However you will be surprised to learn that human brain is very powerful. It has been proved scientifically that both the parts of our brain work efficiently and can hold on to each and every piece of information that we feed to it. Many a times, one is not able to recollect simple things like names of people, things on the shopping list and not to mention other small household stuff. The left hemisphere of the brain takes charge of numbers, logic, analysis words and list. While the hemisphere to the right is responsible for rhythm, color, day dreaming imagination and spatial awareness. If you are student then with good memory you can work on getting better grades at school.   There is a method by which you can recollect things at once. You can master the skills so much so that you will not want to remember anything the difficult way. Many things can be mastered by adopting the different  memory improvement  methods. This will enable you to remember appointments, dates and important date schedules without having to consult the digital diaries or notepads. You can recollect at ease appointments, date schedules without missing any one. This improved memory will enhance your performance.   The orthodox method of memory improvement training was to read books or attend memory workshops. Workshops were costly and therefore people read books and mentioned made a mention of the various tips in their notebook but never had any plans of following it. The people felt disillusioned and angry. They put the entire blame on the training that was a long drawn affair and not practical. Cramming, they felt was not the answer to their problem. Their efforts failed to bring any result.  What is needed at the moment is a fun way of learning the techniques for  memory improvement  so that one can also apply them in everyday life.

Everyone knows that the key to a healthy body is diet and exercise.  Many people obsessively work out every day to keep in tip top shape.  So, if we’re so concerned with exercising our bodies, why do we often neglect to exercise our minds?  Our brains are just like our muscles: use it or lose it.  If we don’t do daily activities to help keep our brain in top order, we lose important skills; particularly the skill of remembering.  So if you want to remember your mother’s phone number, your grocery list, or where you left your keys; start exercising your brain.

So, how exactly do you exercise your brain?  There’s no brain gym you can get a membership to with “memory classes”, but there are things you can do on your own.  Here are some things you can try to keep your neurons limber.

* Open a newspaper.

Sure, reading the paper might expand your knowledge, but if you really want to get your brain in shape, turn to the crossword puzzle.  You can also try solving other puzzles that require using your language skills.  These help you remember things by making you regularly access simple memories (i.e. certain words)

* Try the latest puzzle craze.

Go to a book store, go online, or look in the paper; you’re likely to find Sudoku puzzles. These are number puzzles that are becoming increasingly popular.  They help exercise your brain’s deductive reasoning skills. Plus, they’re fun and incredibly addictive.

* Learn something new.

You’ve probably heard people say that learning something new pushes old information out of your brain.  This is not only wrong, it’s just plain silly.  The capacity of your brain is only determined by how much you want to put in it.  Try learning a new skill or how to play a musical instrument.  Learning a skill and continue to use it will keep your memory accessing skills limber.

* Books, games and services.

While there aren’t actually gyms you can go to, there are ways to get exercises specifically designed to improve memory.  You can find these in book stores, online, and even in video game stores.

While it’s great to exercise your brain cells, don’t skip out on your trips to the gym.  Keeping your body in good physical shape will help keep your brain healthy too.  While cardio is the best work out to keep you healthy, you can still keep your memory if you can’t perform a strenuous workout.  Even a simple walk for an hour a day can help prevent or slow memory loss.  So get up and go as much as you can to keep your brain going.

Most people don’t worry about memory loss until they start to notice it slipping away, but the best time to start is while your mind is still sharp.  You may not be able to bring your memory back, but you can keep it from fading.  Regularly working your mind has even been shown to ward off Alzheimer’s.  So if you want to keep your mind sharp, be sure to eat right, get enough rest, and exercise regularly.

There are so many gadgets and programs available today for enhancing brain function, particularly for improving your memory. They offer many tips and tools, as well as personal support. But you can start enhancing your memory on your own right now–not by changing how you recall memories, but by improving how well you create them in the first place.   Try these eight brain enhancement tips for improving your memory:

1.Pay attention. One of Ilchi Lee’s (author of Principles of Brain Management) three rules for operating our brain effectively, paying attention is the first step toward creating a memory. You should try and take in as many details as possible.

2.Use more than one sense. The more of your five senses you pay attention to when trying to create a memory, the more connections you will make in your brain, which leads to a stronger, longer-lasting memory.

3.Make associations. Making associations between one thing and another will help you remember it. For example, when you meet someone and want to remember their name, really focus on it and notice different things about the person such as, “Mary with the blonde hair and brown eyes who smells like roses and likes white wine.” The more interesting or entertaining the associations you create are, the more easily you will remember them.

4.Enthusiastically engage yourself in what you are doing. According to memory expert Eran Katz, when we like something, or are excited about it, we automatically remember it better because we naturally pay attention to it using more than one sense, and make associations with it to things we’ve already experienced.

5.Repeat, repeat, repeat. Once you make your associations, keep repeating them. If you can repeat them out loud you will employ the help of your sense of hearing and remember them more easily. Brain Rules author John Medina says, “The human brain can only hold about seven pieces of information for less than 30 seconds.” If you want to hold more information longer, keep repeating it and the associations you’ve made to it.

6.Get plenty of exercise. Exercise, especially when it increases the circulation of oxygen-rich blood to your brain, boosts every brain function, including memory.

7.Manage your stress. This tip also applies to overall brain function. Levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which are higher during chronic stress, actually shrink memory centers in the brain and kill nerve cells. Stress also affects things like how well you eat and sleep, which then also affect your memory. Exercise, of course, helps to manage stress.

8.Get enough sleep. During sleep, especially the first few hours of “slow-wave” sleep, our minds are busy processing the information and skills we learned during the day, further solidifying memories.  As you continue to use these brain enhancement tips for creating more solid new memories, they will also help you keep them. In addition to memory improvement, brain enhancement techniques for other cognitive abilities will help keep your brain active and agile throughout your life.

A lot of us are failed by our memory. Although it is not entirely a sign of aging or brain deficiency, memory lapses can lead to severe memory gap or sometimes, even memory loss. The best way to keep our minds working even at the busiest times of the day is to remember things, items and important details that we need to attend to in the next coming days.

Exercising our brain cells by remembering is an important activity for our brain. It’s also a way of maintaining a healthy mind and active memory as we grow old. Unfortunately, there comes a time when we really can’t remember a person’s name of an old friend or even a famous line from a recent blockbuster movie. How can this be? We then blame ourselves for not paying attention to the details given to us.

Failing to give our full attention to the details given to us is usually what leads to memory lapses. We then associate it with a bad memory or memory gone wrong ideas when in fact, we still and can control what we are capable of remembering. The same thing applies in memorizing long lists of information. For this context however, a memory technique called Peg Method works very well.

What’s a Peg Method you ask? It’s simply an approach you can use in memorizing many items at a time. You can use numbers to associate a word or an item. So when you mention number 12, you can immediately refer the number 12 equals to the item you’ve linked it with. To make it even easier for you to remember information in using the Peg Method, try putting all the items in cluster.

A good approach is to group the items in five’s or ten’s. For example, items 0-9 is labeled extremely small, 10-19 is medium sized while 20-29 is large and so on. You can use various cluster labels by location, texture or even by rhymes. When you’ve gotten used to memorizing items through Peg Method, don’t worry in memorizing short lists, you can surely do it on your own.