As we age and as technology takes over more and more of our mental load and memory functions our brain starts to deteriorate and we can start to experience some ways of cognitive decline. While this inevitably happens after a certain age, today it is fairly common for most adults to be unable to do certain tasks like remembering phone numbers or most of their appointments.
This is usually not cause for alarm, after all, we all memorized phone numbers because we had to dial them, so a lot of muscle memory was involved, and appointments are easy to lose track of when we have so many things swirling around our head with work commitments and family tasks taking priority, but that does not mean that we should let our memory retention abilities go by the wayside, it just means that we have to work a bit harder to be on top of the issue.
And you might be thinking, “Is this not just adding more things to my already full plate? When I have free time, the one thing I want to do is disengage my brain, not work it more!” That is a valid complaint, of course, but many of the things that we can do to improve our cognitive function fall into the self-care realm and some of them can even be fun, so do not discard these things just because they seem to add more work to your plate, keep reading and you might be surprised by our suggestions
Five simple things you can do to keep your brain engaged and improve your memory
Get good sleep
And you thought we would make you work! The most important thing you can do for your brain is to give it enough time to recharge, and that is accomplished by sleeping and doing it well. We will not tell you how many hours you need to do this for, but maybe skipping the third coffee in favor of an extra hour per night would be more beneficial. And we know that we all lead busy lives, but it has been proven that we are more efficient, patient and competent when we are well rested, and no, caffeine is not a good substitute. If you do not feel you are getting enough quality sleep, consult your doctor.
Eating the right foods
Eating a balanced diet that includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats is very important for your brain. While sugar can give a temporary high the crash is very real, so keep it as close to non-processed foods as possible and try to avoid stimulants like coffee or tea in excess. Drinking enough water will also help you with brain function, so keep hydrated, especially if you have a lot of caffeine.
Do some brain exercises
These should be entertaining to you, crossword puzzles, sudokus, riddles or memory games are perfect, but also things like playing with kids and creating word chains or trying to beat your friends to a game of “stop” can also help with this. Just make sure that you allocate some time to yourself to do something that engages your brain and does not include social media. Just 10 minutes per day can accomplish a lot.
Make associations in you brain to remember things
Like we said the reason why we used to remember telephone numbers was mainly due to muscle memory, but you can replicate this by associating words with colors, names with faces or stories, anything that gives your brain an excuse to create new neural pathways to connect the dots inside your head.
Make a pint of making spaced repetition
This is perhaps the least fun one of the bunch, but very useful to retain important information, go back to it once a day first, then once a week and then once a month to ensure that it embeds in your brain in the different types of “storage space” that we have.