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6 ways to improve your memory – they’re easy to remember, we promise

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Want to improve your memory? Here are six things that may help.
Want to improve your memory? Here are six things that may help.

Do you ever have that feeling that you’re forgetting something but you don’t know what it is? Or do you not recall having those moments either? If so, you might need to make slight changes to your lifestyle, don’t worry, these tips are not that hard to remember.

1. Eat fruit and vegetables every day

Steam veggies lightly to retain nutrients and choose organic produce whenever you can to avoid taking in pesticides, which are linked to memory decline, says Patrick Holford, author of New Optimum Nutrition Bible.

2. Have breakfast

Even if it’s just a handful of raw almonds and an apple. (The protein in the nuts will keep you going for hours.) Lack of food causes blood-sugar levels to drop, leaving the brain deprived of the fuel it needs to operate.

Read more4 simple heart-healthy, fibre-rich breakfast bowls

3. Get enough sleep, exercise and fresh air

"Too much adrenaline and caffeine leads to adrenal fatigue, which in turn leads to anxiety, low mood and memory loss,” says Dr Duncan Carmichael, whose special interest is hormone balancing and detoxification.

4. Cut out caffeine

People can improve memory dramatically by following a three-month programme: Cut out caffeine, including cola and popular energy drinks; reduce stress; introduce daily periods of rest, meditation and exercise; and take fish oils, a vitamin-B complex, zinc and magnesium.

Read moreDoing this in the afternoon will leave you more alert than a giant cup of coffee

5. Stretch tour brain

“Your body may be fit, but you also need to stretch your brain,” says Dr Carmichael. So switch off the TV and take up a mentally demanding sport, learn a second language, read, play a musical instrument or do puzzles.

6. Cut down on the drink

Sorry, but booze blunts memory. If you knock back a couple of beers a few times a week, you’re setting yourself up for memory loss, says Cathryn Ramin, author of Carved In Sand, a book on memory failure. “You can access old stuff, so you’re perfectly capable of dredging up some old grudge and starting an argument. But you can’t get a grip on current activities, because the hippocampus, dulled by the booze, is out of the game,” she says. People who smoke as well as drink are vulnerable to frontal-lobe damage too.

Read moreWhat drinking 8 or more beers a week does to your brain

This article was originally published on www.mh.co.za

Image credit: iStock

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