Simple Ways To Boost Your Memory
Most of us notice that our memory is affected by aging and during periods of stress. Fortunately, there are many things we can do to keep our minds active and help boost our memory. Below is a list of simple ways that we can help our brains.
Practice Concentration and Focused Attention: Paying greater attention and actively engaging your mind in your activities is a great way to increase your memory. Think of this like mindful meditation where you purposefully engage more with the activities you may often do on auto-pilot.
Do Puzzles and Play Games: Crossword puzzles, Sudoku, Word Search, Chess, Checkers, and electronic games on your phone or computer are great way to exercise your mind.
Meditate: Any form of meditation will help calm your mind, reduce stress, and increase mental clarity.
Exercise: Any form of exercise will help your brain power. Walking, swimming, riding a stationary bike, and yoga are excellent low-impact forms of exercise that have been shown to have cognitive benefits.
Engage in Conversation: Active listening and talking with a friend, colleague, fellow volunteer, or member of church or other organization will help you stay sharp in terms of vocabulary, understanding tone and inflection, and critical thinking.
Write: Whether it’s in a journal, a gratitude list, letters or notes, fiction, poetry, an essay, or just brainstorming ideas, focusing your attention on writing with a pen, or on a keyboard, will activate your mind and help you better process and recall information.
Learn a Foreign Language. Studying a foreign language is a terrific brain booster that can also be a lot of fun. There are many online classes, audio study materials, and classes at local schools that make this something accessible and enjoyable.
Improve Nutrition: Simple improvements to our diets can yield huge benefits for our minds. Just improving the intake of vitamins and minerals by increasing our consumption of fruits and vegetables can improve our memories and metal capacity.
Practice a Musical Instrument: Like learning a foreign language, practicing a musical instrument helps fire up different parts of our mind that we don’t typically use in our daily life.
Read: Reading is an excellent way to improve our vocabularies, relax, and use our minds to visualize characters, events, emotions, and activate our senses through our mental perception.
Get Enough Sleep: Getting enough sleep is important for all our bodily functions and our minds. It is suggested that we get 7 to 8 hours of sleep a day, and the amount of rest needed certainly can vary from person to person. Taking naps and allowing yourself to unwind and get adequate sleep at night can certainly help your brain function.
While we are all different – and these suggestions won’t cure significant cognitive issues, these activities can boost our overall mental clarity and memory. They are also fun ways to improve our overall health and have fun along the way.
By Andrew Paul Williams, Ph.D.