12 Simple Ways To Boost Your Memory (A Guide for Older Adults)
Boost your memory, it can be a great way to stay mentally sharp and active. It can be difficult to keep up with technology while also remembering where you put the remote. It becomes even more important for older adults to maintain their memories to live independently for as long as possible. This article will discuss easy ways to boost your memory, stop memory loss, and improve mental health at any stage in life!
The first step in improving memory is identifying and treating health problems
Do you feel that your memory has taken an unexplainable dip? If so, there may be a health or lifestyle problem to blame. There are many diseases and disorders that can interfere with memory and cause memory loss:
Heart disease and its risk factors. Cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, have been linked to mild cognitive impairment in patients who suffer from conditions such as diabetes mellitus (DM). DM is associated with higher rates of dementia than those without it - in one study, up to 90% had moderate-to-severe amnestic deficits at age 60. ([am-nes´tik] characterized by or pertaining to amnesia. Amnestic disorders are mental disorders characterized by acquired impairment in the ability to learn and recall new information, sometimes accompanied by an inability to recall previously learned information, and not coupled to dementia or delirium.)
Menopause can make it difficult to think straight and remember things. As estrogen levels decline in women, the balance of hormones necessary for memory storage is disrupted, leaving many feeling foggy-headed or lost. Men experience a dip in testosterone as they age, impacting their ability to retain information during recall time. It's important to stay on top of medications and any over-the-counter remedies you take, such as cold medicine, sleep aids like Ambien, antidepressants like Paxil (maybe), etc. All have side effects related to cognition, so be careful about what goes into your body!
There are several factors at play when experiencing memory problems, like forgetfulness from hormone imbalance, including thyroid imbalances and some medications can affect memory problems and increase age related memory loss.
So see your Doctor regularly to provide medical advice.
People who feel powerless over their memory skills are less likely to work on or maintain those skills and as a result are more likely to experience cognitive decline. Here are steps which will empower you.
Depression?
Mental health is just as crucial to the brain's well-being and improve memory function. Depression can make it literally impossible for older people, especially those experiencing dementia symptoms, to remember anything at all. When depression goes untreated - or when treatment fails in these cases - it not only makes mental tasks more difficult but also renders a person incapable of recalling any memories whatsoever! Luckily though, with proper care that involves treating depression first before trying medication, other treatments like therapy and exercise are there to help restore your mind's ability to remember things again.
We will start with what you eat.
Eat a brain-boosting Healthy diet That Improves Your Brain Function!
The body needs adequate nutrition to function properly, and that includes the brain. Eating the appropriate foods and avoiding the wrong ones can be an effective strategy for feeding your brain and keeping it fit and healthy for life.
Eat protein that is high in omega-three fatty acids. Omega-three fats are beneficial for the heart and good for overall health, but they also help with memory loss. Protein contains amino acids that your body needs to form new cells, including neurons and neurotransmitters; eating enough protein can lead to improved cognitive function while promoting weight loss at the same time.
We include some of the foods for brain-boosting, but it is beyond the scope of this article to get into deep medical research results. The following is advice, try and see which of the foods you like.
Fatty Fish may improve your memory!
As we mention brain-rich foods, the first that comes to mind are fish oil supplements. These fatty fishes are an excellent source of omega 3s, which help build membranes around cells in your body, including your brain cells. That’s right! Omega 3 fats can actually improve the structure and function of a person's neurons and their long-term memory loss by providing them with better cellular protection throughout life.
Eating foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids has been shown to boost brain function. For example, a study found that people with high levels of these fats improved brain vascularity. This is something you should definitely think about when planning your meals for tomorrow!
Excellent sources of omega-3 fatty acids include tuna, sardines, salmon, herring, and mackerel, or non-fish sources like flax seeds, walnuts, and soybeans.
Fish is GOOD for your brain!
Walnuts
Walnuts are full of a powerhouse nutrient called omega-3 fatty acids, which help to boost brainpower.
Walnuts are not just delicious: they're also great for your cognitive function! Studies show that walnut consumption is associated with improved performance on cognitive tests like memory loss and concentration. Walnuts may even improve how fast information processes in the brain as well - so be sure to eat up these tasty nuts whenever you get the chance!
Blueberries
Blueberry concentrate is a natural brain-boosting solution that can help you stay focused, improve your memory, stop memory loss, and protect against cognitive decline.
Blueberries Protect against Cognitive Decline
Lutein
Lutein is found in kale and spinach, as well as avocados and eggs, and may counter cognitive aging. When consumed plentifully by the elderly population for a period of time, it can improve learning ability levels from memory to vocabulary fluency.
Source of Lutein
Broccoli
The best way to protect your brain cells is with vegetables, those who eat more fruits and vegetables have a lower risks of cognitive decline and dementia. Broccoli, in particular, has a lot of nutrients that will fight off inflammation and keep cells healthy!
Avocado
Avocados are delicious and healthy. Eating avocados is not only great for heart health but also boosts our brain function.
Eating avocado will promote positive changes to your cardiovascular system as well as provide benefits to the brain!
Avocados are good for your heart and brain! By helping control blood pressure, monounsaturated fats in avocado may help protect the aging brain.
Avocados are Great for Heart Health and Brain Function
Oranges
Oranges are an essential part of a healthy diet to improve your memory. One orange provides you all the vitamin C your body needs in one day to ward off mental decline and Alzheimer’s Disease, as well as provide fiber for optimal health.
Chocolate and cocoa
Chocolate and cocoa are the ultimate power foods that can make you smarter! Cocoa is so delicious, energizing, satisfying, and chock-full of antioxidants. Research shows how this wonder food may improve your memory performance, memory loss, and processing speed in a variety of ways too. You will sleep better at night with a less likely chance of being distracted.
Eating dark chocolate also makes you happy and puts you in a positive mood.
Chocolate Makes You Happy!
Turmeric
Turmeric, the spice that brightens up any curry or spicy dish, has many health benefits you should know about. It's an orange-ish yellow, and it tastes great!
Curcumin is the most active compound of turmeric. Research shows that Curcumin is a powerful antioxidant, and it's widely used for its therapeutic properties. It may help improve memory in Alzheimer’s disease patients!
Curcumin was also found to have mood-boosting effects. It helps boost serotonin and dopamine, which improve our mood by improving sleep patterns and fighting against depression.
Eggs
Eggs are probably not the tastiest breakfast item, but they offer a very well-rounded meal. Eggs contain many nutrients like vitamin B6, vitamin B12 that help build your brain while you're still young! Choline is an essential nutrient for life that plays vital roles in our body, including healthy development of cognitive functions such as memory.
The B vitamins found in eggs has many cognitive benefits and may help delay the progression of mental decline and combat depression. A deficiency of vitamin B12 has been linked to cognitive impairments, especially among older individuals with dementia.
This makes eggs one of the best foods for brain health as well as improved mood!
Eggs may help to combat depression.
Green Tea
Green tea is a versatile drink that can be used for both its flavor and health benefits. Green Tea contains caffeine which has been shown to increase brain function, boost concentration levels, memory performance, focus and decrease memory loss.
Drinking green tea can reduce anxiety and help you feel relaxed. The amino acid L-theanine helps increase GABA activity, a neurotransmitter that reduces stress levels to create a calming effect on your brain!
Green tea is the perfect way to kick back, relax, and enjoy some much-deserved "me" time. One study has found that L-theanine in green tea helps you do just this by counteracting caffeine's stimulating effects while boosting brain health with antioxidants and polyphenols. So go ahead - make yourself a cup of your favorite brew!
Coffee
Caffeine gives you a burst of energy and can increase your brain’s ability to process information. Experts found that caffeine causes an increase in the number of neural states our brains are capable of accessing, which is positively linked with intelligence.
Coffee is also a good source of antioxidants that support brain health as one grows older! Studies have linked consumption to lower risks for Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and Parkinson's disease.
Some studies have found links between drinking coffee and reduced risk of developing heart diseases or other serious conditions like type 2 diabetes.
The recommended intake of coffee is 400 mg per day (5 cups of coffee).
Coffee is Good for You Heart
Memory Boost by getting physically active
Exercise is the key to a healthy and sharp mind. For your brain's memory cells to stay in good shape, it is important to keep active and ensure you are getting enough oxygen by exercising! Exercise increases oxygen levels which helps with blood flow and circulation throughout the body, including blood flow to our brains where we need it most. When people over 50 years old participate in an aerobic activity or resistance training, they might experience improved cognitive abilities such as better moods, sleep quality, energy levels, and even motor skills like walking uphill without becoming winded too quickly.
It would be best to try to incorporate exercise into your daily routine as often and for as long as possible because it is an excellent way to enhance memory. In addition, when you are active during the day or even in just small intervals throughout the day, such as taking breaks at work and walking up stairs rather than using elevators will help maintain brain function better so that all those memories don't stop coming.
Boost Memory By Getting Physically Active
Take a power nap
Do you think that enhancing your memory will be challenging? Think again; with a nap, it's easy to improve your cognitive abilities. Memory is important for day-to-day life and can often deteriorate without sleep. One way to boost your memory is to sleep enough. Sleep plays an important role, and helps you consolidate memories, which means you'll be able to recall them later on. A short period of sleep in the afternoon could mean all the difference between remembering or forgetting valuable information: After just one snooze, people tend to have improved retention and perform better on tests! Skipping out on napping means missing an opportunity for optimal mental health - so don't worry about getting too sleepy during work hours: take some time off from multitasking as soon as possible!
Many people looking to get ahead in life will try anything, including sleep. Sleep is imperative for optimal brain function, and memory consolidation - make sure you have enough sleep per day. It has been found that sleeping between learning sessions can help you retain more information and perform better on tests or projects than those who don't take a break during the day.
Memory tests showed that taking an hour-long nap after lunch improves the cognitive abilities of older adults by improving their ability for reasoning, judgment skills, word recall speed, concentration span, and all other aspects tested equally compared with those not napping at all!
Taking a Nap Improves Cognitive Abilities
One way to boost The memory is by working Your brain
The popularity of brain exercise apps has turned the industry into a billion-dollar business. Mental exercise can help keep mental skills sharp, preserve, and enhance memory in old age.
However, you can use techniques to help you learn to encode and recall important information, which is called mnemonic devices. These methods can be your power boost when needing to remember people’s names - at a big event, for example.
Types of mnemonic devices include:
"People often recall items more easily if they associate them with a location or route. The method of loci is one such form, where you use the things along your way to help you remember other information."
Acronyms are another useful tool for remembering lists and categories that can be difficult to memorize otherwise. For example, CAKE could stand for cheese, apples, kale, and eggs"
Chunking is a way to break down large pieces of information into smaller, more manageable chunks that are easier for us to remember, such as breaking telephone numbers in the United States into three segments instead of trying to remember all ten digits separately.
Boost your imagery powers which will help you recall pairs of words by recalling specific images, which will also help to process and memorize associated information better.
The more your brain exercises, the easier it becomes for our brains' neural pathways to boost development of new connections. The best brain games we have found so far involve completing puzzles, playing chess, crosswords or doing other challenging tasks.
Play Chess to Improve Your Memory
the practical steps one can take to support learning and memory
The process of managing stress can be a great way to protect your brain and memory. One effective technique is listening to music or meditation, which has been shown time and again by studies as one of the best ways for you to eliminate chronic stress from damaging cells in your hippocampus (the region of the brain involved in the formation of new memories) - an area that affects memory loss with old age! So take some time out today listen to a song on repeat while meditating about all those things you love most in life and how much they mean not only now but also when it's later down the road. You'll find yourself feeling more relaxed than ever before - and with a better outlook too!
Additionally, if you find that a scent relaxes you, try using rosemary essential oil.
Have an enjoyable time with friends
An Active Social Life Boosts Memory
Stress can impair your memory, so do everything you can to manage stress levels
Stress is one of the most harmful things to your brain. When under stress, our brains produce stress hormones like cortisol. Even though cortisol can aid in some memory processes, it also inhibits our ability to remember Trusted Sources and long-term memories. Over time, it destroys cells and damages regions like the hippocampus responsible for forming new memories or retrieving old ones! Studies have also shown that stress can lead to memory loss over time as well.
Some tips on how you might manage (or prevent) some stressful situations include:
Setting realistic expectations; being willing to say no in order not to exceed those limitations.
- Taking breaks throughout a day - this doesn't mean procrastinating all night because then sleep deprivation will be more likely during daytime hours instead of just taking an actual break from work when possible.
- Expressing feelings vs. bottling them up - bottled emotions tend only to exacerbate any current situation, so expressing yourself may feel better than bottling.
- You can put your work and leisure time in a healthy balance by focusing on one task at a time.
Laugh often
How does laughter do all that? There are several explanations as to how and why this is true. It seems like feelings of amusement positively affect the human brain, activating multiple regions across the whole body. This includes areas related to learning and creativity - two skills we could use more of in these modern times! I’ve heard some people say they feel happier after laughing than before, which suggests there may be something biologically significant about it too. The bottom line is: Laughter really improves our mental health by boosting moods while also increasing activity in those parts of our brains responsible for logic, problem-solving power, verbal intelligence, or linguistic memory (whatever you need most!). So next time you want an easy way to feel good - laugh!
Laugh at yourself and share your embarrassing stories with others. The best way to take ourselves less seriously is by talking about the times when we took ourselves too seriously.
Spend time with playful, fun people who laugh easily - both at themselves and life's absurdities, because that will help you appreciate all of its humor in everyday events. Surrounding yourself children proves they're experts on playing, taking things lightly, and laughing!
Laughter is the Best Medicine
In Conclusion
In this article we have compiled a list of small easy steps that can contribute to BOOSTING your memory. Do something for yourself every day and remember to watch what you eat.
