How to Improve Memory Using 5 Key Techniques

 

Memory plays a crucial role in our daily lives and working to improve memory is definitely time well spent. It helps us remember skills, retrieve information, recall the blissful moments, and make judgmental calls. In short, having a good memory is essential for a good life. 

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But, remembering things and keeping them in our memory is not very easy in today’s stressful and busy world. And a strong memory hugely depends upon the person’s physical and mental health. 

Improving your memory doesn’t have to be difficult, you’ve just got to be diligent. It requires memorization techniques and key adjustments to your lifestyle. Today we are presenting you five tried and tested techniques that are indeed very helpful in improving memory.

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Try Meditation 

The practice of mediation always has a positive effect on our lives – both body and mind. In fact, it has been linked to the improvement of various health-related problems including pain and anxiety, diabetes, high blood pressure, among others.

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Speaking about the mental benefits, meditation can improve focus, concentration, creativity, reasoning skills, and memory. Meditation practices have a significant effect on spatial working memory which is the ability to hold and process information in the mind over time. 

Regular Exercise

Our brains depend upon a regular and healthy flow of oxygenated blood to the brain. And exercise helps you do that. Light physical exercises including running, jogging, and aerobics promote the growth of brain cells in the hippocampus. 

And the hippocampus plays an important role in memory and learning. Similarly, playing brain games such as crosswords, word-recall games has also proven to be an effective way to strengthen memory.  

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Get Adequate Sleep

Probably the easiest way to improve memory power is to get an adequate amount of sleep. It is proven that an adequate amount of sleep plays a vital role in having a good memory, creativity, and critical thinking skills. 

An average adult requires from 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep depending upon their physical health. Brains are always working, even when we are asleep. In fact, they reorganize and merge the information and store them in long-term memory. 

Make Use of Mnemonic Devices

When it comes to memorizing pieces of information, you have to be creative and make things work. Mnemonic device refers to those creative systems that are designed to help us remember something with ease. 

Mnemonic devices help us in associating information that we want to memorize with visual images, acronyms, chunking, and even rhymes or alliterations. 

A very good example of word mnemonics is: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas which you can use to remember the order of planets orbiting the sun where the first letter of each word stands for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Write Down Notes to Memorize Things

We are more likely to remember things when we write them down using a pen and paper. When we use our hands, the brain is more active as it works to form each letter. The brain pays more attention to it and thus storing information for a longer period of time. 

Therefore, put away your laptops and form a habit of writing things in a notebook to memorize effectively. You can also use the sticky note to write down plans and ideas if you have a habit of forgetting things. 

Lumosity

Lumosity is an app designed by a group of neuroscientists to improve cognitive processes and memory skills by practicing them over and over again. The app is packed with a variety of brain games targeting specific types of memory like working memory, short term memory, and spatial recalls. 

Lumosity mobile app is available on both android and iOS platforms and can be easily downloaded through their respective app stores. However, you get a free version that provides access to a limited number of games.

Lumosity also offers premium subscription plans that give you access to all the premium games. The monthly plan of the app is available for $11.99 and the yearly plan costs the user $59.99. 

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The Bottom Line

With these tried and tested techniques and sophisticated applications, you can surely train your brain to remember more things for a longer duration. As your memory improves, you’re going to wonder how you survived with a lackluster one before. Happy memorizing!