By Yousuf Zubair
It’s exam time. There are pages and pages of content to remember, from how cells defend themselves against disease, to how Shakespeare uses metaphors to create impact. No matter how studious and conscientious you’ve been throughout the year, and no matter how hard you concentrated in the lessons, you are now inescapably tasked with the arduous challenge of good, hard revision. Shackled to your textbooks, exercise books, and revision guides- you have to re-teach yourself everything you have ever known in each of your subjects, and this time, somehow make sure you don’t forget it.
Yes, there are certain things you need to be able to properly understand, and explain, and display a detailed knowledge of, in chunky 10 mark questions. However, if you take an exam paper- on any subject, and just flick through it, you’ll see that a lot of it simply requires you to recall key information, and terminology- just memorising paragraphs of information and regurgitating it in the exam room should ensure that you’ll do well. Unfortunately, although it may seem simple, this can be quite a difficult aspect of the examination. It’s one of those things that’s a lot easier said than done. Despite this, you still needn’t panic, stress and eventually just give up on your revision; there are several ways to try and improve one’s memory, and some really aren’t that laborious at all. In fact, you can help yourself a great deal by just eating the right stuff… Yes, eating!
Although there are many techniques which can help to improve your memory, and general cognitive function, often, the last thing you want to do is even more mental exercise on top of what you are already compelled to trudge through, just to give your memory some extra practice. However, the option which is perhaps the easiest and, in fact, in many cases- probably quite enjoyable, is simply eating certain foods.
For example, plums, or prunes (dried plums) are especially antioxidant-rich fruits, and eating just three to four a day can help to neutralise cell-damaging ‘free radicals’ that have a negative effect on your memory. This means that you can indulge in a snack that tastes great, requires no preparation, has no potentially detrimental impact upon your health (such as sweets, chocolates, biscuits etc. ) and which actually leads to considerable health improvements. Specifically, improvements to your memory- which means that perhaps by simply munching on a plum, you may just be able to churn out them grades you aspire towards.
Another example of an easy and simple snacking solution to adopt in an effort to improve your memory, is eating sunflower seeds. All nuts and seeds are good sources of vitamins and minerals, which contribute to the body’s overall health and wellbeing. Sunflower seeds in particular, are notably high in Vitamin E, which has been evidenced to improve one’s memory, cognitive function and performance. It has been suggested by recent studies that Vitamin E can have a considerable impact upon helping the elderly to avoid contracting Alzheimer’s disease (a condition which causes memory-loss). One ounce of dry-roasted sunflower seeds contains 30% of your recommended daily intake of Vitamin E, so even if you don’t really like the taste (or lack of any), surely just a few ounces isn’t unbearable?
In contrast, a proposition which is likely to be more widely appetising; they are plump, sweet, juicy blueberries. Emerging research suggests that chemical compounds found in blueberries, known as ‘flavonoids’, may improve our memory capacity and learning capability. It’s also likely that they can enhance reasoning skills, decision making, verbal comprehension and numerical ability. In addition, it has been found through various studies that the consumption of flavonoids can help to decrease the speed of the depletion of mental health that is commonly recognisable as we begin to age, thereby also potentially protecting against disorders such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s in later life. With this many benefits, it seems that blueberries really do deserve the title of ‘superfood’.
With all this in mind, if meticulously etching out pages of what might as well be another language isn’t working for you, perhaps try giving yourself that extra edge by adjusting your eating habits, the reams of research seem to hint that a healthy diet really does make for a healthy mind. If you want an A*- squish blueberries, crunch seeds, and munch plums.
