During a typical eight-hour cycle, your brain encodes important memories, discards unnecessary information, and helps you process new ideas. This complicated process affects every stage of your sleep cycle. During non-rapid eye movement of NREM(Non-Rapid Eye Movement) cycles, your brain is preparing to absorb more information by moving important memories to long-term storage. During your REM cycles of sleep, your brain stores sensory and emotional memories. This perceptual information whether it’s a sight, a sound, or a feeling, has a significant impact on the content of your dreams. If you don’t get enough sleep or keep an irregular sleep schedule your brain misses out on those stages of cognitive storage. When you wake up you feel cloudy and forgetful, because your brain isn’t prepared for another day full of perceptual stimuli, strong emotions, and long lists of information. sleep deprivation is one of the most common causes of lapses in your memory. The problem isn’t your brainpower or your recall. It’s your sleep cycle. Your brain isn’t well-rested or prepared, and that affects your performance. So get a good night’s sleep and keep your sleep cycle consistent. Because your brain needs all eight of those hours to stay on top of its game.

5) Create Mnemonics

Mnemonics is a flexible and diverse memory tool that can help you remember just about anything. A mnemonic is a pattern of letters, images, or ideas that helps you recall more information. These patterns create memorable connections between simple cues and complex topics. when your brain sees or hears each cue, it recalls a large concept associated with that memory. The most common pattern is a one-word mnemonic. One-word mnemonics like ROYGBIV, for example, help you remember long lists of information in a specific order. in this case, ROYGBIV helps you remember the colors of the rainbow by assigning each color to one letter within this mnemonic word. But there are dozens of different kinds of mnemonics. Music mnemonics assign larger topics to melodies and songs. Sentence mnemonics create longer, often strange-sounding strings of words, like “Every Good Boy Does Fine” which helps you remember the musical notes on the treble clef. If you’re interested in using mnemonics to boost your memory, try a few different patterns and see which one works for you. each mnemonic slightly activates a slightly different area of your brain. when you finally find a pattern that you like, make mnemonics of your own. Because these shortcuts can make your memory stronger than ever.

6) Reduce Your Stress

Stress has a negative influence on all kinds of cognitive metrics. When you are stressed out you simply don’t perform the way you want to. While some people thrive under pressure, unnecessary stress generally slows your reaction time and clouds your thinking. But does stress impact memory? Let’s say you’re stressed about a project at work. That stress weighs on your mind, creating negative emotions like Frustration, self-doubt, and anxiety. With these emotions hanging over your head, it can be difficult to focus your attention on memorizing something simple, like a list of words. But emotional stress isn’t the only reason your memory suffers. When you’re experiencing excess stress, your brain releases hormones like cortisol, which impair your memory. One study even found that cortisol gradually shrinks your brain. Last but not least, stress significantly increases your mental fatigue. You’re prone to exhaustion and lazy habits, which ultimately damage your ability to retain information. So what should you do? How do you manage the stress in your life and keep your memory working the way it should? Luckily, there are plenty of tools you can use to not only manage your stress but increase your cognitive performance. And most of them are easier than you think. The breathing technique can help you unravel after a long day. Engaging with hobbies can take your mind off of work and help you think through complicated problems. You can also write down your thoughts, which strengthens your memory by placing those important emotions down on paper. The longer your stress goes unchecked, the more damage it can do to your brain. so get control of your stress. Find a stress-management routine that works for you. That way, you can keep your memory in tip-top shape.

7) Sensory Stimulation

There’s a lot of crossover in your brain between your senses and your memory. When you taste a familiar food or smell a familiar scent, a wave of memories may come rushing back. Our senses are some of the strongest memory tools we have. So, if you want to increase your memory, it’s time to use your senses to your advantage. Anytime you want to remember something, activate one of your five senses. Attach an image, a smell, or a feeling to that piece of information. Not, each time you perceive that sensory stimulus, your brain may recall the information you wanted to remember. Professional memorizers use this trick to retain huge volumes of information. For example, a series of playing cards with a string of strong, narrative images. As you recall those vivid pictures and activate your visual memory, you’re also recalling the cards attached to each image. Just like that you’ve memorized a large quantity of numerical information without memorizing a single number. So get your senses involved. Draw pictures while you study. Chew flavorful gum. Listen to memorable music. Don’t rely on your eyes or ears to encode all the information you experience on a daily basis. Because your five senses are the strongest memory tools in your toolbox.