be written down -- this is a good way to make sure you don't miss anything. Leave yourself a telephone message reminding yourself of important "to do" tasks. Memorize your favorite song or poem until you can say it to yourself without any help. Try to do this often.

Understand thoroughly what is to be remembered and memorized.
Anything thoroughly understood is well on its way to being memorized. The very process of trying to understand a complex series of events or chain of reasoning is the best possible way of committing it to memory.