Strengthen your cognitive skills and learn valuable tips for increasing your memory capacity. While it may seem that there is nothing you can do to strengthen your memory as you age, there are actually a number of strategies you can adopt. This will ensure that your mind stays sharp, no matter what situation faces you and no matter how long you have lived.
One excellent and fun way to help improve your memory retention is to play games that are designed to provide a challenge. You can exercise your brain much the same way you exercise the rest of your body. You can increase your memory skills, focus and concentration by exercising your brain. Popular activities with benefits to memory include word searches, logic puzzles, and crosswords.
If you’re looking for a way to remember things, writing them down is easy and effective. This simple action cements the ideas into your brain, by increasing the activity in the parts of your brain associated with memory. You can drastically improve your memory when you keep a journal or other detailed documentation.
If this is the case, you should take about a 5-15 minute break each hour during your work or study session to give your mind some time to rest and relax. Your brain will not be overstressed, and it will be able to better absorb the information.
Stop focusing on the negatives and your memory will become faster and clearer. The scientific community states that anyone who has negative thoughts or suffers from a lot of stress normally has less memory retention than people who are not always stressed out. Consult a professional for stress relief advice.
Exercise can have a tremendously beneficial impact on your memory. Exerting yourself promotes better circulation and oxygenation of the brain. A healthy brain should be able to access information more easily. Working out will also keep diseases such as diabetes at bay. Diabetes have a negative impact on memory functions.
One good way to keep your mind limber is to stay active within your social circles. Social interactions improve your state of mind, which has the effect of making you more alert and receptive to learning things. When you are depressed or lonely, your brain is not being stimulated and your mind is not getting the exercise it needs to stay sharp. However, if you engage in interesting conversation with others, your mind will remain sharp, as will your memory.
Use a mnemonic in the form of a phrase, picture, or song to remember things that are particularly difficult to recall. If you use a little humor, the information will entertain you more, and it’ll be much simpler for you to remember it later on.
Take the time to relate information you are trying to memorize to information you have already committed to memory. Building these ties helps you commit the new ideas to the long-term memory. Plus, the relational exercise will more than likely speed up the memorization process!
Log on to your library’s website and download ebooks designed for memory improvement. There are thousands of well-researched, straightforward books available in a variety of topics related to memory. Many of these books are written by respected leaders in the field, yet are easy enough for anyone to understand.
Avoid trying to cram a large amount of information into your head. A better way to remember things is to use study sessions, as opposed to cramming. Trying to take in something new in one sitting very rarely works. When you do this, you overwhelm your brain, and don’t recall all that you studied. Make sure you study regularly so that your brain is stimulated into remembering.
Planners and calendars are something you want to always be using. Jot everything you need to remember on your planner or calendar. Be sure you continuously look over your schedule. The more you remind yourself of anything you’d like to remember, the more likely you are to store it in your mind. You don’t always have to depend on your memory for everything and your planner will reduce the stress about important dates and times.
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When you have something that needs memorizing, relate it to a memory that you already have. If you connect your short-term memory with knowledge you already have, you will be able to remember things better, and help convert that short-term memory to long-term memory.
If you struggle to remember names when meeting new people, try doing mental association with someone who has the same name. Or, you could also make an association with a celebrity. These connections will give your mind the ability to recall names more easily.
By using the above advice, your mind will be ready for all of life’s challenges. The better your recall, the easier it will be for you to build relationships at work or socially. When you become more involved and use the information that you’ve learned here, you’ll become a more productive person.