It will start with some small incident like forgetting the birthday of a colleague. Then you will start to forget the birthdays of people close to you. After that, it will be the turn of the directions to your favorite restaurant and then god forbid, you will forget your own keys inside your home. We all suffer from moments of forgetfulness but sometimes, things go worse that you find ways to make your memory better.

Although we are not all blessed with a photographic memory, there are ways to at least improve what we are given and make us a little less forgetful. This is especially true with people who are already growing older. As we age, the neurons in our brains also age. Some die while others perform slower than usual. This is why people who are older have faultier memories than their much younger counterparts.

But hey, as mentioned, there are ways to improve memory. Here are some of them:

1. Use visuals or sounds
Depending on what kind of learner you are, people can either use visuals and sounds to remember something. For instance, if you are trying to remember a to-do list, all you need to do is stare at the paper and you will be able to see in your mind the list. There are people however who need to hear the list of their to-dos before they can remember everything that they have to do. To find out which technique will work for you, try remembering how you memorize in school. Do you read the words silently or read them out loud?

2. Use associations
Our brains also need help when it comes to remembering things. The easier we make the remembering task for the brain, the better it will be able to remember the information. This is where associations come in. Associating information with things that we already know or things that we can see is a technique that has been utilized in improving memory. For instance, have you heard of mnemonics? When memorizing a set of words, we often take the first letter of that word and then form a sentence or words from those letters. Associating the word that we are trying to memorize with the first letter makes it easier for our brain.

3. Visualize it
Do you ever wonder why photographic memory is the term use for people with really excellent memory? This is because people who really memorize well or have great memories do not see one item or one information when committing them to memory. They see a picture of the words in group. For instance, a person with a grocery list will usually memorize the items one by one but people who learned to improve their memories will memorize it as a whole. They will look at the list and visualize it as a whole until they can see the list in their mind’s eye.

4. Eat right
Another important way to improve memory is to check what you eat. Your diet will factor a lot in your ability to memorize things. Eating nutritious foods will help your brain perform better and faster. This is especially true when eating known brain foods like tofu, milk and fish.

There are many ways to make your memory better but the most important thing is to commit to the task and promise to improve it no matter what.