Even if you think you have a bad memory, you might be surprised at the difference a few special techniques can make. Here are a few suggestions from our Healthy Mind expert Nina Puddefoot.

Visualise a familiar journey, and place whatever it is that you wish to remember at strategic points along the way. For example, this could be names of people or items on your shopping list.

When you meet someone for the first time, engage all your senses to remember their name. For example, see them, hear their voice as they introduce themselves, repeat their name and feel them as you shake their hand. You may also pick up a scent. By using all or many of your senses, you will increase the chances of remembering who they are, even some time in the future.

When you are meeting someone for the first time, you can visualise their name written across their forehead. Or you can make up an image and put it together with the person's face and name – for example, visualise balloons coming out of the top of their head. Alternatively, you can use word association. For example, a singer called Nena released a record called 99 Red Balloons, so when meeting someone called Nena (or a similar-sounding name), you might make a colourful image of this.

Choose a selection of important dates – for example, family and friends' birthdays. The brain thinks in pictures. So an easy route for the brain to remember is to use imagination and association in order to boost its memory, as opposed to trying to remember the date itself.

Here's the technique:

Choose a date – for example, January 11. You could associate January with snow and the 11 as two ski poles in the snow. Now the brain has a picture using both imagination and association. Easy!

Here's another example. Let's take April 8. You could associate April with April showers. Now see the number 8 mixed in with the rain drops, so that there is a shower of 8s.

You get the picture?