Staying organized can be difficult, and we all forget things from time to time. As we get older, though, we tend not to be able to partake in activities that we had been able to previously and a good memory can be debilitating to lose. There are simple steps we can take in our day-to-day lives to help improve our memory, however, and so long as you are willing to put in the effort of improving your health you stand a good chance of seeing a better life down the road.
Many health problems can be prevented by taking care of yourself before that problem occurs at all, so trying to live more healthily is usually a decent place to start. Diets are a popular way to do this, and while some diets are more effective than others there are tangible benefits for your memory if you don’t go overboard with some kinds of foods.
Indeed, there is research that would indicate that binging on food that contains a lot of fat and sugar could be bad for your memory. Going one step farther and monitoring your carb intake may be wise, too, since eating far too many carbs than what your body needs can lead to what is known as “mild cognitive impairment” and may lead to additional problems down the road.
The kinds of food that someone might eat are not the only potential contributors to a difficult mental health situation, mind, but taking charge of your diet could very well help prevent something like Alzheimer disease from affecting you later in life.
In addition to pursuing a better diet, you should also consider doing some mental exercises. A memory improvement regimen need not even include excessive mental strain if you don’t feel up for it, with meditation being one example of a mental exercise that succeeds in both reducing stress and improving your memory overall for many people.
You should also continue to learn throughout your entire life, even when you stop taking high-school or college classes as doing so is another great way to keep up your mental health. Even if the new skill that you learn is as simple as quilting it will be good for your brain. Other exercises like recalling your day in as much detail as you can before you go to sleep can be beneficial and many of these techniques require little setup anyhow, so even if you are skeptical it is worth trying out for a little while in any event.
There is also reason to believe that interacting socially with other people can help improve your memory as well. Some scientists even consider social interaction to be the most complex “function” that human brains perform, despite its apparent ease relative to other activities.
With this in mind, it may be advantageous to keep a photo album of various social activities that you review on occasion as photographs have been found to be another way in which you can improve your visual memory. Keeping an extremely large photograph collection might require some organization, and eventually online photo storage if you are especially enthusiastic, but few other media bring back memories in the same way that photographs do.
Many health problems can be prevented if you make a few changes in your daily life and memory problems are no different. While not every mental health problem can be entirely prevented, doing your best to stay in shape, both physically and mentally, will certainly help. Learning new things could even bring benefits you had not originally considered when you set out to start with so if you are feeling bored perhaps it would be a good idea to pick up a hobby or learn a new skill.
A professional writer with over a decade of incessant writing skills. Her topics of interest and expertise range from health, nutrition and psychology.