Having a great memory can make studying so much easier. But, what do you do if your memory is just no good? You improve it, that’s what! Making your memory better is not rocket science – it’s simply a case of understanding how your brain works and what food it needs to function properly.
This week we’ll cover the basics of keeping your mind healthy. Once you’ve got these sorted, you can work on improving your memory. So, here we go:
Stay away from caffeine – you may think that caffeine is great when you are studying. After all, you can actually buy caffeine tablets that are marketed to help you with study – Proplus anyone? But, the research shows a different picture. Many studies have been carried out on the effects of caffeine on short and long-term memory and the results are inconclusive – some studies show benefits, other show a negative impact. However, any benefits that may occur are, in my opinion, significantly outweighed by the many negative side-effects on the body. These effects will hinder your ability to study effectively and include:
• anxiety
• feeling shaky or jittery
• having headaches, nervousness or dizziness
• preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep
• dependency – it’s addictive!
So, the choice is yours, and I’d strongly suggest you read more on the subject before making any decision, but my advice would be to stay away.
Drink plenty of water – water is essential to pretty much every chemical process that takes place in the human body. And being dehydrated is a sure fire way to make yourself feel tired and lethargic. Unfortunately, as most people don’t even realise they are dehydrated, they misinterpret thirst for hunger. So, next time you feel hungry, try drinking a glass of water instead and see if that helps. We know that adequate hydration is vital for cognitive function (to make your brain work), but how much should you drink each day? Well, there is some debate about this – some say eight glasses, which is about two litres. But this includes all water you take into your body, which can come from tea, coffee and other soft drinks and the water contained in the food you eat. When you consider this, it’s easy to take in two litres per day without even really trying. In general, you should trust your body to tell you when it’s dehydrated. Drink water little and often through the day, keeping feelings of thirst at bay. If you want to know more about the importance of water consumption and the different types of water you can buy, this article, Water Structure and Science by London Southbank University, is a great place to start.
Eat well – we touched on eating right in the recent blog post Ten Top Foods for Studying, so I’ll not repeat what I’ve already said. The only thing I will say is make sure you get plenty of Omega 3 fatty acids into your diet, as they appear to be particularly important in brain function and memory. Here’s a list of foods that are high in Omega 3 fatty acids.
Okay, that’s enough for this week. Next week we’ll move on to the final three aspects of keeping your mind and body healthy – sleep, stress and exercise!
