Ways to Improve
Your Memory
Maintaining our memory is one of the most desirable aspects of any anti aging and age
resistant regimen.  Well that, and since we are all admittedly vain creatures, we also want to
maintain our looks as long as possible, right?  

Anyways, there are five important aspects of a good anti aging and memory retention regimen
that should be followed, all of equal importance in the game of life, especially as we get older
and start to realize our memory is not what it used to be.

I can’t tell you how many times now, at the age of 33, I think wow, I used to be able to
remember a lot more than I do now, and I used to be able to remember little things, like names
of places or people, where now sometimes I have to struggle to remember, or play sort of a
name game in my head to remember things that once used to come easily to me.

It also of course is attributed many times to the fact that so many of us lead extremely busy,
overwhelming lives, and we are forced to not only remember a lot, but to retain a lot of lengthy
information and how to do certain things.  

Some of our modern gadgets may help us with convenience, but they certainly don’t help us
exercise our memory, like GPS, which allows us to never remember directions, cell phones with
their phone numbers in the memory so we don’t have to remember phone numbers, and
automatic gadgets that allow us to basically rely on them rather than our good old fashioned
memories, for gaining information at our fingertips.

So, what are the five components and activities to maintaining an active, sharp memory?  Well
many probably won’t surprise you, but it never hurts to reiterate what’s important and should
be practiced on a daily basis as a matter of fact instead of having to think about them.  They
are :

1.)  Exercise - This increases circulation, including circulation to the tiny blood vessels of the
brain, which helps our memory stay active as well as helps our cells in our brain to stay healthy
since they are getting plenty of blood, oxygen and nutrients to stay healthy.

2.)  Socialize - Staying sociable has been proven to help people stay more mentally sharp and
remember more.  Antisocial people show a marked difference in memory retention.

3.)  Do puzzles and other brain teasers, this will keep you ready and used to thinking and will
exercise the brain’s ability to think, meaning you will have a better memory over the long haul
because of memory exercising.

4.)  Sleep - sleep recuperates our mind’s ability to focus sharply and is needed on an ongoing
basis to keep our brains functioning at peak levels.  See below also for a little more information
on how lack of sleep affects our brain and memory function far more than we probably think,
and how good sleep is key to keeping

5.)  Write things down - Writing things down not only gives you better access to the things you
need to do, it also reinforces the memory by giving you a visual object to focus on and almost a
“picture” of what it is you are trying to implant in your memory.  Writing things down works
wonders for me personally, and I write a lot of things down so that I have that image and that
motion of writing it down.  

Can Lack of Sleep Age You and Hurt Your Brain Power and Memory Significantly?

Well, I didn’t really give this a whole lot of thought, until just the other day I got one of these
silly “what’s your real age” emails at work where you enter a series of responses to a series of
questions about your lifestyle, eating habits, and sleeping habits.  

Oh, and there was smoking too, which of course can definitely factor into one’s lifespan since it
contributes to so many diseases, namely lung cancer, and can be a huge contributing factor to
earlier death linked with other types of cancer, including the very deadly pancreatic cancer that
Patrick Swayze reportedly suffers from.

It was amazing the difference that more sleep could make in your calculated “real age” on this
questionnaire.  In fact, I don’t get a lot of sleep during the week, so I entered sometimes less
than seven hours, and then out of curiosity went back in and added another hour or two and it
added quite a few years to my life span.  

I'm also starting to read how just lacking a few hours of sleep for one night can significantly
throw your memory and mood off for the entire day.  It's imperative that you make sure you
are getting around 7-8 hours of solid, quality sleep per day, and if you cannot do this then you
have to ask yourself what your priorities are and subsequently rearrange some of those
priorities to include more ample sleep time.  

There are a lot of people who are saying that getting a good night’s rest consistently is one of
the many keys to staying young and fending off your biological aging process.  I guess it’s
true!  I have to admit, I find these little quizzes dubious sometimes but there is increasing
evidence that sleep can definitely add to your health and longevity.  More to come on this…..