Tips to improve your memory

Put your brain to work

Mentally stimulating activities help your brain; it is like a workout for a brain. Playing strategy games, brain-training games, or solving puzzles, will help to exercise your brain. Hobbies help to improve your brain health and your cognitive skills. So, have a hobby like cooking, gardening, wood crafting, lego building or anything that interests you.

Reading books improves your knowledge, but also helps to improve your memory, concentration and reduces stress. Reading puts your brain into work, thinking about characters, immersing in the story, and diving into a different world. Few studies show that reading also prevents cognitive decline and reduces depression. Another tip, try to remember the page number in between your reading instead of using bookmarks.

Learning something new is one way to improve the health of your brain. Select something that you are passionate about or something on your wishlist, or try something new. Learning new things is always fun and exciting; now it is good for your health too and helps to boost your mental health. There is no end or no age limit to learn. There always will be something to learn.

Running through your day-to-day activities before going to sleep will help to remember and optimize your memory. You can recap things that happened that day, week, or as long as you can remember. It also helps to do some self-analysis, understand ourselves and do some self-improvment.

Other minor things like, remembering your passwords instead of copying from your password vault, keeping track of your parking spots, keeping track of important dates and so on.

Eating Habits

A healthy diet helps to enhance your brainpower, try to include more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains in your diet. Less processed food, very less added sugar, and no refined carbs. Home-cooked food is always a better choice.

Reduce intake of sugar as much as possible, any food with added sugars like cookies, pastries, cake… can have impact on your memory and cognitive skills. Here is a published research on impact of sugar on memory.

Food rich in Omega-3 fatty acids are considered to be good for brain health. Fish like salmon, tuna, flaxseeds, chia seeds, soybeans and walnuts are some of the food which are rich in Omega-3. Consuming food rich in omega-3 fatty acids can reduce memory loss as we age, they also help to reduce depression and anxiety.

Fruits rich in antioxidants help to prevent memory loss and cognitive decline caused due to aging. Berries, green tea, cacao (dark chocolate), broccoli, spinach, and artichokes are a few food items rich in antioxidants.

Exercise and Healthy Habits

“A healthy mind in a healthy body.” Maintaining a healthy body is required to keep your mind healthy. Keeping your BMI within a normal range is critical for your overall health. Obesity has a negative impact on your health, both, physical and mental. Here is research published in the Journal of Neuroscience explaining the impact of obesity on memory.

Build an habit to exercise regularly and be physically active, it helps to maintain both your physical and mental health. Any kind of exercise helps to reduce stress and relax, atleast few mins of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) per week has more effect.

Yoga and meditation are good to relax and improving focus and concentration. Meditation takes some practice, but even a few minutes of meditation will have a positive impact.

Resting your brain is important; too much strain hurts the brain. Good sleeping habit keeps you in a good mood as your brain feels fresh after a good rest. It increases productivity and helps to think and perform better.

Image by ElisaRiva from Pixabay