Want to improve your memory.
Here are 12 essentials steps to improving your memory
12 essentials to improving your memory
In order of importance
- Health: take the best care of your health that you can. Consider your nutrition, sleep habits, exercise routine, negative impacts such as smoking and excessive alcohol.
- “Gold – lead days:” some days are better than others. On gold days, be more active, mentally and physically. Write out lists of long-term goals and lists of to-dos’;
on lead days, just relax and listen to the clouds going by. - Be lazy: just sit and relax 10-15 minutes a day, think about nothing, just feel yourself floating away on a cloud. Studies reveal that this ‘regeneration-relaxation’ time rejuvenates the memory.
- Verbalize: say things out loud, to help solidify things in your memory, Say things aloud as you recall them, and hearing yourself will help you remember more.
- Repeat and review: repeat what you want to recall, a few times. The more it is repeated the more it is consolidated in your memory. Practice this a number of times in a day, the more you review it, the more consolidated it becomes in your memory.
- Names: use the new acquaintance’s name 4-5 times in the conversation you are having with them, or about them soon after. The repetition reinforces the retention of the name in your memory.
- Mental images: picture what you are trying to remember. If it’s a person, draw a memory picture of the person with their name recalling as many details as you can remember for your memory picture: hair colour, eye colour, apparel, unique features, and so on.
- Map it: mapping out a driving route for someone is very challenging, to give them a verbal picture, even more so. Mapping is a tremendously beneficial exercise for your memory. Do it mentally, then convert it to paper for some else to use. Explaining a recipe is another practical memory exercise, explaining how to make something, step by step.
- Create: Take up a hobby which engages your creativity, along with your physicality. Pottery, painting, ceramics, sculpture OR dance lessons, line dancing, ballroom, OR gardening, home maintenance, auto maintenance OR write something: a diary, a life log, a memoir, a blog…all these activities stimulate and activate memory.
- Pets: Dogs are ideal pets for many obvious reasons, they help memory as you must remember responsibilities and tasks relating to their health, exercise and well being.
- Sing: sing your heart out and not just in the shower. You’ll be using recall as you remember the lyrics of the songs you like…and the melodies help your recall. Sing like no one is listening!
- Memory jogger: Rather than trying to remember everything mentally, use a notebook or binder to record all the things you are actively doing, a kind of real life “to do”
