Improving memory

Improving memory tip 3: Keep stress in check

Stress is one of the brain’s worst enemies. Over time, if left unchecked, chronic stress destroys brain cells and damages the hippocampus, the region of the brain involved in the formation of new memories and the retrieval of old ones.

The stress-busting, brain-boosting benefits of meditation

Get depression in check

In addition to stress, depression takes a heavy toll on the brain. In fact, some of the symptoms of depression include difficulty concentrating, making decisions, and remembering things. If you are mentally sluggish because of depression, seeking treatment will make a big difference in your cognitive abilities, including memory.

The scientific evidence for the mental health benefits of meditation continues to pile up. Studies show that meditation helps improve many different types of conditions, including depression, anxiety, chronic pain, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Meditation also can improve focus, concentration, creativity, and learning and reasoning skills.

Meditation works its “magic” by changing the actual brain. Brain images show that regular meditators have more activity in the left prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with feelings of joy and equanimity. Meditation also increases the thickness of the cerebral cortex and encourages more connections between brain cells—all of which increases mental sharpness and memory ability.

Improving memory tip 4: Bulk up on brain-boosting foods

Just as the body needs fuel, so does the brain. You probably already know that a diet based on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and “healthy” fats will provide lots of health benefits, but such a diet can also improve memory. But for brain health, it’s not just what you eat—it’s also what you don’t eat. The following nutritional tips will help boost your brainpower and reduce your risk of dementia:

Get your omega-3s. More and more evidence indicates that omega-3 fatty acids are particularly beneficial for brain health. Fish is a particularly rich source of omega-3, especially cold water “fatty fish” such as salmon, tuna, halibut, trout, mackerel, sardines, and herring. In addition to boosting brainpower, eating fish may also lower your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. If you’re not a fan of fish, consider turning to fish oil supplements. Other non-fish sources of omega-3s include walnuts, ground flaxseed, flaxseed oil, pumpkin seeds, and soybeans.

Limit saturated fat. Research shows that diets high in saturated fat increase your risk of dementia and impair concentration and memory. The primary sources of saturated far are animal products: red meat, whole milk, butter, cheese, sour cream, and ice cream.

Eat more fruit and vegetables. Produce is packed with antioxidants, substances that protect your brain cells from damage. Colorful fruits and vegetables are particularly good antioxidant "superfood" sources. Try leafy green vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, romaine lettuce, Swiss chard, and arugula, and fruit such as apricots, mangoes, cantaloupe, and watermelon.

Drink wine (or grape juice) in moderation. Keeping your alcohol consumption in check is key, since alcohol kills brain cells. But in moderation (around 1 glass a day for women; 2 for men), alcohol may actually improve memory and cognition. Red wine appears to be the best option, as it is rich in resveratrol, a flavonoid that boosts blood flow in the brain and reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Other resveratrol-packed options include grape juice, cranberry juice, fresh grapes and berries, and peanuts.

For mental energy, choose complex carbohydrates.

Just as a racecar needs gas, your brain needs fuel to perform at its best. When you need to be at the top of your mental game, carbohydrates can keep you going. But the type of carbs you choose makes all the difference. Carbohydrates fuel your brain, but simple carbs (sugar, white bread, refined grains) give a quick boost followed by an equally rapid crash. For energy that lasts, choose complex carbohydrates such as whole-wheat bread, brown rice, oatmeal, high-fiber cereal, lentils, and whole beans.

Improving memory tip 5: Give your brain a workout

By the time you’ve reached adulthood, your brain has developed millions of neural pathways that help you process information quickly, solve familiar problems, and execute familiar tasks with a minimum of mental effort. But if you always stick to these well-worn paths, you aren’t giving your brain the stimulation it needs to keep growing and developing. You have to shake things up from time to time!

Memory, like muscular strength, requires you to “use it or lose it.” The more you work out your brain, the better you’ll be able to process and remember information. The best brain exercising activities break your routine and challenge you to use and develop new brain pathways. The activity can be virtually anything, so long as it meets the following three criteria:

It’s new. No matter how intellectually demanding the activity, if it’s something you’re already good at, it’s not a good brain exercise. The activity needs to be something that’s unfamiliar and out of your comfort zone.

It’s challenging. Anything that takes some mental effort and expands your knowledge will work. Examples include learning a new language, instrument, or sport, or tackling a challenging crossword or Sudoku puzzle.

It’s fun. The more interested and engaged you are in the activity, the more likely you’ll be to continue doing it and the greater the benefits you’ll experience. The activity should be challenging, yes, but not so difficult or unpleasant that you dread doing it.

Use mnemonic devices to make memorization easier

Mnemonics (the initial “m” is silent) are clues of any kind that help us remember something, usually by helping us associate the information we want to remember with a visual image, a sentence, or a word.

Mnemonic device	Technique	Example
Visual image	Associate a visual image with a word or name to help you remember them better. Positive, pleasant images that are vivid, colorful, and three-dimensional will be easier to remember.	To remember the name Rosa Parks and what she’s known for, picture a woman sitting on a park bench surrounded by roses, waiting as her bus pulls up.
Acrostic (or sentence)	Make up a sentence in which the first letter of each word is part of or represents the initial of what you want to remember.	The sentence “Every good boy does fine” to memorize the lines of the treble clef, representing the notes E, G, B, D, and F.
Acronym	An acronym is a word that is made up by taking the first letters of all the key words or ideas you need to remember and creating a new word out of them.	The word “HOMES” to remember the names of the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior.
Rhymes and alliteration	Rhymes, alliteration (a repeating sound or syllable), and even jokes are a memorable way to remember more mundane facts and figures.	The rhyme “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November” to remember the months of the year with only 30 days in them.
Chunking	Chunking breaks a long list of numbers or other types of information into smaller, more manageable chunks.	Remembering a 10-digit phone number by breaking it down into three sets of numbers: 555-867-5309 (as opposed to5558675309).
Method of loci	Imagine placing the items you want to remember along a route you know well or in specific locations in a familiar room or building.	For a shopping list, imagine bananas in the entryway to your home, a puddle of milk in the middle of the sofa, eggs going up the stairs, and bread on your bed.

Tips for enhancing your ability to learn and remember

Pay attention. You can’t remember something if you never learned it, and you can’t learn something—that is, encode it into your brain—if you don’t pay enough attention to it. It takes about eight seconds of intense focus to process a piece of information into your memory. If you’re easily distracted, pick a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted.

Involve as many senses as possible. Try to relate information to colors, textures, smells, and tastes. The physical act of rewriting information can help imprint it onto your brain. Even if you’re a visual learner, read out loud what you want to remember. If you can recite it rhythmically, even better.

Relate information to what you already know. Connect new data to information you already remember, whether it’s new material that builds on previous knowledge, or something as simple as an address of someone who lives on a street where you already know someone.

For more complex material, focus on understanding basic ideas rather than memorizing isolated details. Practice explaining the ideas to someone else in your own words.

Rehearse information you’ve already learned. Review what you’ve learned the same day you learn it, and at intervals thereafter. This “spaced rehearsal” is more effective than cramming, especially for retaining what you’ve learned

How to Improve Your Memory

TIPS AND EXERCISES TO SHARPEN YOUR MIND AND BOOST BRAINPOWER

If our brains were computers, we'd simply add a chip to upgrade our memory. The human brain, however, is more complex than even the most advanced machine, so improving our memory isn’t quite so easy. Just as it takes effort to build physical fitness, so too does boosting brain power.

A strong memory depends on the health and vitality of your brain. Whether you’re a student studying for final exams, a working professional interested in doing all you can to stay mentally sharp, or a senior looking to preserve and enhance your grey matter as you age, there are lots of things you can do to improve your memory and mental performance.

Harnessing the power of your brain

They say that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but when it comes to the brain, scientists have discovered that this old adage simply isn’t true. The human brain has an astonishing ability to adapt and change—even into old age. This ability is known as neuroplasticity. With the right stimulation, your brain can form new neural pathways, alter existing connections, and adapt and react in ever-changing ways.

The brain’s incredible ability to reshape itself holds true when it comes to learning and memory. You can harness the natural power of neuroplasticity to increase your cognitive abilities, enhance your ability to learn new information, and improve your memory.

Improving memory tip 1: Don’t skimp on exercise or sleep

Just as an athlete relies on sleep and a nutrition-packed diet to perform his or her best, your ability to remember increases when you nurture your brain with a good diet and other healthy habits.

When you exercise the body, you exercise the brain

Treating your body well can enhance your ability to process and recall information. Physical exercise increases oxygen to your brain and reduces the risk for disorders that lead to memory loss, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Exercise may also enhance the effects of helpful brain chemicals and protect brain cells.

Improve your memory by sleeping on it

When you’re sleep deprived, your brain can’t operate at full capacity. Creativity, problem-solving abilities, and critical thinking skills are compromised. Whether you’re studying, working, or trying to juggle life’s many demands, sleep deprivation is a recipe for disaster.

But sleep is critical to learning and memory in an even more fundamental way. Research shows that sleep is necessary for memory consolidation, with the key memory-enhancing activity occurring during the deepest stages of sleep.

Improving memory tip 2: Make time for friends and fun

When you think of ways to improve memory, do you think of “serious” activities such as wrestling with the New York Times crossword puzzle or mastering chess strategy, or do more lighthearted pastimes—hanging out with friends or enjoying a funny movie—come to mind? If you’re like most of us, it’s probably the former. But countless studies show that a life that’s full of friends and fun comes with cognitive benefits.

Healthy relationships: the ultimate memory booster?

Humans are highly social animals. We’re not meant to survive, let alone thrive, in isolation. Relationships stimulate our brains—in fact, interacting with others may be the best kind of brain exercise.

Research shows that having meaningful relationships and a strong support system are vital not only to emotional health, but also to brain health. In one recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health, for example, researchers found that people with the most active social lives had the slowest rate of memory decline.

There are many ways to start taking advantage of the brain and memory-boosting benefits of socializing. Volunteer, join a club, make it a point to see friends more often, or reach out over the phone. And if a human isn’t handy, don’t overlook the value of a pet—especially the highly-social dog.

Laughter is good for your brain

You’ve heard that laughter is the best medicine, and that holds true for the brain as well as the body. Unlike emotional responses, which are limited to specific areas of the brain, laughter engages multiple regions across the whole brain.

Furthermore, listening to jokes and working out punch lines activates areas of the brain vital to learning and creativity. As psychologist Daniel Goleman notes in his book Emotional Intelligence, “laughter…seems to help people think more broadly and associate more freely.”

Looking for ways to bring more laughter in your life? Start with these basics:

Laugh at yourself. Share your embarrassing moments. The best way to take ourselves less seriously is to talk about the times when we took ourselves too seriously.

When you hear laughter, move toward it. Most of the time, people are very happy to share something funny because it gives them an opportunity to laugh again and feed off the humor you find in it. When you hear laughter, seek it out and ask, “What’s funny?”

Spend time with fun, playful people. These are people who laugh easily–both at themselves and at life’s absurdities–and who routinely find the humor in everyday events. Their playful point of view and laughter are contagious.

Surround yourself with reminders to lighten up. Keep a toy on your desk or in your car. Put up a funny poster in your office. Choose a computer screensaver that makes you laugh. Frame photos of you and your family or friends having fun.

Pay attention to children and emulate them. They are the experts on playing, taking life lightly, and laughing.

Concentration Tips

The art or practice of concentration is to eliminate distraction and focus on the task at hand. If you find that you read through material and suddenly discover that you have no idea about what you've just read, or if you attend lectures and have difficulty paying attention to what is being said, these tips may help:

1. Stick to a routine, efficient study schedule
2. Study in a quiet environment
3. For a study break, do something different from what you've been doing (e.g., walk around if you've been sitting), and in a different area
4. Avoid daydreaming by asking yourself questions about the material as you study it
5. Before lectures, look over the notes of the previous lecture and read the course material pertaining to the lecture so that you can anticipate the main ideas that the instructor will cover
6. Show outward interest during lectures (attentive expression and posture) to self-motivate internal interest
7. Resist distractions by sitting in front of the room away from disruptive classmates and by focusing on the instructor through listening and note taking

Top ten exam tips

Here are our top ten tips to help you study.
1. Find out about the exam

Know your enemy - find out as much as you can about the exam.
How much is the exam worth to your overall mark in the subject?
What type of exam is it? Is it a multiple choice, essay, open-book or take-home exam?
Will there be a choice of questions or tasks?
How much will each question or task be worth?
2. Ask for help

Don’t feel bad if you need to ask for help. Talk to your teacher or lecturer and pick the brains of other students. If you’re feeling really stressed you might also find it helpful to speak to a counsellor.


3. Sort out your subject material

Check that you have all the relevant handouts and get all your notes together from the subject. Read through the course outline or subject guide (if there is one) and use it to organise the information you’ve collected.

It might help to write your own summaries of each textbook chapter or section of the subject guide. This will make it easier to find what you need while you’re studying.

4. Check past exam papers

Get your hands on any old exam papers from the subject and familiarise yourself with the structure and format. Your teacher or lecturer should be able to let you know where you can get your hands on some. Your school or university library might have past exams on file, too.


Practise answering the questions within the specified time limits and check your answers against your notes to make sure you’ve got them right.

5. Know where to go

Check your exam timetable for details on when and where you’ll be sitting the exam. Make sure you have everything you’ll need to take with you (e.g. calculator, pencil, ruler, etc).

Try to do some study at the times your exams will be on. If you have an early morning exam it’s a good idea to practise getting up and doing some study earlier in the day.

6. Don’t cram

Stick to what you already know when studying the night before an exam. You’ll only make yourself nervous if you try to learn new information. Review your notes or test yourself on key points.

7. Keep your cool

Don’t talk to other students about the exam before the exam. It could confuse you or make you lose confidence in yourself.


The same goes for after the exam. Don’t hang around talking about what was on it or you’ll start to doubt yourself and stress out if you think you made a mistake.

8. Use your reading time

The way you use your reading time could make or break you in the exam. Use it to plan your writing time and start thinking about some answers.

Read the instructions very carefully then scan the whole exam paper. Be sure to check how many pages there are and how much each question is worth.

Plan how much time to spend on each answer and the order in which you’ll answer them. Start with the questions you’re most confident with.

9. Break the questions down

A great tip for any exam is to break the questions down to make sure you really understand what you’re being asked. If you don’t answer the question properly you won’t get full marks for it.

Look for the key parts in the question and these will give you clues on how to answer it. For example, for the question, "Explain the difference between study and revision", you can split this question into four parts:

Explain - give reasons to show how or why something is the way it is

The difference - what are the distinguishing factors between study and revision?

Study - what is study?

Revision- what is revision?

10. Review your performance

While there’s no use stressing out over an exam you’ve already done, it does help to look at what you can improve on. If you didn’t do as well on an exam as you would’ve liked, ask your teacher if you can go through it with them and find out what you did wrong.
Come up with your own strategies

Remember - these tips are only some of the things that you can do to get the most out of your exams. There might be other things that work even better for you.

Ask around - find out what your friends do for their exams - maybe some of their tricks will work for you too! Maybe your teachers have some good recommendations too.

Whatever it is, whatever strategy when you find something that works for you, put it into practise and good luck!