How to train your memory and make the most use of your brain in daily life

There are dozens of ways to give your brain a workout and make the most of your supercomputer! Read these 7 tips and see which ones can work best for you.

ONE. Write things down.

It sounds simple, right? Could be, but it impacts your brain in a big way. The act of writing has a chemical effect by increasing blood flow to areas of your brain responsible for your memories. This can be pretty easy to incorporate into your daily life. How? Come up with small ways to practice your writing skills. Start a journal, write letters to friends by hand, create a detailed plan for the week or month, or start your own blog. Writing on a regular basis can boost your memory and help you recall information when you need it.

TWO. Use music to your memory advantage.

There’s a lot of research that shows music is helpful in boosting long-term memory. It has a lot of other benefits for the brain: music increases brain plasticity, improves focus and even motivation, and protects against cognitive decline and memory loss. 

THREE. Use the teaching technique.

One of the most powerful memory techniques is recalling newly learned information by teaching it to someone else. The benefit? It helps you review, recall, and retain what you’ve learned in a much better way than just silently looking over the material. Here’s how to start:

• Get an audience: it can be a close friend or family member. Too shy to speak to anyone? Pretend you have a couple of invisible students who really need to learn what you just covered!
• Create a private classroom: take a large sheet of white paper (or tape together several sheets for a bigger writing surface), then tape it to your bedroom wall at eye level. Be sure you have some leg room to stand in front of it. Have a pen handy, and a thick black marker (or different colored highlighters) to underline important concepts.
• Get to work: Write an outline of the most important points in the chapter you just covered, then go over the concepts aloud one by one. Make your “lecture” come alive by drawing diagrams on the side and by providing a few examples; add some humor or a short story to make it even more interesting. At the end, summarize what you thought to be key parts of the lecture and highlight these sections with your thick marker or highlighter. This helps you recall details better and solidify what you’ve learned.

FOUR. Build a memory palace.

A memory palace (the method of loci) is a memory-boosting technique that dates back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. It’s called a palace because it represents a place or series of places that you can create in your mind to store information that you need to remember. The benefit? Your brain remembers information better when it’s told in a story format, and a big part of this technique is telling the story of where the information is located. Here are a few resources to help explain the fundamentals:

• Learn how to build it
• Example: step by step guide to building a memory palace
• Read about it
• Joshua Foer: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
• Watch a video explaining it
• TEDTalk with Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do

FIVE. Visualize your progress.

This is a technique called building a mental model; you imagine in detail what you expect to read and learn. As you imagine the details, be sure to cover all the steps you will be covering. For example: if you are studying or learning something new, visualize covering a certain amount of material (chapters, paragraphs, sections), taking notes on the important concepts you discover, writing down questions to research later. The benefit? You train your brain to anticipate next steps and map out the entire learning process in a way that’s easier to understand.

SIX. Develop your critical thinking skills.

As you learn new things, it is important that you don’t just take everything you see, hear, and read for granted. Instead, you should focus on forming your own opinions and ask yourself why these things matter to you. Here’s how to exercise your critical thinking muscle:

• Expose yourself to different points of view (f.ex., on world history, philosophy, politics, psychology, literature, spiritual practice, art, technology, etc.).
• Ask questions to understand better: to make sure they’re really effective, don’t just ask questions that others can respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to; ask open-ended questions that begin with why and how.
• Figure out what you can learn from it all: distill from all the information you gather what is important to you and your future self. Take into consideration your own personal goals, values, and priorities.

SEVEN. Boost memory with some exercise 4 hours after intense learning.

Exercise is important to boost memory, but it’s the actual timing of it that is key. Scientists found that people who exercised four hours after their study sessionretained the information better a few days later than those who exercised either immediately after studying or those who didn’t exercise at all. Brain scans from the study show that exercising with a delay affects the hippocampus, an area of the brain that is important for learning and memory.