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Memory Training

7 EASY WAYS TO TRAIN YOUR MEMORY

Why should you train your memory?

Your memory is a priceless asset that you should not only take care of, but spend time developing. One way to do this effectively is to get in the habit of training your mind through daily brain exercises. As you learn new skills, your brain continues to grow—even as you get older. However, not exercising your brain might cause memory loss and an inability to cope with stress. Here are seven reasons to train your memory.


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Daily brain workout and new brain pathways

When you reach adulthood, your brain has built millions of neural pathways that help you function. These networks help you remember information quickly, perform routine tasks, and solve common problems with the least amount of mental effort. Memory is a muscle, and you have to use it or lose it. The more you train your brain, the better you can process and recall information. Make them part of your daily routine by scheduling time and increasing the challenge. The more you use your brain, the more new brain pathways you can grow.

Physical exercise

Physical exercise helps your brain stay strong, just like mental exercise. It raises oxygen levels in your brain and decreases the risk for disorders that leads to memory loss, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Training your brain also aids in reducing stress hormones. Most significantly, it plays a vital role in neuroplasticity by strengthening development and stimulating new neural growth. So, choose activities that get your blood pumping, such as aerobic exercise. Remember, what’s good for your heart is also good for your brain.

Good sleep

For your brain to work at optimal levels, it needs a good night’s sleep, in addition to all the training throughout the day. Over 95% of adults need seven and a half to nine hours of sleep every night to avoid sleep deficiency. There is a difference between the amount of sleep you need to work at your best and the minimum amount of sleep you can get. Studies show that sleep is essential for memory consolidation, with the key memory-enhancing activity happening through the deepest stages of sleep. Compromising on sleep—even for a few hours—may affect memory, problem-solving abilities, creativity, and thinking skills. One way to get better sleep is by turning off all screens at least one hour before bed. The blue light emission in tv, phone, and computer screens may trigger insomnia and suppress melatonin, the sleep hormone.

Meaningful relationships

Countless studies show that a life filled with friends and fun has many cognitive benefits. Healthy relationships are the ultimate brain booster. Humans are highly social animals and have evolved to survive in groups, not isolation. Socializing with others may offer the best kind of brain stimulation and mental exercise. Meaningful friendships provide a strong and vital support system for our brain and emotional health. There are many ways to take advantage of the memory-boosting benefits of socializing. You can join a club, see friends regularly, or do volunteer work. You can also enjoy similar emotional benefits of owning a pet, especially a dog.

Stress 

Stress is one of the worst enemies of the brain and can lead to memory loss. Over time, chronic stress destroys brain cells and may shrink the region of the brain that creates new memories and recovers old memories. Training your brain helps you notice your stress levels, so that you can take steps to calm your mind when it becomes overpowering. Decreasing your stress levels slows the release of stress chemicals and helps protect your brain against long-term damage.

Laughter is the best medicine 

Physiologist Daniel Goleman wrote in his book, Emotional Intelligence, “laughter seems to help people think more broadly and associate more freely”. It engages multiple regions across the brain and as well as the body. Watching a comedy and listening to jokes activates an area of the brain associated with learning and creativity. Surround yourself with playful and fun-loving people. Humor and laughter are infectious. Frame photographs with memories of you and your loved ones having fun. Interact with children, as they are experts on playing, laughing, and taking things lightly.

Brain-boosting diet

The brain needs fuel, just like the body. A diet based on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy fats—such as nuts, fish, olive oil, and lean protein—supplies a lot of health benefits and also improves memory. Research shows that omega-3 fatty acids are beneficial for brain health. If you don’t like seafood, you can find other sources of omega-3 in foods like walnuts, ground flaxseed, winter squash, seaweed, spinach, broccoli, pumpkin seeds, and soybeans. Ensure you eat plenty of fruits and vegetables in your daily diet. Packed with antioxidants, these organic foods guard your brain cells against harm.

Conclusion

You need to train your memory, and there are many ways to do that. By maintaining good brain health, your memory will last well into old age. 

For more tips on how to train your limitless brain, watch this video:

10 ADVANTAGES OF A TRAINED MEMORY

The benefits of a trained memory affect several aspects of your daily life. It prepares you for new challenges, improves attention, and strengthens cognitive skills in your daily routine. Your brain continues to learn and grow as you age, but you have to train your memory at regular intervals.

Here are ten advantages of having a trained memory.

Stronger Memory

Brain training expands your memory and helps you remember daily tasks or information. Things like where you left your keys, managing your household finances, and recalling telephone numbers or names.

Active memory is when your short-term memory keeps information ready and easily accessible. Working memory is where you complete those tasks. Long-term memory contains all of your experiences and allows you to recall those memories for extended periods of time.

Brain exercises are the most effective and complete memory workout on hand because they use all aspects of your memory actively, keeping those neural pathways clear.

Enhanced Creativity

One of the most important benefits of having a trained memory is that it enables you to imagine things from different angles. It results in better problem-solving abilities, greater flexibility, and more creative ideas.

Adaptable thinking allows you to go beyond looking at only the facts present to solve a problem. You can extend basic logic when you analyze information to arrive at different conclusions.

Brain training includes flexibility games, such as taking images or symbols and extending a pattern using a set of rules, which results in improved creativity.

Sharper Focus

Memory training improves your concentration, attention, and multitasking ability significantly. In short-term memory, attention is essential. In order for information to enter and remain available for processing, you have to notice it first.

The modern world is full of distractions. Social media, advertisements, and email all have notifications pinging and dinging to grab your attention. You might feel pulled in several directions, diverting your focus and attention to multiple tasks at a time.

Brain training helps you narrow your focus so you can give your full attention to one task at a time. It’s possible to train your focus, and that means never losing important information from distraction again.

Improved Attention

Memory training can also sharpen your visual skills by training your spatial and visual abilities. You learn to identify visual patterns and recall shapes. To help with recall and memorization, you’ll practice using your imagination to visualize various items to associate with what you’re learning.

These exercises give you deeper awareness of your surroundings and help you find details you might have missed before. You also get better at active listening because you’re engaged in remembering what the speaker is saying more than what you want to say next.

Quick Reaction Time

Slow reactions can be a constant source of frustration, particularly in the modern world, where almost everything depends on fast responses based on your power of evaluation.

For example, the ability to be a good driver depends on these three factors: the ability to assess the situation, sharper concentration, and quick reaction times. 

As you train your memory, speed drills help decrease your reaction times to multiple situations in your life. They also strengthen the pathways in your prefrontal cortex, improving your decision-making and problem-solving skills.

Extended Vocabulary

By enhancing your ability for auditory processing, brain exercises can help with language fluency. Repetitive exercises help you find words easily, increase memorization, and allow you to speak with confidence. 

You can apply memory exercises by learning a new language. As you apply unfamiliar words and grammar to your base knowledge, you broaden your grammatical understanding of your primary language.

Enhanced Working Memory

Working memory acts to merge the temporary storage and the processing of information. It allows comprehension, problem solving, and reason. But it has a limited capacity, which means it needs flexibility to perform daily tasks efficiently.

Training your memory requires you to use your working memory as you practice active recall. While it can’t increase your working memory too much, it helps ensure that you can maximize your memory capabilities to get more done when you need to.

Longer Short-Term Verbal Memory

Verbal short-term memory is similar to short-term visual memory. It preserves audio representations of words, numbers, and objects in terms of language.

This is important when it is comes to learning a new language, being able to comprehend instructions, and being an active listener in any conversation.

Faster Visual-Spatial Short-Term Memory

Visual-spatial memory is where visual information is stored for a short time. You use this memory whenever you want to remember visual details like a map or someone’s facial features.

When you train your memory, you learn to remember visual cues based on connecting them to other pieces of your long-term memory. This means you get better at making visual connections to new items quickly and effectively.

Conclusion

These are only a few ways you can benefit from having a trained memory. It has a positive impact on your daily lifestyle. Having a trained memory will help you develop new mental skills and will sustain your memory as you age.  

If you want more information on how to learn faster, watch this video: