How to Improve Your Memory as an Adult: Everyday Practice

In 1885 the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus published a study in which he memorised lists of nonsense syllables himself and measured how much he forgot as time passed. He forgot quickly right after learning, and then the forgetting slowed down. This result is known as the forgetting curve.

Forgetting is a normal part of how memory works. Even so, I think everyone has times when they feel they can’t remember things lately, or a name just won’t come. In this post I write about practice adults can do in everyday life, based on what research on memory shows fairly clearly.

One note first. What follows is about making it easier to remember the things you want to remember. If forgetfulness is getting in the way of work or daily life, or people around you have started to point it out, please talk to a doctor before changing how you practise.

Practise recalling, not just learning

One of the best-established findings in memory research is the “testing effect”: trying to recall something is itself what makes the memory stronger.

A study that is often cited is the 2006 paper by Roediger and Karpicke. University students learned short prose passages. One group reread them several times, and another group read them and then wrote down what they could recall. On a test after five minutes, the rereading group did better. On tests two days and one week later, the group that had practised recalling remembered more.

When you reread something, it looks familiar, so you feel you have learned it. But that feeling of familiarity is not the same as being able to recall it later without looking. I think this is the most important point of the study.

A 2013 review by Dunlosky and colleagues compared ten learning techniques and rated two of them as “high utility”: practice testing, and the spaced practice described in the next section. Rereading and highlighting were rated “low utility”.

In everyday life, it could look like this:

• After reading a book or article, close it and write down three main points. Then open it again and check.
• On the way home from a meeting, go over in your head what was decided.
• After meeting someone new, recall their name once after you part.
• Before looking at your shopping list, try to remember what is on it.

In each case the key is the order: recall first, look second. If you find a gap, you know what to check, so getting it wrong costs nothing.

Space out your repetitions

Another well-established finding is the “spacing effect”. For the same amount of time spent, spreading practice out over several sessions helps you remember for longer than repeating everything at once.

A 2006 meta-analysis by Cepeda and colleagues pulled together a large number of studies on this effect and confirmed that spaced practice is remembered better than massed practice.

Put together with Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve, I think this means it is better to recall something again when you have started to forget it than to repeat it many times right after learning. If there is something you want to remember, try recalling it without looking the next day, a few days later and a week later. Combined with the recall practice above, you get the benefit of both.

Give it meaning, give it a place

Things are easier to remember when you give them meaning or connections. For a person’s name, recall it together with where you met and what you talked about. For a number, link it to a year or date you already know. I think the basic idea is to tie separate pieces of information to what you already know.

A technique known since ancient times is the method of loci, or memory palace. You picture a house or route you know well and place the things you want to remember along it in order. To recall them, you walk the route in your mind. It suits things that come in a sequence, and people who compete in memory contests use it.

As I understand it, though, the method of loci is a technique for remembering particular things. It does not raise memory ability as a whole.

Sleep and exercise

Memory is not decided only at the moment of learning.

On sleep, a 2013 review by Rasch and Born brings together research showing that sleep plays a part in consolidating memories. Sleeping after learning is thought to help memories settle. I think learning something and then sleeping makes more sense than staying up late to cram.

On exercise, a 2011 study by Erickson and colleagues is well known. They split 120 older adults into a group that did aerobic exercise such as walking for a year and a group that did stretching. In the aerobic group, the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory, grew in volume. The participants were older adults, and it is not clear how far this applies to younger adults, but it is one result suggesting that moving your body matters for the brain.

About brain training

Another approach is to practise memory tasks in an app. BrainDojo, which I make, is one of them.

But as I wrote in Does Brain Training Work?, the tasks you practise get better, while there is no clear evidence that the gains spread to other tasks or to daily life. If you keep doing a memory task every day, your score on that task will probably rise, but that does not mean you will stop forgetting names.

If there is something you want to remember, I believe the shortest path is to practise recalling that content itself. I think brain training is best used separately, as a short time each day for focusing on something.

About BrainDojo

BrainDojo is an iPhone and iPad app for keeping up a daily brain-training habit with short mini-games. The app itself states “(This app is not a medical device.)” I don’t claim it improves memory or prevents forgetfulness.

The training is grouped into lanes such as Calculation Boost, Memory Boost, Attention Boost and Handwriting Training. Memory Boost includes games such as n-back and remembering positions. You answer by handwriting with your finger, speaking, or tapping. The Brain Dojo Check, once a day, is a short test that picks one game from each of three areas: processing speed, inhibitory control and working memory. Your score will probably rise as you keep taking it, but I believe much of that rise comes from getting used to the tasks.

The free plan gives you two “Try” games a day, the Brain Dojo Check, and a calendar where you stamp the days you trained. BrainDojo Plus adds Today’s Training and every game. Neither plan has ads.

Getting Started with BrainDojo walks through the first session, and BrainDojo Free vs Plus explains the two plans.