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As a student, you know very well how important memory is to learning. Without the capacity for forming and maintaining memory, we’d all struggle immensely, in school and in our personal lives. The good news is that there are ways to train our memories so that they remain reliable throughout our studies in school and beyond into old age.
Here are a few ways you can train, improve, and preserve your memory:
1. Get Moving
Exercise! That’s right; your favorite. Not only do our muscles and bones benefit from exercise, but so do our brains. For instance, regular exercise helps our blood vessels maintain a healthy, consistent flow of blood to our brains. If we don’t regularly exercise, our vessels slowly begin to lose their ability to effectively pump blood, which limits the amount of oxygen and nutrients that are sent to your brain. That’s not good. We need our brains to fire on all cylinders in order to provide the best possible environment to foster and preserve memory.
But you don’t have to be a marathoner to receive the memory-boosting benefits you want. You can take short walks, sign up for a ballroom dance class, or swim laps at your local community pool.
2. Play Games
Did you know that you can have fun while increasing your memory power? It’s true. Studies have shown that activities such as jigsaw puzzles, word games, and trivia quizzes all help improve memory. So, next time you have friends over, or you want to spend a couple of hours with your family, try a game! Our favorite memory-boosting games include Pictionary, Words With Friends, and the Fit Brains Trainer app.
Plus, here are “5 Apps That Help Improve Memory and Cognition Overall.”
3. Eat Fish
If you don’t like the taste of fish, you can still get the memory-improving benefits of fish by taking omega-3 supplements. Omega-3 fatty acids are fats commonly found in marine and plant oils and have been shown to promote brain and heart health. In fact, a new study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh shows that omega-3 supplements can help boost memory. Fish rich in omega-3s include salmon, mackerel, anchovy, sardine, and rainbow trout. Happy fishing—or supplement hunting!
4. Try Chunking
Let’s be clear about this: we’re not putting you down. Chunking, as coined by Cambridge neuroscientist Daniel Bor, is “a kind of cognitive compression mechanism wherein we parse information into chunks that are more memorable and easier to process than the seemingly random bits of which they’re composed.” In an article from The Atlantic titled “Using Pattern Recognition to Enhance Memory and Creativity,” author Maria Popova gives us insight into the integral value Bor had placed on chunking:
Consciousness and chunking allow us to turn the dull sludge of independent episodes in our lives into a shimmering, dense web, interlinked by all the myriad patterns we spot. It becomes a positive feedback loop, making the detection of new connections even easier, and creates a domain ripe for understanding how things actually work, of reaching that supremely powerful realm of discerning the mechanism of things. At the same time, our memory system becomes far more efficient, effective -- and intelligent -- than it could ever be without such refined methods to extract useful structure from raw data.
If you’re confused, don’t worry. You can read more about chunking and pattern recognition here.
5. Don’t Cram
We all procrastinate from time to time. Can we agree on that? Yes? Okay. It’s human. In fact, a little bit of procrastination can be a good thing. But cramming is another thing entirely. When you cram, you aren’t giving yourself enough time to process the information. In other words, you’re not going to remember everything if you cram. If you can space out your studies, you’ll have more success processing and remembering the information you need for your next test or term paper. If you are prone to cramming, don’t think you have to change at once though. It’ll take time, so start small: for your next test, try choosing two days to study as a start, and build out from there. Pretty soon you’ll find that you’ll be less stressed, your performance will improve, and your brain will be doing a happy dance.
Do you have your own tips and tricks for memory-boosting? We’d love to hear from you. Share your favorite memory-boosting games, exercises, and study tips by emailing Allied’s copywriter, Non Wels, at nwels[at]alliedschools[dot]com. Or you can tweet us at @AlliedSchools. If you have questions about our online career training programs, give us a call at (888) 501-7686.
Labels: brain boost, chunking, college study tips, improve your memory, memory enhancer, procrastination tips, study tips, train your memory
In biological terms, energy is what keeps us going. On a base level, it’s what we need in order to live. But on a grander scale, energy is the product or result of our physical and mental efforts. But these efforts need fuel. And sometimes, just sometimes, we don’t need to rely on the sweet, tantalizing pull of coffee to get us there.*
3 Ways You Can Re-Energize Without Having to Drink More Coffee
1. Snack regularly.
Numerous scientific studies have been done on snacking and the prevailing sentiment is that snacking is an important activity for both health and energy. But this doesn’t mean that you should lay waste to an elephant-sized bag of potato chips in between breakfast, lunch and dinner. While that may be tempting, it won’t help with your energy. Stick to smaller snacks (200-300 calories or so) like almonds, fruit, cheese and crackers every couple of hours. Your body will thank you for it, and your studies will benefit from all the focus and energy you gained! Find out what else you can eat to boost your energy here.
2. Take short walks.
Exercise, generally speaking, is a wonderful thing and provides so many life-preserving benefits. But we don’t always have the time to drive to the gym or spend an hour being chased by the neighbor’s overconfident Yorkshire Terrier. But we do have time to take short walks. Ten, fifteen-minute walks, every so often throughout the day, can truly make a huge impact on your energy levels. If you live in an area where it’s too cold to go outside, try a simple 10 minutes of yoga or something along those lines. Your mind will be clearer for it. Plus, you’ll get the energy you need to finish your courses for the day.
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| Colorful Hiker in Calero County Park by donjd2 |
3. Get better sleep.
Sleep is probably the most important on this list, because without it, none of the other things are even in the realm of possibility. In other words, sleep is essential. There is an important distinction, however. Better sleep is not the same as more sleep. You may certainly need more sleep, but you need to know what’s right for you. You may need eight hours of sleep. You may need five. You may need to sleep on your side or on a firmer mattress or in a sleeping bag under the stars. The important thing is to know yourself, know your body, and make the decision that gives you the proper amount of sleep for optimal mental and physical health. If you can find that balance, your world will be chock-full of energy. Be more focused and effective with better sleep.
If you are able to snack regularly, take short walks and get better sleep, you will be a much more focused and efficient student. Adding on to that the happiness you can get from career training at Allied and you have a match made in heaven! Before we conclude, we’d love to hear from you. How do you bring yourself energy throughout the long work or school day?
For more information about Allied Schools, visit us at www.alliedschools.com, or call us at (888) 501-7686.
*We love coffee. But we also love a nice balance. :)Labels: college study tips, energy boosting, energy boosts, energy without caffeine, energy without coffee, school study tips, study tips, ways to energize
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