How to Improve Short Term Memory
- 1). Sedentary people may see dramatic improvement in short term memory just by getting more blood flowing to the brain. Exercise and inversions such as headstands or lying on an inversion table help get blood flowing to the brain and that improves cognitive function, which includes learning and remembering things.
- 2). Relax. Your brain will function much better. Yoga, meditation, massage, a warm bath or a walk on the beach will do wonders for your ability to remember things. Spending more time working doesn't necessarily yield better results.
- 3). Get enough sleep. Brains process things during sleep, and rested brains work better. If you are sleep deprived, you may find that your short term memory improves if you study less and rest more.
- 4). Get a source of essential fatty acids in your diet. Essential fatty acids are building blocks of neurons, and are deficient in most modern diets. Flax, hemp and pumpkin seeds all have abundant essential fatty acids and are available in either seed or oil form.
- 5). Get organized. Having a plan and an uncluttered, organized environment both at work and at home helps you to relax and spend time and energy doing things, rather than worrying about how and when you're going to do them.
Try David Allen's book, Getting Things Done which presents a detailed system for organizing, prioritizing, scheduling and reviewing all the tasks that make up your life. - 6). Don't try to remember everything. You won't improve your short term memory by over stressing it. It is not necessarily beneficial to your brain if you try to remember every little detail of everything. Write down the things that you only have to remember temporarily, and free up your brain to devote more resources to remembering the things that really matter.
- 7). Write it down. Even if you never look at it again, the process of writing something down makes it easier for you to remember.
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Talk about it. Talking about something with other people strengthens a concept's connections in your brain. Connections are strengthened just by thinking and focusing on the topic more. They will also be strengthened because as you discuss something, you make more mental associations with other things and that builds more connections. Talking about something also helps you to understand it better, and it is easier to remember something you understand than to remember it just by rote memorization. If talking about it leads to a heated debate, even better! Connections are strengthened when you are emotionally charged as you think about something. - 9). Try mnemonics -- an oldie but goodie. It is a favorite short term memory trick of school children everywhere. Making up silly phrases or acronyms using the first letter of each word can help you to remember arbitrary things, like the names of the planets in the solar system or the order of colors in the rainbow.
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Learn speed reading. Speed readers learn how to filter out the information in a text that isn't relevant to what they are trying to learn. This enables them to read more quickly, and to understand and remember better what they've read. PhotoReading is an even more efficient and more comprehensive set of learning strategies. - 11
Use mind maps. A mind map is an intuitive arrangement of concepts and ideas that all relate to one central idea. Mind maps help you to organize information in a way that is similar to how your mind stores and associates things When you learn things in a way that is compatible with how your mind makes associations, it is easier to recall them to short term memory. - 12
Take frequent breaks when you are learning something new. This helps you avoid mental fatigue which inhibits learning. - 13
Be a lifelong learner. If your brain isn't getting sharper, it's getting duller. You don't have to do boring memorization drills in order to keep your memory sharp. Just keep learning new and challenging things and that will help your brain overall, including your memory. - 14
To maximize your learning and improve medium and long as well as short term memory, pace out your learning and review sessions. The longer you want to remember something, the longer should be the time delay between when you initially study it and when you review it. Studying more intensively in a short period of time will not make much difference in medium and long term memory, but leaving a longer gap between study sessions will. If you want to remember something for a very long time, wait several months before reviewing it.
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