WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT GOOD MEMORY AND POOR MEMORY
Having a good memory is a great ability that will make things easy for you and those around especially those working with you. People can rely on you and be able to believe your promises because you will not forget about them. However, the fact you have good memory does not imply you wouldn’t forget things. It is normal to forget at times, but it is abnormal to forget always.
Poor memory makes an individual forget things that ordinarily are not supposed to forget. For instance, forgetting to take your bath, or brush your teeth in the morning, or forgetting to comb your hair, and lots more.
The signs of good memory can be reflected in academic results and job functions. Your ability to remind others of previous discussions, remember what you studied and what you watched. In all, the evidence of good memory cannot be hidden.
Memory can be built, poor memory can be a result of negative factors affecting the brain performance. Maintaining good memory takes lots of effort and has to do with our daily activities, what we eat, and our general lifestyle. You can remember anything you pay attention to once you have built good memory.
Here are practices that can help to build good memory or improve your memory:
FOOD HABIT
- Consume less added Sugar
- Consume Fish Oil Supplement
- Alcohol
- Refined Carbs
- Vitamin D
- Anti-Inflammatory Foods
- Curcumin
- Add Some Cocoa to your Diet
- Consume brain booster diets
LIFESTYLE
- Meditate
- Healthy Weight
- Good Sleep
- Make healthy relationships
- Reduce stress
- Create time for fun
- Identify and treat health issues immediately
- Focusing Your Attention
- Use Mnemonic Devices
- Talk Less and Use Quiet Environment regularly
EXERCISE
- Physical Exercise
- Mindful Practice
- Create time to Study and analyze
- Use Figures and Data Analysis
- Make difficult topics a priority
- Writing can help as well
- Relate two information and figure out differences
- Practical learning and memorizing (Not Cramming)
- Brain Training
Let us discuss these topics in detail:
FOOD HABIT
Food habit is your food consumption habit. This has to do with the type of food you eat often, the quantity of it you eat, and how they impact your memory improvement.
We have foods that help in improving memory and help us to remember things often. On the other hand, we still have foods that are dangerous to memory and could contribute to low memory performance, your ability to know these foods and stay away from them will help you to achieve your aim of memory improvement.
In case you are wondering the best food consumption habit that could help you achieve the goal of having retentive memory, here is a list of a few you can practice:
Consume Less Added Sugar
According to Healthline publication, too much sugar consumption does no good to the memory rather it contributes to poor memory. Excess sugar consumption affects the area of the brain in charge of short-term memory. This could cause significant in your overall memory capabilities. Besides, low sugar consumption provides better health options.
Consume Fish Oil Supplement
Omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) are important for human health, lowers the risk of heart disease, reduce inflammation, relieve anxiety and stress, and retard mental declination.
The good news is that these two important health acids can be found in fish oil supplements. Consuming fish and its oil supplements can boost memory performance.
Alcohol
Alcohol consumption is one way of retarding your memory performance. It impacts negatively on our ability to remember things.
When your blood alcohol level is up to 0.08 grams per ml or above. There will likely be a memory deficit that could change the brain functioning abilities.
Though moderate alcohol consumption is not bad, excessive consumption can tamper with your memory performance.
Refined Carbs
Eating excess refined carbohydrates such as cakes, cereal, cookies, white rice, and white bread could impair memory performance. Such foods easily digest in the body and contribute to increases in blood sugar levels.
The expert noted that refined carbohydrate diets are associated with dementia, cognitive decline, and reduced cognitive function.
Vitamin D
Having a sufficient level of vitamin D in your body is very important. It helps to resolve some health issues including memory performance. The deficiency of vitamin D contributes to some health challenges such as reduced cognitive function as noted by experts.
Anti-Inflammatory Foods
Consumption of anti-inflammatory foods such as fruits, vegetables, and teas helps to improve memory performance.
The food lowers oxidative stress originated by free radicals in the body. Berries and other special fruits are very good in this and can help to prevent memory loss.
Curcumin
Curcumin is a potent antioxidant that acts as good anti-inflammatory effects in the body. It is a compound that can be found in large quantities in turmeric root.
A health expert noted that curcumin can reduce oxidative damage and inflammation in the brain and also lowers the number of amyloid plaques. Health issues such as the ones mentioned above contribute to the condition of memory loss.
Add Some Cocoa to your Diet
Cocoa helps to stimulate the growth of blood vessels and neurons and increase blood flow in most parts of the brain especially the one in control of memory. Adding cocoa to your daily diet can help to boost memory functions. Cocoa is rich in flavonoids which have been suggested to be beneficial to the brain.
Consume brain booster diets
There are lots of brain booster diets and specific meals that enhance brain performance such as fish, nuts, fruits, and lots more. Changing your diet to contain more of these foods will help your memory to improve.
LIFESTYLE
Meditate
Taking time to meditate can boost your brain performance in many ways. The relaxation it brings helps to calm the nerves and lower blood pressure. Meditation and relaxation help to improve short-term memory and reduce the decline of gray matter. Gray matter decline occurs as we get older and it negatively affects memory performance and cognition.
Healthy Weight
Obesity has been established as a risk factor for cognitive decline. Keeping a good body weight will offer lots of health benefits including memory performance.
The impact of overweight (Obesity) includes changes in the brain that could affect memory negatively.
According to a health expert, obesity is also linked with more risk of having Alzheimer’s disease.
Good Sleep
Sleep helps the body to relax, regain fresh energy, and rebuild damaged tissues, etc. sleep is the best time new cells are generated and the body gets ready for the new day.
Having enough sleep every day is one way of ensuring your memory works at its optimum level. Sleep plays some roles that help to strengthen short-term memories and transform them into long-term memory.
Make healthy relationships
Isolation creates negative feelings that could affect brain performance. Experts have discovered that the more social you are, the more likely happy you will be. The overall benefit of interacting with others helps our brain functions and emotional wellbeing.
Having healthy relationships helps the memory to improve since you are likely to be emotionally stable.
Reduce stress
Another way of improving your memory is to reduce stress. There are different types of stress ranging from physical stress, emotional stress, medical stress, and lots more. The less stressed you are, the more your memory functions better. Avoiding stress or keeping away from stuff that gives you stress can be a bonus to enhance your memory performance.
Create time for fun
The popular saying that ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ is not far from memory evaluation. To keep your memory fresh and create rooms to remember things you will need to create time for fun. This means taking some time off the desk and do something that makes you happy. It means going to the swimming pool, visiting the cinema, watching movies, and lots more.
Identify and treat health issues immediately
A long time health challenge could impair your memory performance. This is one of the details revealed by experts on the help guide website. It is your responsibility to keep your health in check and treat any health problem immediately, this will ensure that your brain does not get affected by problems from other parts of the body.
Focusing Your Attention
One way of building your memory is to practice ‘attention-focusing’. It simply means learning the ability to focus on something when thinking about the thing.
Your memory will be able to produce pictures of what you are thinking about providing you have focused attention on the subject. Instead of thinking wide, think on the specific subject and avoid side distractions that will help you to get more details if you have forgotten.
Use Mnemonic Devices
If you are reading and want to remember what you have read later, using Mnemonic devices could help. Example using Visual image with a word on specific subjects could help you to recall it later.
The use of Acrostatic i.e. makes up a sentence in which the first letter of each word is part of or represents what you intend to remember later.
You can still use acronyms, Rhymes and alliteration, chunking, and lots of other methods to make remembering previous subjects easier.
Talk Less and Use Quiet Environment regularly
A good habit that can boost your memory is to love a quiet environment and avoid being talkative. Sometimes talkative rarely remember everything they say. The best way to help your memory to retain vital information is to talk less and spend quality time in a quiet environment.
EXERCISE
Physical Exercise
Physical exercise is as important as mental exercise when it comes to memory improvement. Doing physical exercise regularly helps to build strong functioning ability for the brain and improve overall thinking ability for all ages.
Health experts noted that at least 15minutes of moderate exercise can improve the cognitive performance of all age groups. Also, regular exercise in mild life is associated with a decreased risk of developing dementia later in life.
Mindful Practice
Your ability to focus on your present situation, maintain awareness of your surroundings and feelings in a quiet place is a mindfulness practice. This practice has lots of benefits which include improving memory. Mindfulness is a mental practice that helps to lower stress and improve concentration. It also decreases the risk of age-related cognitive decline and an overall physical well-being improvement.
Brain Training
One way you can train your brain to remember things is to exercise your cognitive skills by playing brain games aimed at improving memory. There are games that help to improve memory performance they boost your brain’s cognitive ability and provide means of keeping the brain active.
Some games such as; crosswords, word-recall games, Tetris, and lots more can be found in play stores. Playing them can be a way of keeping your brain active.
Practical learning and memorizing (Not Cramming)
If you are a student, one way to boost your academic performance is to practice practical learning and memorizing. This simply means trying to learn with practical examples and memorize what you have learned through the examples.
Relate two information and figure out differences
Another way to improve your memory and remember what you have read before is to relate whatever you read with something else you have read before and figure out the differences.
Writing can help as well
Another way you can remember what you have read before or what you want to remember later is to write it down on a piece of paper or jotter. Writing it down helps the memory to record it the second time and could be easier to recall later when you need the information.
Make difficult topics a priority
As a student trying to remember what you have studied could be difficult if you have studied a lot within a short time. However, making the difficult topics a priority can be a way of staying above the situation.
You can easily boost your memory by making the hard topics the major priority.
Use Figures and Data Analysis
Studying or documenting with figures and data analysis will not only help you to remember, but it will also help to make the information concise and easy to remember.
Create time to Study and analyze
Your brain can easily adjust to anything you pay attention to, instead of reading it, study it and analyze it. The more time you spend in study and analyze, the more likely you will remember the information anytime.
