“Why is my friend upset with me?

Oh no, didn’t I tell her I was going to call her back, but I forgot to?

What is the name of the guy she’s been telling me that she likes again?

Is it Matthew?

Ok, let me call her…

Crap, my phone is about to die, I forgot to charge it again!”

Does that sound familiar?

Just like many people in this world, I forget stuff from time to time – from replying to my friends’ messages to watering the plants (my boyfriend calls me the plant murderer), and even my best friend’s birthday one year (thankfully she forgave me but hasn’t let me live it down)!

It does help to write things down, but it can get annoying and I always end up having tonnes of notes both in my notebook and on my phone.

And these are just basic things. I’m not even talking about client work, for which I constantly need an active mind.

I’ve always been fascinated by how our brain works and the science behind productivity.

And so, in search for improving my memory and activating my superbrain, I found a really great memory course that has shown results in a matter of minutes!

The guy who created it – Jim Kwik, often goes on stage and memorises 100 names from the audience and repeats them in order, as well as backwards! 

Apart from being a pretty awesome party trick, it’s also essential to keep our brains active like that to have clarity of mind when we’re older.

In one of the first lessons, Jim talks about the 10 keys for improving your memory and activating your superbrain. Now I won’t give them all to you but I do want to mention a few of them so you can start incorporating them into your life right away.

1. A good brain diet keeps our mind healthy

Did you really think that we could have a list about keeping our body healthy and improving your memory without mentioning eating well? 

I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of healthy recipes on my page, but here we’re talking about some very specific foods that have been shown to improve brain health, so make sure to include some of these on your next shopping list!

(P.S. Jim helped us memorise this list using a really weird hack that I’ve never heard of before, and it’s so effective that it’s been almost 2 weeks since I’d heard it and I still remember it from the first go!)

• Avocado
• Blueberries
• Broccoli
• Coconut oil
• Eggs
• Green leafy veg
• Salmon 
• Turmeric
• Walnuts
• Dark chocolate

2. Killing ANTs

Nope, I haven’t started promoting harming innocent creatures. In this case, ANTs stands for Automatic Negative Thoughts.

There’s usually a dialogue that goes on in our heads (and if you’re one of those people without one, that’s really fascinating and I don’t get how you go about your day!). Often times it’s negative, such as “Ugh why can’t I get things right?”.

That kind of thinking sets a program in your brain and it actually believes it, so it’s very important to notice and change those negative thought patterns.

How? Becoming aware of them is the first step. You can try to think of something else and not giving them any room to grow.

You could also try actively changing them. For example, next time you catch yourself thinking something negative, like “I don’t have a good memory”… add a “yet” at the end to change the thought. 

3. Exercise for better brain health

Whenever I feel stuck, I can’t think or I’m overloaded, I usually stand up, leave whatever I’m doing and go for a walk.

Walking helps clear the mind and at the same time, it’s the simplest form of exercise. It doesn’t need to take long, it could be a couple of minutes to an hour and after that, I’ll go back to whatever I’m doing refreshed and ready to work again.

I like the phrase “sitting is the new smoking” because it really is a silent killer. Not only for our brains but for our health in general. 

As far as improving your memory and activating your brain goes – anything that’s good for your heart will be good for your brain. So get moving in your favourite way, whether that’s lifting weights at the gym, going kickboxing with your friends or doing a few lanes in the pool. Your brain will stay in good shape for many years to come!

4. Sleep well to start improving your memory

In our culture today, working long hours has been glorified so much that if you’re sleeping for 8 hours a day, then you are not working enough. From Elon Musk who sleeps only six hours every night to Benjamin Franklin who apparently only slept for 5 hours, these well-known people can make us feel bad for sleeping instead of being productive.

But sleep is more important than you might realise, and it’s ever so crucial to understand your own personal circadian rhythm to increase your productivity.

I read a fantastic book by Matthew Walker called “Why We Sleep” (honestly, best book I’ve ever read). And in that book, Matthew mentions the link between getting a good night’s sleep and memory.

During deep sleep at night, your memory systems undergo a radical change. The first thing that might surprise you is that you need sleep before learning to actually prepare your brain, almost like a sort of a dry sponge, ready to initially soak up new memories and lay down those new memory traces in the brain.

However, you also need sleep after learning to then take those freshly minted memories in the brain and cement them and solidify them into the neural architecture of the brain.

When I am well-rested, I can pay better attention to new information that I come across in my daily experiences. Sleep will help make new information ‘stick’. During sleep, the brain replays memories from the day, making the neural connections stronger. This helps me remember the things I’ve experienced when I was awake and improves my memory.

These are just 4 out of the 10 keys I learned from Jim Kwiks Superbrain course.

After just a couple of lessons, I improved my memory skills and learnt new ways of remembering things that I had never heard of before.

For example, at the beginning of one lesson, I remembered 2 out of 20 words in consecutive order. Then, after a simple 5 min explanation, I was able to remember 20/20 in consecutive order! I genuinely couldn’t believe it!

Most of us believe only a small percentage of people are blessed with a ‘gifted’ brain.

But modern neuroscience strongly suggests everyone is born with the potential for a bulletproof memory, unshakeable focus, and superhuman productivity.

If you want to know more about the course, just click here or on the images below and discover how to improve your memory, how to give a speech without notes, how to remember people’s names with the SUAVE method, how to learn foreign languages faster, how to overcome procrastination, remember your dreams, speed read and so much more!