Your brain continuously forms memories based on sensory experiences and concepts. Your brain also decides whether each piece of information is needed in your memory for years or hours. Memory is linked to your current emotional, physical and mental states, so activities to improve memory should be multimodal. By combining emotional, sensory, conceptual and social experiences, you can use simple brain games to boost long-term and short-term memory retention.
Detail Recall
Exercise your brain by recalling details from events in the day. After shopping, try to remember what 10 other people in the store were wearing, or quiz yourself by listing the items on your boss' desk during a morning meeting. Stretch your brain by trying to remember things that happened years ago. List 10 details you remember from your first date, first day of school or first concert.
Play Word Games
Make lists of people, objects or details from a set category. For example, race with a friend to see who can name more astronauts, Supreme Court judges, tropical fruits or jazz musicians. Name one state or country for every letter of the alphabet, list as many words as you can using the letters in a longer word, or do word jumble puzzles. Work in a few brain games throughout the day during downtime by playing online word games while watching TV or mentally rewriting billboard ads during your commute.
Visualize Names
Remembering names can be one of the hardest, yet most necessary, functions of our of brains. When you meet someone new, learn to visualize ridiculous images based on his name. If his last name is Vines, visualize the word Vines covered in ivy. If you meet a Jack Pitt, you could imagine him standing next to the actor Brad Pitt. Remember the surname Fisher by picturing the person in over-sized waders with an old-fashioned fly-rod. The more extreme and silly the images, the more your brain will connect to the new names.
Use Mnemonics
Mnemonics are memory aides that use rhyming, rhythm, anagrams or imagery to help you remember procedures, data or other information. The traditional rhyme that begins "Thirty days have September, April, June and November" is a mnemonic children are often taught to help them remember how many days are in each month. Write short rhymes about office procedures like how to send long-distance faxes. Create anagrams by using the first letter of each step in a new word, such as ROYGBIV, which lists the colors of the rainbow in order from red to violet. You can also use the first letter of each piece of information to write a silly sentence. If ROYGBIV is too hard to remember, Right Over Your Garage Bob Is Vacuuming might stick in your brain.
Matching Games
Hasbro's game Memory challenges children to match picture tiles by remembering the location of images as they turn them over. Play online versions with updated themes or create your own with a deck of playing cards. Choose 18 matching pairs of numbers or court figures. Shuffle the cards, lay them face down in a six by six square. Turn over two cards per turn. If the cards match, remove them from the table. If they do not match, return them to their positions face down. Time yourself or race with a friend to match all the pairs quickly.
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