How to Hack Your Way to A Better Memory

Have you ever lost track of your keys while you were already running late? Blanked out during an important exam when you were so sure you had studied the material back to front? While it’s completely normal to forget things now and then, having your memory fizzle out on you can be quite a frustrating experience, especially on busy days. 

Calendars and to-do lists can help you keep track of most everyday things you have to remember, such as important dates, meetings, or tasks that need to be completed. But what about retaining important information that you want or need to commit to your long-term memory—like your bank account number? For that, you may have to put in a little extra effort to exercise your brain. Consider trying a few of the following helpful techniques to get the most out of your memory:

Consider Meditation and/or Prayer

Practising meditation regularly has many health benefits that are well-substantiated by scientific research. Meditation has been shown to enhance feelings of well-being, reduce stress, and improve memory and concentration. In fact, studies have found that meditation boosts the production of grey matter in the brain, neuron-rich tissue that aids information retention and other cognitive faculties.

For religious individuals, prayer may be a meaningful alternative to meditation. Digital applications like the Muslim Pro app can help you identify appropriate times to pray, and they also frequently feature auditory prompts to guide you through the experience itself. If you’d like to memorize prayers or verses from your sacred scripture, you can also use the Muslim Pro app and other similar programs to play back audio recordings. Hearing these passages read aloud will help you retain them much more than just reading them quietly.

Play Brain Games

Taking a few minutes out of your day to focus specifically on exercising your brain isn’t just beneficial; it can be fun, too. From crosswords to Sudoku puzzles to Tetris, options for games that actively hone your cognitive skills and strengthen your memory are plentiful. There are also numerous mobile apps that specifically focus on improving memory, so you shouldn’t have difficulty finding a brain training method that suits your interests and inclinations well.

Brain-training games have been shown to effectively boost working memory, short-term memory, concentration, and problem-solving skills. There’s also evidence that they help decrease the risk of dementia in older adults. Best of all, you don’t have to block off huge chunks of your schedule to reap these benefits. One experiment, for instance, showed that brain-training sessions of only 15 minutes a day at least five days a week already brought about significant cognitive improvements for participants.

Visualize Important Information

It helps many people to visualize information that they want to retain. If you’re studying complex concepts, for example, it may help you to look closely at the charts, tables, photographs, and other visual representations in your textbooks and other readings. If your study materials come without visual aids, consider drawing your own charts and sketches or making flashcards for important terms. You can also group related ideas together visually by highlighting or underlining them in different colours.

Talk about What You Learn

Many teachers and psychologists will tell you that communicating important information and concepts to others improves your own recall and comprehension in the process. Whether you’re studying for an exam, rehearsing for a presentation, or simply going over your list of tasks for the day, it may do you good to speak aloud to another person or even just to yourself. Once you get into the habit of doing this, you’ll probably find that the things you need to remember come back to you much more easily when you need them.

Studies also suggest that reading aloud has a similar positive effect on your memory of the material. As mentioned above, listening to passages of text you’re trying to memorize will likely prove more effective than just going over them silently, so don’t hesitate to recite them to yourself.

Sleep to Refresh Your Brain

Sleep deprivation has long been proven to damage the brain, with particularly negative effects on the areas of memory, learning, and cognition. Sleep is essential for memory consolidation, the neurological process by which short-term memories are fortified and developed into long-term memories. Hence, you’re much more likely to do badly on memory tests if you’re sleep-deprived than if you got an adequate amount of sleep the night before.

Most health experts recommend that adults get between seven to nine hours of sleep each night for optimal brain health. In particular, going to bed or even taking a nap after learning something new can help you understand it better and remember it more easily.

Your mind needs as much exercise as your body does, and actively working on your memory and other cognitive skills can also help improve your overall well-being in the long run. Don’t hesitate to experiment with different techniques and develop a brain-training routine that suits your needs and lifestyle.