Ever heard that green tea improves your memory? Scientists have managed to prove that some types of foods are indeed very helpful in improving our memory. Besides natural medicinal herbs such as ginseng or gingko biloba, fruits and vegetables too have memory improving purposes.

Our brain is like a sponge, absorbing all the information that it receives but leaving the editing out of the unwanted parts of the information to us to do! As a result, our mind is always clogged up with too much information and we do not know what to do with it. Thus, as our minds are full with so much information, it becomes even harder if we want to recall a particular type of information at an instant and. However, there are certain steps we can take to improve our mental ability.

Stimulation of the mind

Your mind is an amazing resource, and the first step towards utilizing this is to believe in the power of your mind. By doing so, you will be able to improve your memory, which is based on the power of your mind in processing and deducing. Why are some people able to have better memories than others? Studies have shown that 50% of brain power is nature, whilst the other 50% is nurture. Hence, memory techniques exist to assist us in improving our memory.

Everyone has greater memory capacity than they believe. Below, we bring you 3 quick ways to memory improvement in a nutshell, condensed for your convenience.

There are many memory games that are gaining popularity, but do they really work? Research has shown that learning new things, doing puzzles and playing games helps the mind stay active. The most effective memory games allow you to improve your memory capacity and practice abstract thinking.

Just as we go to the gym and engage in exercise to increase our physical fitness, the brain has to be kept stretching to strengthen in throughout our life. Early studies have shown that 20 minutes of exercise 3 times a week will help in stimulating the mind, strengthening attention spans and memory recall abilities.

Your mind is an amazing resource, but as you age you will find that your memory is adversely affected. An excellent way to improve your memory is to recognize each improvement as a succession of small victories to be built upon each other.

Classification
Your memory can be divided into 8 different types: Episodic, Factual, Semantic, Sensory, Instinctive, Skill, Collective, and Past Life memory. These divisions describe the function that each part of the memory is responsible for. For example, factual memory is used for remembering facts such as the date of Christmas is the 25th of December. Skill memory is interesting, in that all skills involve your memory as well. Learning to ride a bike, or baking, involved using your brain to remember each particular skill.

There are many ways of classifying the human mind and its ability to retain information. One of the most often used classifications are based on the duration of memory retention, specifically the sensory, short term and long term memory. Short term memory refers to the recent memory, and is usually only held for a very short period of time. A common example would be when you meet many new people, cursorily introduced at a party. Long term memory, on the other hand, can be thought of as a database where all the information that you have learnt is kept. Sensory memory is conveyed through your senses of sight and sound, where you keep these “images” in your mind.