It can be frustrating when your memory fails. You forget your cell phone in the dresser on your way to work or school, leave your wallet in the back seat of the car, or can’t quite recall the name of the person who just introduced themselves to you- even though you’ve asked them to repeat it twice. Luckily, there are some surprisingly easy ways to exercise your memory, so that your brain can work more like a well-toned muscle and less like a dial-up computer from the late 1990s.
Memory recall is more complicated than it sounds. Much like turning on a light by its switch, it requires a complex set of connected circuits to work in harmony with one another. Whether or not the connection between two “circuits” in the brain runs smoothly or suffers from lag depends on how much we’ve used that circuit. The following is a short list of games and activities that may help you build better connections for faster memory recall.
Sudoku
Sudoku is a game that requires you to “store” several items in your memory bank at the same time. The use of critical thinking skills, prolonged concentration, and planning ahead are also connected to memory.
Mahjong
Mahjong is a tile-matching game that originated in China. It’s effects are powerful enough to improve the memory recall of dementia patients, and the effects are still measurable even after long periods of time without playing (at least up to a month!).
Jigsaw Puzzles
Putting Jigsaw Puzzles together allows you to physically see how pieces fit together. This helps you get better at spotting patterns and nuances in real-life events as either a cause or effect of improving your memory. The brain stores information better when it’s related to a pattern.
Coloring
Traditionally thought of as a children’s activity, there is now a market for “Adult Coloring Books,” but if you don’t feel like spending $20 on a book of black and white mandalas, a $1 children’s coloring book will suffice. It was originally thought to improve memory by improving focus, but more recent research suggests that it actually works by quieting your mind and letting it simply do what it will do on it’s own. Coloring also requires both logic and creativity, engaging both the right and left hemispheres of the brain.
Physical Activity
The most promoted but least understood way to bolster your memory is physical activity. If you’ve ever been to a doctor for any kind of ailment, you’ve probably had physical exercise promoted to you ad nauseum, so I’ll keep this brief. Taking up even a light work-out routine can improve your memory recall, but professionals don’t know how or why it works.
Learn New Skills
Possibly the most effective way to prevent inconvenient memory dumping is to keep your brain engaged in whatever it’s doing right now, and that involves “feeding” it new and different flavored stimuli. With the advent of YouTube, which now hosts so many different kinds of things that it would be impossible to list them all, there are plenty of videos online for free that can teach you the ins and outs of taking up a new skill or hobby. You can try out a new language or learn to play Fur Elise on piano. You may never play in an orchestra, but your brain will thank you.
Written by Kadie Carmignani.
Kadie Carmignani is a freelance writer who specializes in blogging, ghostblogging, and copywriting. With a healthy balance of both academic and creative thinking, all of her content is completely original. To find out more, you may connect with her at Reddit or Gmail.