Your brain is nourished when you take proper care of your overall health, which means that your memory reaps the benefits as well. Eating healthy by incorporating antioxidant-rich foods like fruits, vegetables and fish into your diet helps protect your brain cells and fights off age-related memory loss. In addition to eating right, getting your eight hours of sleep also has a positive influence on the brain’s ability to focus, so don’t cut sleep time short if you’re too busy. Exercising daily is also good for your brain in a couple of ways:
Exercise increases circulation, which in turn helps your body pump nutrient- and oxygen-rich blood to your brain. Adequate blood flow to the brain is also necessary for nerve cell growth.
Exercise also reduces stress, which otherwise negatively affects your long-term memory because cortisol, the stress hormone, limits the number of cells in the hippocampus, the area of the brain where memory is stored.
Not only is daily exercise effective in reducing those stress levels, it also increases the production of endorphins. These feel good hormones are released when you exercise, and have also been shown to sharpen the memory.
Memorization Tactics
Try to really understand the material instead of just memorizing it. You’re more likely to remember the information.
Your brain learns better in short cycles, so if you’re trying to memorize information for a test or for a speech, rather than sitting down for hours at a time going over the information in your head, break up the time.
If you’re memorizing a list, continuously mix up the items because people tend to remember only the first and last items.
Use mnemonics such as rhyming and acronyms. Remember ROY G. BIV? He’s an acronym representing the spectrum of visible colors. (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.) Acronyms like this can help you relate to important data, and it’ll stay with you for a lifetime.
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