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SharpBrains.com published an article on maintaining a healthy brain that will function better. Here are the four keys to improving your brain health:

Physical Exercise

• Do something you enjoy for even just 15 minutes a day. You can always add more time and activities later.
• Schedule exercise into your daily routine. It will be become a habit faster if you do.
• Do something cardiovascular to get your heart beating faster

Mental Exercise

• Be curious! Get to know your local library and community college, look for local organizations or churches that offer classes or workshops
• Work puzzles like crosswords and sudoku or play games like chess and bridge
• Try computerized brain fitness programs
• Learn something new every day

Good Nutrition

• Plan your meals around your vegetables (especially leafy greens), and then add fruit, protein, dairy, and/or grains
• Add some cold-water fish to your diet (tuna, salmon, mackerel, halibut, sardines, and herring)
• Try to eat more foods low on the Glycemic Index

Stress Management

• Get enough sleep each night
• Practice meditation, yoga, or a calming activity to help you relax
• Set aside 5 to 10 minutes to just breathe deeply

Check out the other ways to improve your brain health . . .

Recommended Reading

• Boost Your Brain Power with These Super Foods
  
• How Video Games Can Improve Your Mind
  

Dartmouth published a paper discussing ways for students to improve their memory as they study. These tips will help any student study smarter, not harder. Here are some of our favorite study tips:

Recite As You Study
Recitation should first take place as you read through each paragraph or section. Quiz or test yourself. This promotes understanding as well as faster learning because it is a more active process than reading or listening. It also tests understanding, revealing mistakes or gaps. Recite in your own words. Auditory learners should spend more time in reciting orally what they are learning than visualizers. Read aloud passages you find difficult.

Take Fuller Notes
Visual learners should take fuller notes during lectures and their readings, as they learn more readily by visualizing than hearing. Auditory learners should take fuller notes perhaps on their readings. Notes should be in your own words, brief, clear but succinct. They should be legible and neat. Writing notes better reinforces memory than mere underlining, which is frequently done mechanically , often to excess and does not check understanding.

Study the Middle
The best time to review is soon after learning has taken place. The beginning and the end of material is best remembered, so pay close attention to the middle which is likely to be forgotten. The peak of difficulty in remembering is just beyond the middle, toward the end. change your method of review.

Sleep On It
Study before going to bed unless you are physically or mentally overtired. Freshly learned material is better remembered after a period of sleep than after an equal period of daytime activity because retroactive interference takes place.

Connect Ideas Whenever Possible
There are two ways to memorize: by rote (mechanically) and by understanding. Multiplication tables, telephone numbers, combinations to safes, and the like are better learned by rote. ideas, concepts, theories and significances and the like are learned by understanding. Sometimes they work simultaneously.

The more association you can elicit for an idea, the more meaning it will have; the more meaningful the learning, the better one is able to retain it. Always note similarities in ideas and concepts, and put them in their proper place in a larger system of ideas, concepts and theories. A bare literal understanding is often of little valuable. Never be satisfied with a hazy idea of what you are reading. If you are not able to follow the thought, go back to where you lost the trail.

Read ways to help you study smarter. . .

Now that school is starting back up, it’s time to give your brain everything it needs to stay sharp and attentive in class.

So here are 5 foods to help you improve your memory and supercharge your brain:

Fish
Fish is not only high in good protein, but also filled with essential vitamins and minerals for your brain; including: phosphorus, magnesium, selenium, and vitamins A and D. And fish oil is a great source of Omega-3 fat, which can improve your brain’s chemistry and development. We recommend: tuna, sardine, anchovy, salmon and bluefish.

Blueberries
The Journal of Neuroscience published some research from Tufts University that suggested that blueberries can improve memory loss. Blueberries are also filled with antioxidants and have been reported to inhibit colon cancer and Ovarian cancer.

Wholegrain Foods
Wholegrain foods are a great way to get folic acid and B vitamins into your body. You see, B vitamins like Thiamine, Pantothenic Acid, and Pridoxine have been shown to reduce memory loss. If you’re not eating enough wholegrain foods, we recommend taking a good B vitamin that has B1, B5, B6, and B12.

Pumpkin Seeds
Buy a bag of roasted pumpkin seeds and chew on them throughout the day. Pumpkin seeds are filled with zinc, which has been known to help improve thinking skills.

Broccoli
Broccoli is filled with vitamin K, and can help improve your brain chemistry and overall brainpower.

Eating all the right foods won’t guarantee that you’re brain is at its best performance. You need to balance healthy eating along with good sleep, cardiovascular activity, and plenty of water.

Recommended Reading:

• Improve Your Memory Power – 7 Effective Techniques 
• 4 Easy Ways to Improve Your Brain Health 
• How to Eat Smart – Psychology Today
• Food Chemical May Boost Memory – BBC
• Can Diet Protect Memory? – MSNBC

Researchers at the University of Rochester compared the attentional blink of video gamers against people who rarely play any video games at all. They found that gamers are able to simultaneously spot more of what they wanted to see in a quicker time frame. This research suggests that gamers can skim books quicker, and will be able to find the information they need much faster than non-gamers. [Read the video game research from Mind Hacks]

There are a lot of techniques to help you memorize numbers and dates quickly. One of my favorites involves associating numbers with letters.

For example:

0 = Z or S (zero)
1 = T or D (one downstroke)
2 = N (two downstrokes)
3 = M (three down strokes)
4 = R (R looks like 4 backwards)
5 = L (Roman Numeral for 50 is L)
6 = G (six looks like a G)
7 = K
8 = F
9 = P (9 looks like a P backwards)

You can associate any number with any letter, but the key is to memorize one letter for each number. Any letter not associated with a number doesn’t mean anything.

So this is how it works:

Let’s pretend you had to memorize that George Washington was born in 1732. To do this, you simply substitute the numbers for letters.

In this case: 1732 = TKMN

TKMN doesn’t make any sense, so you can add vowels to develop a fun way to associate TKMN with George Washington.

For example:

Take Men George Washington had to take men to war
Took Men George Washington took men to war
Teak Man Imagine George Washington made out of teak

The more creative you can use the letters, the better you’ll remember the date.