5 useful techniques for enhancing your memory

The majority of people don’t trouble themselves to memorize lists, phone numbers, or birthdays of close friends. Why waste our time securing important information to memory if Facebook will remind you to wish your aunt and uncle a happy anniversary? Why should a journalist or a college essay writer need to remember any facts, dates, or terms when Google knows everything for you?

This blog was written by freelance writer, John McGill.

Technology has alleviated many of the responsibilities of our memory. Our reliance on technology is making it increasingly difficult for people to recollect where they have left their keys, what they meant to buy in the mall or the name of their colleague’s wife. We take our memory for granted and expect it to serve us throughout the whole life. Unfortunately, this approach to memory is unrealistic and even harmful to your brain.

What is memory?

Memory is a mental capacity of a human being which enables us to learn something new, establish connections between objects and complete tasks of various complexity every day.

Exercising the brain

It is vital to take care of the state of our health throughout life: stick to healthy eating, engage in sports, and exercise your memory to improve it and stimulate mental activity. As a matter of fact, remembering information is quite a complicated process. There are three types of memory, depending on the ability to perceive and memorize new information. They include long-term, short-term, and working memories. Owing to such graduation and sorting of data in the brain, a person can perform an uncountable number of various tasks.

Memory over time

Unfortunately, memory gets weaker with age. Changes that happen in the brain when we get older cause significant impairment of memory. The biggest problem is that mental activities and the quality of memory impair so much that people can develop serious diseases (Alzheimer’s disease is one of them).

Luckily, there are special techniques which can help us improve our memory. Daily exercises are required for keeping the brain in good shape. We can easily compare training our mind to training our muscles. Let’s review some useful techniques for enhancing your memory.

1. Learn new information every day

Many people have a false belief that studying is important only when we attend a school or university. However, becoming a lifelong learner will keep our brain fit at every stage of life. A learning process is often underestimated. It is key to strengthening and enhancing memory.

During studying, you force your mind to abandon its comfort zone and stimulate its mental activity. It’s usually quiescent when you don’t provide your brain with new information. Therefore, we highly recommend you practice any or all of these tasks for improving memory:

• Start exploring facts which always interested you;
• Pick up a new foreign language to learn;
• Find a topic you are not familiar with and dive into it;
• Learn how to play a musical instrument.

2. Memorize simple facts

It’s not necessary to overload your brain with complicated data to provoke mental activity. Memorizing simple data is quite effective in intensifying the brain’s ability to remember and store new pieces of information.

Try memorizing at least one item from this list daily:

• an address;
• somebody’s Birthday;
• a phone number;
• a list of products to buy at the grocery;

Moreover, you can choose any day and try to recall every detail of how you’ve spent it: the food you’ve eaten, places visited, etc.

3. Compile mental maps

Creating “mental maps” is a simple task which not only activates the brain’s activity but also increases its ability to store new information.

Creating these mental maps is can be done by drawing a map of any place in your mind. You can choose a location you have visited many times before or one you have always wanted to. Once the map is ready, try to explore the route and add new details every time you “visit” it.

4. Learn new acronyms or poems

Memorizing acronyms and poems assists in speeding up mental activity. When the task seems to be too easy for you, try writing a poem with acronyms yourself. It’s not only extremely useful but fun.

5. Use your opposite hand

If you are right-handed, you have likely always written and completed most of your daily tasks with your right hand but have you ever tried using your non-dominant hand? Using our ‘other’ hand actually activates the opposite cerebral hemisphere in the brain that is activated while using our dominant hand. When I was studying a foreign language, I had a problem with remembering new words. My teacher advised me to write those new words with my left hand. It was difficult and funny at the same time but I was impressed with the results! It seemed that they were carved into my memory.

Here are some simple assignments to try with your non-dominant hand:

• write anything down;
• brush your teeth;
• dial a phone number and speak on the phone;
• eat something holding a spoon or a fork in the other hand.

About the author:
I’m John McGill, freelance writer at WriteMyEssayOnline, and a passionate moviegoer. I’m fond of writing useful content about marketing, student life, and psychology. Adore reading comments under my posts – they inspire me a lot!