Memory exercises: 8 methods with real evidence

1. Test yourself instead of rereading

Close the book and write down everything you remember, then check. In a classic experiment (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006), students who tested themselves on a text remembered more a week later than students who reread it several times, even though the rereaders felt more confident.

Exercise: after reading an article, close it and say in three sentences what you took away.

2. Spaced repetition

Information reviewed several times at growing intervals sticks far better than information crammed in one go. A meta-analysis of hundreds of experiments (Cepeda et al., 2006) confirmed the effect for words, facts and foreign languages.

Exercise: review what you want to keep today, tomorrow, in 3 days and in a week.

3. Chunking

Working memory holds only a few items at once, around four groups by more recent estimates. The string 0722184519 is hard to hold; “0722 184 519” is much easier. Chunking does not enlarge your memory, but it lets each “slot” hold more.

Exercise: in the memory test, split the sequence into chunks of 3 shapes and rehearse the chunks, not the shapes one by one.

4. The method of loci (memory palace)

You picture a familiar route, such as through your home, and “place” each item along it. To recall, you walk the route in your mind. In a 2017 study (Dresler et al.), people with no prior experience who practised the method for 40 days roughly doubled the number of words they could recall from a list.

Exercise: today’s shopping list, placed at 5 spots in your home: the door, the coat rack, the sofa, the table, the fridge.

5. Explain, don’t just repeat

Ask yourself “why is this so?” and link new information to what you already know. A large review of learning techniques (Dunlosky et al., 2013) found moderate evidence for this kind of explanation, and strong evidence for self-testing and spaced practice.

6. Sequence and working-memory games

Games where you hold and reproduce an order, like Simon or the Corsi test, exercise working memory. Studies show a clear gain on tasks similar to the ones practised. Transfer to intelligence or other abilities, however, is small or absent (Melby-Lervåg et al., 2016). Play them because you enjoy them and they show your progress, not as medicine.

7. Exercise

It does not look like a memory exercise, but it has some of the best evidence. In a study of 120 older adults (Erickson et al., 2011), a year of brisk walking three times a week enlarged the hippocampus, a key memory region, by about 2% and improved spatial memory. In the control group, the hippocampus kept shrinking with age.

8. Sleep, as part of the exercise

During sleep, the brain replays and consolidates what you learned during the day (Diekelmann & Born, 2010). An exercise done in the evening and followed by a good night is retained better than the same exercise followed by a short night.

A 10-minute daily routine

1. 2 minutes: one go at the memory test or the Daily sequence as a warm-up.
2. 5 minutes: self-testing on something you are learning: a language, exam material, new colleagues’ names.
3. 3 minutes: review what you learned 3 days ago and a week ago.
4. Plus, separately: 20–30 minutes of brisk walking and a regular bedtime.

What to avoid

• Passive rereading. It feels like knowing, but fades fast.
• Everything in one evening. The same amount spread over several days sticks much better.
• Multitasking. What you did not attend to never gets into memory, however much you practise later.