Royane Real
Find Ways to Challenge Your Brain to Improve Your Memory
By Royane Real
One way to improve your memory is to practice memorization for fun. In fact, you can make a habit of playing memorization games that require you to use your memory.
Why would playing memory games help you improve your short term memory? One reason is that your brain likes to do new things. Your brain likes challenges. When you do the same thing over and over again, your brain stops paying close attention.
When you watch young children play, you can tell that they are enjoying the process of learning. Everything is new to them. Young children are able to combine learning and fun into the same activity.
Once we become adults, a lot of us think we know enough to get by, so we ofgten give up on learning new things. Learning and remembering can start to seem like difficult chores that remind us of school. So the brain decline begins. When we stop challenging our brains, our brains stop learning and they stop making new connections between our brain cells.
That can turn out to be a problem, because we need to have strong connections between our brain cells if we want to be able to retrieve our memories once they are formed.
Long before people started to read and write books, they had to rely on their memories for everything. When they couldn’t look up the information they needed on the computer or in the library, they had to rely on their ability to remember. Their brains would get a constant workout because they had to remember so much.
Memory work used to be taught in school much more often than it is today. Students frequently had to memorize poems and speeches, as well as many facts, not to mention state capitals. Today as adults, many people find it difficult and boring to memorize poems and speeches and recite them later. That’s too bad because our brain’s ability to remember improves when we give it a challenge.
Can you think of any other fun activities that could give your memory a good workout? Choose things that you enjoy. If you choose activities that you don't enjoy, then you won't do them.
How about learning lines from a play? If you can play a musical instrument, why not try to play some musical pieces from memory? Another word game that is a lot of fun and that will have you delving deep into the hidden storage vaults in your mind is Scrabble. Can you think of others?
If you put your mind to it, you can probably find even more ways to give your memory a workout that is both fun and challenging.
In fact, I would say, if you put your mind to it, your mind will benefit a lot!
( The above introductory comments were written by Royane Real. Learn more ways to boost your memory and your brain power in my book “How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative” available at http://www.lulu.com/real
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