How To Improve Memory Power Naturally: 19 Science-Backed Methods

This article contains actionable steps and methods on how to improve memory naturally.

Our brain power is extraordinary. When we learn to maximise its performance, we will also maximize other aspects of our lives.

This is because life is experienced through our thoughts. To achieve higher performance in our life, we must start by achieving higher performance internally.

Our brains and memories are an incredible place to start, because what improves our memory also improves all of us, what we think and feel.

People have different reasons for reading articles like this one. Some find it difficult to remember things like facts, dates, or numbers, some at all times seem to forget where they last put their keys, wallet, or mobile phone.

Others struggle to remember the important information they need to pass the test. Whatever your reasons. If you use the principles and methods in this article, I promise you not only will you improve them, but you’ll see a rise in your general quality of life as well.

This may sound like a big claim, but the fact is that if you strengthen your body, you increase your physical performance.

The same goes for your thoughts, if you strengthen them, you strengthen your mental performance, and your life is experienced through the filter of your thoughts.

How to Increase Memory Power Naturally:

The tips and methods in this text are based on the latest scientific knowledge about what we know about memory performance today.

You will learn what sort of diet you need to follow to improve memory and how to train your brain to improve memory.

Nobody really has a bad memory and if you think you have a bad memory, you can fix it so long as you do not experience memory loss as a medical condition.

Improving memory retention and your ability to remember things more easily will take effort. Either you can take steps to stop memory loss otherwise you can take steps to remember the information that’s presented to you.

You need to understand that our minds work like bodybuilders or athletes so to improve our ability to remember something, we need to train our minds.

The very first thing you need to know about short-term memory is that in order to retain memory, you need to understand why you want to remember that information.

If you think the information is important to you, you should decide to pay attention to it to get all the mandatory information.

In order for you to do this, you need to make the information personally important to you so that remembering it will not be your job.

We’ll look at other ways to improve your memory starting with changing your lifestyle to preserve memory.

Improving Your Lifestyle For Better Memory Retention

To get your brain working properly for your memory skills, you’ll need to make some lifestyle changes. Here are some things you need to adjust to retain memory.

1. Reduce stress

Chronic stress really physically damages the brain making remembering things tougher. Prolonged stress affects the brain in the hippocampus, which stores memories and this in turn worsens.

While you cannot utterly eliminate stress in your life, you can control it.

Here are some ways to manage stress if you want to improve your memory:

You should meditate for about 15 minutes a day. This will help you relax and slow down your breathing rate thereby increasing your focus.

Ask a friend to massage you or give yourself a massage. This will help you loosen up.

If you are struggling with clinical depression or an anxiety disorder, you should work hand-in-hand with your doctor to help you overcome these conditions.

This is because depression and anxiety can make it hard for you to concentrate so if you cannot concentrate you’ll have a hard time remembering information.

Reduce your intake of caffeine, which can even make you feel more stressed and anxious.

You can even reduce stress by spending more time with your friends. Being more social and talking to people more helps you relax and take it easy, which is what you want if you want to increase your information level.

2. Exercise every day

Regular aerobic exercise improves efficiency and circulation throughout your body including your brain.

This can help ward off the memory loss that comes with aging. It can even make you more relaxed and alert thereby improving your memory.

Exercise really improves brain health because when you exercise, nerve cells release neurotrophic factors, which are naturally occurring proteins that lead to a healthy brain.

Exercise is also helpful because it increases blood flow to the brain and increases the total amount of oxygen that the brain receives. On the other hand, without exercise, your memory center remains constant or even reduces in capacity.

Even walking for about 30 minutes a day is an incredible form of exercise.

3. Keep your life in order

Keep all the things you use every day in the same place. Being organized can help you liberate your concentration power so you can remember things that are less routine.

When you do not have to keep remembering routine stuff, you liberate your mind to remember important details.

Ensure that:

Things like your keys and glasses that you use a lot are someplace you are sure to get them the next day.

You save all addresses and phone numbers in your address book or enter them on your computer and cell phone.

4. Laugh often

Strange as it may sound, laughter can help improve your memory. The logic behind it’s that laughing causes several parts of your brain to change by turning on and amongst them is the part of your brain that’s responsible for memory.

Laughter becomes more effective when you do it with friends. Several studies have shown that socializing with other people or even pets has the ability to slow the rate of memory decline as we age.

Improve Your Mind For Better Memory

Being conscious can even help you a lot in improving your memory skills. Here are some strategies on how to watch out for better memory retention.

5. Train your brain

Doing regular ‘exercise’ for your brain is nice because it keeps your brain growing and promotes the growth of new neural connections, which can help improve your memory.

You can train your brain by:

Develop new skills for your mind like learning a new language or learning to play a new musical instrument, otherwise you can learn to play chess.

Get out of your comfort zone and do something challenging that will make you flex your brain muscles. Learning a new skill activates and exercises a large part of your brain.

Every day, try to do some fun puzzles like Sudoku and crosswords, which are easy enough for everybody.

You can even play some physical games that require quick thinking.

6. Take better pictures

Most of the time you forget something because your observation skills actually need improving and not because your memory is bad. One common situation that occurs that possibly everybody can relate to is when you meet new people.

Oftentimes, you may not remember the name of somebody you just met because you were not really concentrating on remembering it.

But if you make a conscious effort to do this, you’ll be surprised how far better you’ll do.

A great way to train yourself to be more observant is to look at an unfamiliar photo for a few seconds, then flip it over and write as many details about it as you can.

Try to close your eyes and imagine the photo and all the details in your mind. Use a different photo every time you do this exercise and you will be satisfied to see that you can remember lots of details about the photo by glancing at it.

7. Use your environment

You can change the normal location of your equipment or other items you have in order to remember to do something.

For example, if you want to remember to take your vitamins, you can tilt the TV to one side and only straighten it while you’re taking your vitamins.

When you look at your tilted TV, you’ll detect that something is off and you’ll remember whatever you must do.

The trick here is to change the objects you use with whatever you want to remember. If you do not focus on the pieces of information you need to remember, you may fail to relate them to the changes you make later.

8. If you have a test, never cram it

Cramming only succeeds in getting information into your brain for the short term.

You may have the ability to remember information for your exam the next day but you will not remember anything at the final exam or after the exam.

Spacing time, as you study is great for permanently storing the data in your mind because it gives your brain enough time to encode the information you read and store it in your long term memory.

9. Get rid of the thought that you have a bad memory from your head

You must convince yourself that you have a really good memory which will soon improve.

You need to understand that there’s lots of power in your mind; what you think of yourself is what you’ll become. If you think you have a bad memory then you’ll absolutely have a bad memory.

However, if you believe that you’re good with names and numbers then you’ll become one.

10. Give yourself enough time to form memories

Memories are very fragile particularly in the short term and can fade with one disturbance.

You must focus on the one thing you should remember without thinking about the rest or doing the rest so you avoid losing your memory without even forming it first.

Make sure that when you try to remember something, you avoid distractions.

11. Involve multiple senses

You can activate more parts of your brain by using as many senses as possible when memorizing information. As said before, the more active your brain is, the more your ability to trigger memory banks increases.

Below are some things you can do to use your multiple senses to improve memory:

Write down anything you want to remember: Writing with your hands stimulates your brain so it is easier for you to remember later. Typing has much less effect.

If you are typing info, use an odd font: This will help because when something is difficult for you to read, you need to concentrate more which can help force the information into your brain.

Relate or practice the information: Tell others or even yourself the information.

Hearing yourself say it engages your sense of hearing. If you explain the information to someone else, that’s even better because it will increase your understanding further and you’ll have the ability to remember it easily.

12. Use flash cards

Flash cards are largely useful in studying. Flashcards are essentially paper with a question on one side and an answer on the other. You can even modify it and put the two things you want to hook up on opposite sides of your flash card.

Go through your flashcards and put the right ones to one side to review them later. Continue until all the flashcards are in the deck you got correctly.

After all, undergo it the next day and see if you still remember it. Scan again after a few moments to ensure you understand everything on the flash card.

Using Different Mnemonic Devices

Using a mnemonic device (1) is probably the greatest and customary way to remember something. There are a number of mnemonic devices from association to rhyme. Here are some of them.

13. Use associations to remember numbers

For example, if you have trouble remembering your ID card number, simply break the number into smaller parts and associate the parts with pictures.

For example, if your ID number is 13858523, you could divide it by 13-8585-23. Let’s say your house number is 13, 85 is your grandfather’s age and 23 is Michael Jordan’s jersey number.

You can visualize something like this: Your house with two exact copies of your grandfather to your right then imagine Michael Jordan standing to your grandfather’s right and that is it.

14. Use rhymes

Using rhymes, no matter how foolish they may sound, can really help you remember some basic information.

For example the common rhyme for remembering the number of days in the month ‘the thirty days of September, April, June and November’ is very helpful to many people, most of whom cannot admit it.

Using rhymes is a fun way to remember something and it works perfectly. You do not have to follow common rhymes as you can make your own.

As long as you have the information, you can create a rhyme that works for you. You can even make a song about anything you want to remember even if it does not rhyme.

However, make sure to use catchy tunes or tunes from popular songs that you like.

15. Use an acrostic

An acrostic is somewhat similar to an acronym except that rather than just remembering the acronym, you can remember a new sentence made up of the first letters of what you want to remember and arranged in a selected sequential order.

Some common examples include:

Never eat sour watermelon: which is used to remember the cardinal points and never eat grated wheat, which means the same thing. Namely North, East, South and West.

Every good child does well: This is used to remember the order of the lines in the treble staff:

EGBDF

16. Use associations to remember facts

In order for you to use associations, you must create an image in your mind to remember a word or even another image.

Associations really work because when you create a visible about something, your brain can fixate on easily identifiable, single and straightforward information.

When you memorize a single image that you associate with the information you need to remember, you will have the ability to recall the whole string of information you need to remember.

For example, if you put your car keys in your wallet, imagine that your wallet grows big wheels and then they go fast.

Since it is a strange image, you will have the ability to remember the scenario and you will ultimately remember where you put your keys. The more uncommon and ridiculous pictures you make, the easier it is going to be for your brain to remember them.

You can even associate information with things you really like, like pets, friends or relatives because you clearly cannot forget them.

17. Use chunking

Chunking is when you group things together to help you remember them more easily. You can do this for items or even numbers. Lists of random items, for example, grocery lists, can be difficult to remember.

To make it easier to remember, try categorizing the items from your list. One way you can do this is by grouping your grocery list by dairy, fruit, and bakery products together.

Or you can categorize everything you need to buy using the first letter, such as eggs, bacon, coffee, cheese and bread as E, 2 B and 2 C. The letters are easy to remember so focus on remembering the numbers.

This will help make your shopping experience easier and faster besides helping you memorize your shopping list.

You can even cut the phone number (2) uses hyphens, which makes it look easier to remember and practically makes it easier to remember.

If it is a long number you want to remember, try truncating it by perhaps placing a hyphen after every fourth digit.

To make it easier, you can even add some associations in it by associating the truncated numbers with a very important year or event in your life and you’ll certainly remember it.

18. Use acronyms

Acronyms can even be very helpful particularly when remembering various things like different words used as conjunctions or the five big lakes.

You can even use one of the popular acronyms or come up with your own that you know will be easier to remember.

A trick you can use to create useful and simple acronyms is to take the first names of all the items you own and let them form a word that makes sense that you are sure to remember.

Making up a word that does not make any sense may prove to be a pain to remember no matter how awesome you think your acronym is.

A good example of a popular acronym is HOMES, which stands for the major lakes particularly Ontario, Huron, Superior, Erie and Michigan and FANBOYS: which will help you remember the coordinating conjunctions which are for, and, also, but, or, however, etc.

19. Use the popular locus method

This method goes back to historical Greece. This method requires you to link a number of objects or items to a certain place or location to help you remember the whole piece of information.

You should first choose a path that you’re familiar with, then imagine all the things you want to do or memorize there.

For you to use this method, you must imagine placing all the items you want to remember on a familiar route or at a location in a familiar building or room.

The locus method is also used to make acronyms stick in your head more easily.

For example if you want to remember the acronyms FOIL, HOMES and FANBOYS, you can imagine a small house and on the front porch of the house are a group of male fans cheering and having their hands wrapped in foil.

I hope this text will help you determine how you can retain your memory.

The next step is to change your diet and lifestyle and embrace the astonishing memory tricks you have learned in this text.