Try These Foods To Improve Memory

May 25th, 2010

Health food is a subject that interests a whole lot of people. But many of the health foods that are popular today focus on how you can improve the outside of your body. Have you ever through about foods to improve memory? Try to add some of these to your diet and see how much you can improve your memory.

Dark Leafy Greens – Spinach and different kinds of cabbage can have a great effect on your memory. Why? Because they are very high in magnesium, a mineral that helps strengthen your hippocampus. The hippocampus is a part of your brain that plays a part in storing long term memories. Plus, if you do not get enough magnesium, you will likely feel problems like headaches, stomach cramps or even nausea. It’s a very important mineral.

Fish Or Beef Liver – The compound commonly known as Omega-3 is found in beef liver and fatty fish. This compound not only helps to strengthen your immune system, but it has been shown to remove different kinds of ‘bad’ proteins from your brain. These bad proteins cause bad memory. This makes meals that are high in Omega-3 some of the best food to improve memory around.

High Protein Diets – Besides being great for people trying to build up a lot of muscle, protein is amazing brain food. Almost all of the process that happen in the brain are carried out through the use of some kind of protein. Memory storage and information processing are two examples of processes that rely on a healthy does of protein to be available inside of your brain. Getting more protein into your diet will definitely help your brain function better.

Use these foods to improve your memory passively. At the same, you could be doing active things to peak your memory, like brain teasers and crossword puzzles!

Natural Remedies For Stress – What Works And What Does Not

May 24th, 2010

If you are feeling stressed out, you may not have to seek the help of a doctor right away. You can use some natural remedies for stress relief from the comfort of home without having to worry about prescription.

A great way to deal with stress is to couple relaxation methods with herbal teas. Green tea has natural antioxidant power that can aid in relieving stress. Try adding some honey to your herbal tea to really bring out the effects. After you have drank your tea, you should try some deep breathing exercises. Close you eyes and sit with your back as straight as possible and just focus on your breathing. As you breathe in it might help if you picture the word ‘breathe’. If other thoughts enter your mind, acknowledge them, but push them aside. This will help lower your blood pressure and get your mind off of stressful events.

You could also use lavender as one of your natural remedies for stress. Find a good bubble bath that is made from natural lavender extract and take a long bubble bath. The scent of the lavender contains relaxing properties that will help soothe your thoughts and get you to relax. Getting you mind off of your stressful day is a key to relieving stress.

A great source of relief that doesn’t involve any kind of supplement or medicine is listening to your favorite kind of music. Listen to something that is a bit low key on a low volume setting and just try to relax. Beethoven and other classical or baroque composers crafted music that has been found to aid in concentration and relaxation. Try turing on some orchestral music – even if you are not a very big classical music fan.

Not all of these natural remedies for stress involve taking a pill, which is the best way to go. If you can handle your stress without seeing your doctor, it is best to try to do that first. However, if problem persist you should probably consult a health care professional.

Games To Improve Memory – Start Having Fun And Improving Your Brain

May 23rd, 2010

With all of the remedies for memory improvement out there, it’s very easy to forget that there are some simple ways to keep your brain in ‘tip top’ shape. One of those ways is to play games to improve memory. There are several ways that you can go about this, some of them can be done alone and other games might need a partner.

Card games are a great way to keep your mind agile. Solitaire and spider solitaire are great games that will make you keep information in your short term memory. You could also play a simple game called ‘Memory’. Pick out ten pairs of cards and lay them in a grid, face down on the table. Then flip one card over to reveal it’s face. Try to find its match. If you get if wrong, flip both card back over and keep trying with different cards. This games will force you to remember what cards are in which spots on the table.

You could also grab some friends and play a game of thirty-one. Each player has three cards in their hand and tries to collect three cards of the same suit that add up to thirty-one. You will need to engage your memory to play this game as you try to lay down cards that will not help your opponents.

Not all games to improve memory involve playing cards. In fact, they don’t even have to relate directly to using your memory. Board games that keep your mind engages in almost any way will get the gears turning in your mind.

It is especially important to play games to improve memory if you are a senior. Those is their later years can experience aging memory loss and it can start as soon as 50 or 55 years old. Keep those game flowing and make sure that you keep your mind sharp.

Simple Exercises To Improve Memory In No Time

May 21st, 2010

When it comes to memory improvement, you can either choose the medical route or the exercise route. There are plenty of memory supplements out on the market right now, but if you would rather sharpen your mind the old fashioned way, check out these exercises to improve memory in just a few minutes each day.

1. Drink blueberry juice
Blueberries have recently been shown to slow the degeneration of memory and brain functions in adults. In fact, elderly people suffering from memory loss because of Alzheimer’s Disease can actually improve their memory by drinking blueberry juice.

2. Grab a word search
The local newspaper will almost always include some kind of short puzzle in its back pages. Why not grab that puzzle and try to complete it throughout the day? If you keep your brain engaged with puzzles like crosswords or word searches, you will be doing exercises to improve memory. Your brain needs to be stimulated, this is especially true for older adults who may be on the road to experiencing aging memory loss.

3. Consider caffeine
Yes, this is a strange one. But a study performed at the University of South Florida showed that caffeine may be a viable treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease patients. They study showed the caffeine may be responsible for some reversal of memory loss. However, the studies are still in initial stages. They are still trying to decide if caffeine can help protect you from memory loss in a proactive rather than a passive way.

4. Exercise for 20 minutes
Healthy bodies have healthy brains. Healthy brains have healthy memories. Do you see where I’m going with this? Plus, exercise is a way to get blood and oxygen flowing into your brain, which will help with almost all of its functions.

Use these exercises to improve memory in your everyday life and you may see a difference quickly.

Better Brain – Short Term Memory Improvement Techniques

May 19th, 2010

There is a lot of talk going around about how you can better develop your brain. Short term memory is one process that can really be developed if you set your mind to it. Try a few of these techniques to help you remember things in the short term.

If you have a list of information that you need to remember, try using mnemonics. This is a method that involves creating a word or phrase in which the letters correlate to the words of your list. A good example a mnemonics, is ROYGBIV – which stands for the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. It may help to think of mnemonics as a kind of acronym.

Here’s another short term memory improvement technique – it’s called visualization. Try to attach some kind of image to a piece of information. Students can really use this when they are studying for tests – just think of the image of your notes when you are trying to recall information. You might not remember the exact image of your notes, but the extra connections in brain that were created in trying to remember the image, are likely to jog your memory.

That brings us to a very powerful method of short term memory improvement. Do you remember using flash cards while you were still in school? Well, there’s no reason that you can not use flash cards as an adult. If you are studying for a test at work, or you just need to remember some names you can create some very simple flash cards that will help you remember. It will also help out your memory when you are writing down the information on the cards since writing down new information is another great way to cement it into your brain.

Keep this tips in mind when you feel like you could use a little memory boost. You could keep exploring even more great methods if you really want to impress people with your memory.