Hi there !!! Hope all is well at your end !
I am Arnab, maverick, travel enthusiast, movie buff , new cuisine and culinary taster and a vociferous reader of any subject under the sun ranging from Zen Meditation to buzziest trends in Hollywood and Bollywood to Artificial Intelligence and alien life .Experiencing new places and meeting new people are what I like to do when I am not working on my professional assignments . I am reachable at [email protected] or tweet me at @arnabdasgupta75.
Let me ask you a few questions.
1. When are the respective birthdays of the gang of chums you hang out with ?
2. Which date did you go to your first date or had a crush on someone ?
3. What did you have for dinner last week this day ?
4. How much did you score on Maths on your 10th grade ?
5. What was name of your English teacher/ teachers in school ?
With social media encroaching our lives , every minute, every second, its impossible to keep track of everything and don’t expect Sir Google to remind you of everything at least not things personal to you .
But be careful, some things are so serious that forgetting them can lead to serious repercussions like your ATM pin , Customer id no , net banking password and maybe
emergency telephone nos.
Luckily the good news is that you can improve your memory . Here’s how to improve your memory scientifically.
Lets take a step backward and understand how much your brain can store ???
Professors at Northwestern University have figured out your brain can store at least 1 million gigabytes of memory.
To take a parallel context, that kind of memory is almost equivalent to watching at least 2 million hours of watching television . However take a note, binge watching leads to memory loss , be it randomly changing channels or scrolling through facebook or skimming through a book or a journal.
If you are between 40 to 60 , its advisable not to watch television for more than 4 hrs a day or there is a risk of dementia slowly creeping in . Dont we always have faced a situation , where someone says hello to us , we recognize the face but cant recall the name !!!! After a while you get to recall .
All this is happening of binge watching, reading and skimming through. The idea is whatever you are watching , reading or studying, stay focused one element at a time
rather than shuffling .
However there are good news . There are scientific proven method where researchers have found out how you might boost your memory right NOW !!!
1. 10 minutes of exercise per day goes a long way to improve your memory
2. Even a light freehand exercise everyday improves connectivity between dentate
gyrus and hippocampus which are two parts of the brain that are associated with
creating new memory formation
3. After your workout, take good rest for at least half an hour along with a good
night’s sleep which will work wonders for your memory lobes
4. Remember, while you are asleep , your brain is constantly at work compiling your
day’s experiences for future recall
5. After you wake up, make sure you have a warm , caffeinated tea or coffee.
Caffeine boosts memory . At John Hopkins University , researchers divided
volunteers into two groups. One group was given caffeine and the other placebo.
Then they were showed some images . The next day the images were mixed up in
terms of order how they were placed earlier , they were asked to identify images .
It was found out people who were given caffeine did much better in identifying the
images according to order.
Note : But pls do not get obsessed with caffeine because too much caffeine is bad
for you as well. Its a serious drug and unknown to us many people suffer from
caffeine addiction. It does have medical side effects and especially you might suffer
sleepless nights. So kindly take your coffee in moderate doses and extract the
benefit from it .
6. Meditate to improve your working memory . Working memory is that part where
new information is held temporarily. When you learn something new , maybe
someone’s name, a street address or even a short skill you keep them in working
memory till you arecomfortable . Later on you shift them to long term memory ,
for you to recall at a later stage. However in order to have a sharp working
memory, meditation is the best tool you have . Mindfulness meditation can improve your working memory a long way so that you don’t miss out the minutest
detail. Because later on this will get transferred to long term memory and you
would not like to miss out on a single point in that transfer.
7. Chew gums to for better memory retention. Although its still debatable where the
connection lies but according to some researchers, because it increases activity in
the hippocampus, most crucial area in the brain for memory retention, storage and
recall. Another theory is that the increase of oxygen from chewing gums can help
with focus and attention. Control group studies have shown that chewing gums
while learning new subjects, language, formulae leads to faster learning and easy
retention.
8. You must also might like to put flavonoids on your intake list. Flavonoids are
basically diverse group of plant chemicals that are good for the heart and also acts
a guard against cancer. But they also boost memory retention. Foods that are high
in flavonoids like blueberries or cocoa have been shown to improve memory.
9. While the research isn’t conclusive one study published by Journal of Agricultural
and Chemistry showed a group of senior citizens in their 70s have shown slow rate
of memory decline , much below the normal rate at which memory declines at this
age, after they have taken two servings of blueberries every day for several
weeks..
So friends, its not a rocket science to improve your memory !!! Just a healthy
lifestyle is what is required . Eat well, sleep well, enjoy your daily jog and exercises
and get your daily mug of coffee and blueberries and cocoa..
However if you are still facing problems , even after adhering to a healthy life , try
this quick tip
When you need to remember a list of points , try making an acronym from the first
letter of each item from the list you need to remember . This process is called
mnemonics .
In Japan, its a regular practice to use mnemonics children use to remember things ,
topics before exams .
To quickly sum up :
1. Realise the power of your brain. Human brain is far more powerful than NASA
Supercomputer. Its potential is yet unknown. So more you practice mindful brain exercises, you will achieve more productivity in short span of time and
cut off all your negative habits by uopening your prefrontal cortex which is
responsible for cognitive analysis which in turn strengthens your will power
2. Make your brain your hobby. As soon as you make it, it becomes your child
and you end up in more productive activities like learning new skills, reading
more books on various subjects, visiting knowledge centres, attending
seminars .
3. Use your left and right brain in tandem for better retention. For beginners, left
brain usually is dominant in logic, analysis, decision making, structure, patterns
while the right brain is more active in areas in color identification, imagery,
visual cues etc. If you use both in tandem , chances are there you
will tend to learn a new thing faster, retain it and recall it even after 20 years.
4. Recap . Keep on revising your old memory and develop a habit of recalling
important things from time to time. It is already known best athletes bleed in
practise so that they don’t have to sweat in the actual match . So recap has
always been a positive exercise and you might maintain a journal as well .
So, hope this article was helpful. Wishing you happy boosted elephant’s memory
because a happy memory leads to positivity and a happy life . Cheers !!!
