Try finding creative things to do during the day in order to exercise your brain.  Believe it or not, your brain is like a muscle that needs to be exercised.  Use the activities that you do on an everyday basis to exercise your mind.  Maybe you are an avid TV watcher.  Rather then just watching a game show, try to answer the questions.  Or you can play a game with the commercials.  Pay attention to the commercials that seem to be on a lot throughout the show.  Before the next commercial break, try to guess which commercial you think might be coming up by remembering the ones that have reoccurred during the show.  Or maybe you love to read the newspaper everyday.  You could exercise your mind by doing the puzzles that are in the paper everyday.  Plus, simply reading is a brain exercise.  Try reading out loud in order to concentrate on the information that you are taking in so you can remember it later on.  Or use the things that you do at work to exercise your memory.  Try assigning everyone at work a color in the beginning of the day.  Then at the end of the day, test yourself to see if you remember what colors you assigned them.  Test your memory on your way to and from work.  Find a new route home one day.  Then, the next day, see if you can remember the streets that you took the day before. 

You can also improve your memory by exercising your brain with an activity that you have never done before.  Try learning a new language.  Or you can learn to play a new instrument.  What about writing a poem to give your brain a little exercise?  You could also build a model car or ship.  Working with small details and following instructions like those involved in building a model is a great way to practice concentrating.  One simple way to improve your memory is to pay better attention to what you are doing at the moment.  One of the reasons we forget things is because we are too distracted by other things to remember the information in the first place.  Doing these things forces your brain to concentrate on what you are currently doing.

Practice improving your memory every chance that you get.  You can look at almost anything as a chance to practice these memory games.  If you are out to eat at a restaurant, randomly assign the people around you a name.  Enjoy your appetizer then look around again to see how many names you can remember.  These simple games can also make the time fly when you are standing in line at the bank or waiting in a doctor’s office.

A very simple example of a mnemonic is the “30 days hath September” rhyme for remembering the number of days in each calendar month.  Mnemonics can make very little sense to those who hear them, but still work very efficiently for the user.  Perhaps it is because a strange or funny mnemonic may stay in the user’s mind better.

The human brain codes and interprets complex information such as images, colors, structures, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, positions, emotions and language.  We use this information to make sophisticated models of the world we live in.  Our memories store all of this information very effectively.  For example, if I mention the word “cloud” you might instantly think of several different word associations like white, fluffy, rain, sky, etc.  In the same way that your brain is able to easily bring up the information associated with the word “cloud”, you can use a mnemonic to bring up information that you have associated with it.  Another example of a mnemonic is the word “scuba”.  Each letter in the word “scuba” stands for something.  It is an acronym for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.

A mnemonic has been commonly used to teach the order of the planets of the universe.  The goal is to remember the order of the planets as follows: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.  Before reading on, create your own sentence by using the first letter of each of the planet names.  My sentence is as follows:  My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Noodles.  You can be as creative as you like with your associations when you are creating mnemonic phrases.  But, try to avoid negative or violent associations because these associations are actually more difficult for your brain to recall.  Stick with positive associations so you can recall the mnemonic images quickly.  Also, another tip to using mnemonics to improve your memory is to make your mnemonic images as memorable as possible.  You should never underestimate the power of humor; the funnier a mnemonic image, the better.

Since the idea behind using mnemonics is to encode difficult-to-remember information in a way that is much easier to remember, it is a very effective way to help you to improve your memory.  So if you are a student preparing for an exam, or your job requires you to recall information, or you simply want to remember the items on your grocery list, the use of mnemonics is a great tool.

Does it surprise you to learn that eight seconds is the amount of time you need to completely focus your attention upon something in order to effectively transfer it from you short to your long-term memory?  Sometimes the reason that you can’t remember something is because you never got the information into your memory to begin with.  Everyone has those moments where you put your keys or your glasses down without noticing.  Inevitably we end up wasting a lot of time looking for the lost items later on.  But the items were lost in the first place because our minds were not in the present and were really not concentrating on what we were doing.  A simple way to improve your memory is to keep your mind on the present and really pay close attention to what you are doing at the moment.  One way to concentrate on even the smallest actions is to repeat out loud what you’re doing.  For example, say aloud, “I am putting my keys on the kitchen counter” as you put your keys down.  You should also minimize distractions like music, television or phone calls to allow yourself to focus fully on what you are doing.

Simply concentrating on the present will boost your ability to remember the names of new people that you meet.  Often times when meeting new people, we can be more obsessed with how we look and the impression that we are making than actually paying attention to what the person is saying.  You can practice your ability to concentrate by reading an article in a newspaper or a magazine and then explaining the article to someone else.  Were you able to remember all of the details or do you need to pay better attention when you’re reading?  Although writing is a rich and useful medium, our brains do not easily encode written information which makes the information we read difficult to remember.  Just by concentrating a little harder, you can improve on the way that you take in this kind of information.  After watching one of your favorite television shows, see if you can remember the outfits that various characters wore throughout the program.  If you can remember many of the small details, then your memory is getting good exercise.

Some memory improvement techniques require you to think of entertaining and useful visualizations for incoming information.  But, this skill will be useless if you’re not concentrating on what you need to remember in the first place.  Some people scribble things like phone numbers or one-word reminders on Post-It notes to help them to remember things thinking that it is all of the information they will need later.  But, without concentrating on why you need the information in the first place and its value to you, that slip of paper is useless.  A lot of the information we have to remember in modern life is presented differently but just by concentrating a little harder, you can improve your memory and improve your life.

Most of the ways that you can change your behavior in order to improve your memory are easy.  For example, some research indicates that reading aloud can help you to remember the information that you are reading about better.  For some people, speaking and hearing words helps the information to connect better in their brain.

Also, people’s memory and alcohol have an interesting relationship.  Although more research needs to be done, there is evidence that light to moderate alcohol consumption can improve your memory and cognition. Too much drinking handicaps the memory but, some studies have found that moderate drinkers do better on certain tests of memory than nondrinkers or heavy drinkers.  In addition, one of the flavonoids in red wine that’s believed to have special benefits for blood vessels and, in turn, memory, is also found in red grape juice, making this behavioral change reasonable for anyone of any age.

It is also important to note that when stress, including anxiety or anger, enters our lives, parts of the brain that are responsible for memory are slowly eaten away.  Depression is another way that memory is affected.  In fact, many times depression is misidentified as a memory problem since one of the main symptoms of the condition is an inability to concentrate.  When an individual does not have the ability to focus on their schoolwork or their job, often times they feel as if they are constantly forgetting things.  The real reason they are so “forgetful” is because they are not able to concentrate long enough to learn their tasks in the first place.  Plus, depression affects the types of things a person is able to remember.  Everyone’s brain is selective about which memories make it into long-term storage, but people with depression seem to only be able to remember negative memories. 

Another way you can change your behavior to improve your memory is through increasing the amount that you exercise.  Exercise not only exercises the body, it exercises the mind as well.  In order for the brain to function properly it depends on energy received through a constant intake of oxygen and nutrients from the bloodstream.  When those much needed nutrients do not arrive, the brain’s ability to work is compromised.  Studies have shown that the more physically active a person is, the greater his or her cognitive performance is.

While anyone can learn simple tricks in order to improve their memory, this is only part of the solution.  Sometimes it takes changing your behavior in order to improve your memory and get on a path to improve your life.

Different kinds of memory are stored in different parts of the human brain. Within seconds, the brain has to be able to pull information like telephone numbers or dates.  But our minds do not always allow us to retrieve the memories when we need them.  Sometimes it’s trivial, like when we tear the house apart looking for the glasses that have been sitting on our heads the whole time.  Other times these lapses in memories can be more severe like when we forget that the boss just went through a messy divorce after asking how his wife is.  Thankfully you do not have to live with a memory that is not working quite as well as it once did.  There are ways to improve your memory.  It does not matter if you are a college student studying for an important test or someone who is worried about forgetting a recent doctor’s appointment, there are a few things everyone can do to improve their memory.

You remember the old bit of tying a string around your finger to remember something, don’t you?  While the action is funny, the reasoning for it makes sense.  By putting something in your environment slightly askew, you can create a visual reminder for yourself.  The important thing is to take the time to create a strong visualization for why there is a string around your finger in the first place.  Of course you don’t have to use a string.  You can use anything that will help you to remember what it is that you are trying to remember.  You might want to switch a ring, bracelet or watch from one hand to the other.  Or you can use an object in your environment.  For instance, if you are driving to work and need to remember that on the way home from work you have to pick up your dry cleaning, try placing something on your dashboard blocking your view of the road after you park the car.  When you get back in to the car and are staring at a strange object, you will remember the dry cleaning.  

Another way to improve your memory is to use visualization and association when trying to remember something.  This method requires you to turn words into images so that you remember the words better.  For example, let’s say that you need to remember that you have a doctor’s appointment at three in the afternoon.  Take a moment and think of a visual image for three.  Maybe this is the story of the “Three Little Pigs.”  Visualize those three little pigs waiting around in the doctor’s office reading magazines.  Sometimes, the more unique the image, the easier it will be to remember.  So when you think of your doctor’s appointment, you will immediately remember that it is at three o’clock because of those funny pigs you are thinking of now.

These are just some of the ways that you can improve your memory.  If you put your tricks into action everyday, it will get to be a habit and you will begin to have an easier time remembering things that you once had a hard time with.

One of the easiest ways that someone forgets things is because they may be telling themselves that “there is no way that I am every going to remember this.”  Rule number one in improving your memory is to not be lazy about your memory.  Bad memory begins when you think you are no longer able to remember things well.  Everyone is capable of changing simple things that they do in order to improve their memory.

Experts say that simply paying better attention is half the battle in improving your memory.  You can try things like paying special attention to the person’s name when you meet them instead of all of the other things that are running through your mind like the freshness of your breath or the first impression the person is making on you.  Try to repeat their name in the conversation the first time that you hear it.  By practicing paying attention in one area, you will notice that you pay more attention to other things as well.

Memory experts also say that repetition is a great way to remember things.  Repeat the thing that you are trying to remember over and over again in your mind.  Repetition helps you to remember simple things.  For example, as you are thinking about the things that you need from the store, repeat what you need as you think of them.  “I need eggs.  I need eggs and butter.  I need eggs and butter and bananas.”  On your way to the store repeat the items that you need in your head over and over again.  By the time that you get to the store, the items that you need will be imprinted in your brain and you will walk out of the store with everything that you need. 

It takes less effort then you think to improve your memory.  The key is to imagine what you want and set your mind to achieve your goals.  Imagine yourself being confident enough to refer to a new person by their first name because you know that you have retained it after hearing it for the first time.  If you use these simple tips regularly, you will train your brain to be able to remember new information with more ease.