improving your memory

To begin with, not everything that's novel or new provides the kind or strength of nerve cell stimulation that is necessary to activate new brain circuits and enhance neurotrophin production. For example, if you normally write with a pen and one day choose to write everything in pencil, you've broken your routine and are doing something new. So, in some small way, you've changed the patterns of activity in the parts of your brain activated by touching. But such a small change wouldn't recruit new sensory associations important enough to engage the circuitry required to really exercise your brain.