Being a student, you ought to have it as your number one priority to make sure you have stronger brain power. It is one that will help you to memorize things you are taught in class with ease. With this huge academic asset, you are bound to be a winner.
Students with poor memory, mostly have it tough in their academic pursuits, since they will constantly forget what they learned, because of insufficient brain power, or because they just did not put in the right amount of effort.
Either way, no one was born with a good head better than the other. It may be true that there are naturally born geniuses and smart people, as well as those who are slow when it comes to grasping information. But there are those who out of sheer effort and determination were able to be claimed geniuses as well.
Therefore, there has been a growing need to research some ways to increase a person’s memory, for several reasons, one of which is for students who have it hard to remember what they were taught. Developing your memory is not a very challenging feat, it is a rather interesting one. However, most people find them worrisome due to how involved some of the activities may be.
But honestly, for you to get something, anything you want, you must be ready to put in at least some effort that will guarantee some desired results. Since our brain is a malleable material, improving memory can be a very interesting activity once you decide to.
And so in this blog today, we will provide you with some ways you can improve your memory as a student. The methods have been divided into two; how you increase your memory by natural means, and then, by using techniques that have been proven by experts. Are we ready? Let us dive right into it.
Improving Your Memory By Natural Means
Enjoy A Mediterranean Diet
Mediterranean diets are simply foods that consist of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and the like. You might as well call these foods the brain food because, aside from the immense benefit your body gets from these foods, your brain is not left out.
Prioritizing these kinds of food has a very direct impact on your brain. Eating foods like salmon, nuts, and avocados is said to enhance your brain power significantly, thereby enhancing your memory. Most of these foods contain omega 3 and 6 fatty acids that help your brain to form new brain cells as well as maintain and protect them from wearing out.
They help to keep your brain very flexible yet tough. Enabling you to process information, store, and retrieve with ease.
Workout A lot
Another way to enhance your memory is to work out daily. A body that is constantly on the move has good blood flowing through all parts of the body. And the brain is never left out. Working out daily has been proven to be a neuroplastic activity.
Meaning that, when you take your body through a consistent workout routine daily, it has the ability to alter the neurons in your brain, as well as new blood vessels are generated to provide your brain with much oxygenated blood from the heart.
This oxygenated blood keeps your brain in good health. This means when your brain is in good health, then logically you would also have a stronger memory. If you are not a fan of working out vigorously, do not worry as walking alone for long distances is another form of working out. It also helps to improve blood flow significantly throughout the body.
Aside from the benefits your brain gets, you must not forget that other parts of your body also benefit a lot so, you would be killing many birds with one throw of a stone.
Meditating
Aside from working out daily, you must also involve yourself in ample meditation sessions. Meditation is a neuroplastic activity that is shown to have an impact on our brain and essentially our memory. As a student, meditating at least 20 to 30 minutes a day has been shown to increase the level of grey matter in the left side of your hippocampus.
Although it may seem like a waste of time to you since you probably might have a lot on your hands, prioritize good time management skills and reap the benefits of this life-changing activity.
It is said that dense grey matter in your brain has a way of impacting your ability to process information store and retrieve them in an efficient manner. This means you would have no problem recalling information you have come across several times.
And if you do not know, your hippocampus is the area in your brain where short and long-term memories are formed. Therefore it is only reasonable to enhance your memory by means of daily meditation.
Do not expect a magical result from this activity, you must know that, it takes time. So have that patience yourself and turn the meditation into a habit, and with time, you will see the results you desire.
Sleep
Most students undermine the importance of having ample rest. Sleep is a way for your body to relax and rejuvenate your worn-out body. Since learning is an activity that burdens the brain, stressing it out by not resting enough will lead to burnout.
You must care for it by making good sleep your priority. It does not necessarily have to be the kind of sleep you think is inevitable to have ( a good night’s sleep ) but also having short naps in between your studies.
When you sleep, your brain makes use of your inactivity to start working on all the data you collected throughout the day, by processing them and storing them somewhere in the brain where you can easily retrieve them when needed.
With a good and restful sleep, your brain is able to consolidate your memories for easy retrieval in the future.
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Learn A Musical Instrument
Learning a musical instrument is another way to improve your memory. When you attend musical classes or have one on your own in the comfort of your home, you directly impact your brain with each and every single activity involved, due to how impactful it can be on your memory by creating deep and strong neural pathways in the brain.
Learning a musical instrument is popularly known by scientists to be a neuroplastic activity that helps to greatly enhance your memory. Practicing a musical instrument daily has been shown to increase the quantity of grey matter in your brain.
Also, music can contribute to the deepening of the connection between the right and left hemispheres of the human brain. So if you want to improve your memory, get yourself a guitar or better still a music teacher and start strumming to the strings of your neurons. You will not regret it.
Drink Plenty Water
Did you know that your brain is made up of about 75 percent water? This shows that water is required a lot in this power-hungry organ. Since the brain is always on the move and never resting, it is only normal that it will wear out and start working in a slower fashion once it is deprived of water.
Water is more like a lubricating oil for your brain. A moment of dehydration can be injurious to the health of your brain, which can affect your mood, your reactivity, concentration, and most importantly your memory.
Aside from that, your ability to perform arithmetic activities. Without proper hydration, your brain cells will be deprived of water hence impacting your ability to retrieve long-term memories. Therefore make sure to drink more water and stay hydrated always for the sake of your brain and memory.
It will be uncomfortable at first since you would have to visit your washroom every now and then but it all would be worth it in the long run. Also, one way to know if you are properly hydrated is, your urine would be colorless, just like water. When you see this sign, know that your memory is safe and in good hands.
Be Organised
As a student, the importance of being well-organized can never be emphasized enough. You must give yourself clarity of mind by arranging your study space in a pleasant order, as it helps you to reduce mental stress from just looking at them.
When your study place is a clustered mess, you can not be focused enough to retain what you learn. Being focused is one way for your brain to undergo a memorization process.
In that way, it is able to acknowledge every piece of data it receives from your senses with ease when you are not stressed by how unkempt your environment is. Even aside from that, when your study space is not well organized, it serves as a distraction that also impedes the growth of new neurons when you are unable to progress with your study with the required focus and concentration.
Therefore before you decide to learn, make sure your study place is neat, especially your desk. Make sure you have arranged your books in a way such that you can assess them easily as well as having ample space on your desk where you can be able to work freely with no limitations.
When your desk and environment are that free, it also reflects in your mind and gives you the peace of mind required to learn and retain information.
Techniques To Enhance Memory
The Chunking Method
The Chunking Method is one of the many memorization techniques that can be used to enhance your memory significantly. This technique is more like the notion of divide and conquer. It requires you to break large pieces of information into smaller bits that your brain can process easily as well as store with ease.
You must have used this technique some time ago without realizing it. A typical example is how you memorize a phone number. For instance, you have this number +01011223232, this number can be memorized easily by using the chunking method. For example, you may divide the numbers into four sets, and you will memorize each set separately.
After a while, you will realize that you are able to memorize the number with ease. You can use this method also in your normal studies to retain information much faster.
Spaced Repetition
Another credible memorization technique is spaced repetition. The brain is a very wonderful material and works more like how a clean sheet is when we are young. The more information it comes into contact with, it absorbs and continues to do so till we die.
But since it is not all information the brain can absorb and store, you would have to attend to it once in a while to make sure it sticks in. And that is how the spaced repetition method works. Continuously revisiting your study material helps your brain to cement that piece of information in your brain turning it from short-term memory to long-term memory, such that, after course completion, even if you have slightly forgotten the material, you will still have a general idea of what it was.
Spaced repetition does not only help with your memory, it also helps you to understand the material you learned, especially when it is difficult. When you understand a concept, then naturally remembering it will not be a problem.
When you read over a difficult material for the first time, your brain will not immediately make nothing of it, but rather, it will try to process it as long as you continuously visit that particular material over a period of time until you eventually get it.
In this process, you will most of the time have dreams about that material. It is natural, it is the brain doing its thing. Later, whether you are able to understand it or not, you will be able to remember it because your brain has built neural paths for it, and with continuous revisiting, those pathways will be strengthened for easy retrieval in the future.
The Feynman Technique
With this method, you try to teach what you learned to an imaginary student, also it could be your friend. This method is mostly used by learners who prioritize group studies.
After learning material, they will try to teach their mates so that, in the process of sharing the knowledge they acquired, they also cement it in their brains for easy retrieval when needed.
Visualization
If you are a student without a photographic memory, this is your chance. This is more like a duplicate of the photographic memory. Whenever you are taught anything in class, whether you understand or not, try to visualize the material.
It helps you to keep them in your memory. Most learners find it hard to recall text information but this method helps them in easy recall. You can use it by having a mental image of certain concepts and how they relate to other concepts in the lesson. A typical visualization method is mapping.
Jingles
With jingles, you memorize using music. When given a material you find hard to recall, why not turn the material into nice music? It will help you to have fun, as well as remember the material with ease whenever needed.
Summarize
The summarization method requires you to break down what you were taught throughout the day into a small piece of information that your brain can easily process and store. It seems more like chunking but in this sense, you break the material into a few sentences that provide you with a general idea of what you were taught.
Finally, Keep Flashcards
Keeping flashcards can be an interesting way to enhance your memory. With flashcards, you can implement the mapping visualization method, as well as the summarization.
When you keep flashcards, you are able to record vital information about your material and paste it on your board or your wall in the form of mapping. You can arrange them in order of relations. With this, you are able to remember what you learn every day, once you see it.
Final Words
All these are some of the ways you can improve your memory. It will not work if you only read this article and then sleep. Take the initiative and start working on yourself today.
