How do I improve my performance of my MBP (2009) after upgrading to 10.8.2

I'm relatively a novice when it comes to computers. I recently upgraded my MBP to the new OS X 10.8.2 and noticed that it's running much slower now. I purchased this laptop in the summer of 2009. Here are the basic specs:

Macbook Pro 13-inch, (mid-2009)
Processor 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
SATA Disk 160GB

Any recommendations on how to boost its performance would be greatly appreciated. I would love to avoid purchasing a new laptop, unless needed.

I have the same MacBook Pro model.

Upgrading your RAM to 8 GB will help a lot, as the others suggested. You might also look into adding an SSD using something like the Data Doubler by Other World Computing (macsales.com).

Then you could do something cool like this: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57550128-263/how-to-make-a-custom-corestorage-drive-in-os-x/

Tho Apple lists 2GB RAM as the minimum requirement for Mountain Lion it is not really enough in my opinion.

Apps like Safari, Chrome, Photoshop are all going to grab all your free RAM in order to boost their own performance at the expense of other operations.

You can confirm that you are RAM constrained by opening Activity Monitor and looking at "Page outs" in the "System Memory" Tab.

If you are seeing any number other than zero then your computer at one point since the last reboot had to swap memory to disk. This is going to slow your machine considerably while the swap is occurring and slow it again when the same memory is later pull back into RAM.

So first thing would I'd do is buy more RAM. That should help a LOT.

After that I'd look to getting a SSD, which should also improve battery life. But RAM is the top priority here.