How can I naturally boost my memory?

Some ways to boost your memory naturally include sleeping well, exercising, using parts of your brain you don't always use, and eating well. In this video, neurologist Gayatri Devi, MD, gives her top ten strategies for improving memory naturally.

Transcript

00:00

You want to do aerobic physical exercise on a daily basis, even for 10 to 15 minutes.

00:06

When you do that, it increases the blood flow to your brain. And it improves brain activity. [PEACEFUL MUSIC PLAYING]

00:18

I'll give you my list for boosting memory naturally. The number one is to sleep well and to sleep well

00:25

without using an alarm clock. So you go to bed when you're tired. And you wake up in the morning when you wake up in the morning.

00:32

I think that's the number one way to improve your memory naturally. Number two, you want to do aerobic physical exercise

00:40

on a daily basis, even for 10 to 15 minutes. When you do that, it increases the blood flow to your brain.

00:47

And it improves brain activity. Number three, use a part of your brain that you don't normally use.

00:54

So if you're a writer, go out and do spin class. If you are a yoga instructor, you

01:02

may want to take up knitting. If you are a sculptor, you may want to take up music.

01:13

So basically, you want to try to use a part of your brain that you don't normally use on a daily basis.

01:19

And what that does is it strengthens your brain as a whole. The number four tip is I think it's very important to eat right.

01:27

And by that, I mean you want to eat foods that are very good for keeping your brain

01:33

and your heart healthy. And by that, I mean foods that are high in protein and low in carbs and low in saturated fat.

01:42

I think that's very helpful for the brain. The number five tip for maintaining your memory

01:50

is to reduce your level of stress. Now, that's going to be very, very hard to do. But there are ways to be able to do that.

01:58

And I think mindfulness and meditation is gaining speed because people realize that those

02:05

are important ways to de-stress on a natural basis. Other ways to improve your memory are to figure out what parts of your brain need extra help.

02:16

Now, you may say to me, well, how do I know which parts of my brain need extra help? Well, sometimes, we know that naturally we

02:22

might know that we were never good with numbers, say, or that our vocabulary was never that good. And you can try to work on that area

02:31

to try to improve that part of your brain, to improve that region of your brain because every time you work on a certain task, that strengthens

02:40

that part of the brain. And you may find that hard to believe. But let's say you're a violinist and you practice the violin for a weekend.

02:47

Then, you come back on Monday morning. The part of the brain that deals with violin playing actually has expanded, even just over a weekend.

02:56

So the brain's very flexible and will respond to even these small, little changes.

03:02

The other very important thing to do to improve your memory is to pay attention. Most of us don't remember things because we never paid attention

03:11

in the first place. So it's important to pay attention because paying attention is the first step in funneling

03:19

a memory into the part of your brain where it's eventually going to be stored. Other important things for remembering

03:26

better, being more organized. The more organized you are, the more habit prone you are, the more likely you are to have left your keys

03:34

in the exact same place, instead of you having to look for them all over the place.

03:40

So and then, the last thing that I think is very important for maintaining memory naturally is to be motivated.

03:46

You really want to have a fit brain. And in order to do that, you have

03:55

to have a very high level of motivation, I think. [AUDIO LOGO]