You may have recently had a moment when you forget what you had gone into a room for or couldn’t remember a particular name in a conversation, even though you’re sure that you knew it at one point. These kinds of memory lapses can happen at any time. But, as you age, they can become more common. The good news is that, although frustrating, there are years and years of research on memory and changes in cognition. You can also train your brain. Keep your mind active with some of the strategies below:
Keep learning
No matter your age, it’s important to keep learning. Providing a challenge for the mind will help to engage it, as well as bring enthusiasm to life overall.
There is evidence that people with a higher level of education have better cognitive functioning when they get older. That’s a good reason to go back to school if you’ve been on the fence about doing so!
The reason for this finding could be that an improvement in education can help to keep memory strong and be more mentally active. By challenging your brain, you can help to keep and look after your brain cells and help to stimulate communication.
You may have a job that helps you to keep learning, which means that you’ll be using your brain a lot. But, if not, think about a new hobby that you can explore, a new skill you could develop, or other kinds of self-growth. The purpose here is to keep learning and actively pursue ways to keep your mind sharp.
Prioritize how you use your brain
Let’s face it, there are a lot of things to remember in life. There can be small things like where you put keys or the time and location of a friend’s birthday party. The bigger things include how to do the main functions of your job and the main points on the class quiz this week.
Although knowing the small things is important, they are relatively minor and shouldn’t take up all of your memory space. By putting this kind of information in a planner, calendar, or reminder on your phone, you will free up your brain from having to remember them so that you allow space for more vital information.
Even when you do something like a word puzzle, you could use a word descrambler so that your brain can be more easily save its effort to do other things. There is a range of things that can help when you’re trying to use your brain to its maximum capacity.
Space things out
Repetition is something that is really important to help you to learn. It can be best to not repeat something very quickly in a short amount of time, such as if you are studying for an exam.
Something that could be more beneficial is to space things out. This strategy could be by looking at the new essentials after a certain period of time. When you space things out, it helps your memory and can be useful when trying to get to grips with certain levels of information.
Want to learn more? Check out this guide on 5 ways to take care of your brain.
I wonder if washing your hair counts? ;)
It does if you style it after ;)