Five Tips to Improve Working Memory
You use your working memory every day when you complete any moderately to highly complex task, from remembering where you parked your car while you are at the shopping mall to remembering how to reassemble the flashlight that you just took apart to replace the burned out light bulb. Every day we engage in a variety of tasks that require working memory to complete properly. However, as we age, our working memory tends to decline, and the ease with which we once completed tasks seems to disappear. Fortunately, there are ways that you can improve your working memory, starting today!
Exercise Your Brain
Researchers have found that when people exercise their short term memory they improve their working memory and cognitive function. Specifically, researchers tested people by having them remember a stimulus, then recall the stimulus before that, then the one before that. They had these people work twenty minutes a day, day after day, trying to remember more and more stimuli in a row. What they found was that people could improve their ability for recall with practice. Moreover, this improvement in short term working memory seemed to carry over to other areas, including general cognitive development. It’s possible that playing a memory card game, or even the old fashioned 1970s game Simon, where you memorize the colors and repeat them, could improve your memory, attention span, and ability to learn!
Be More Aware of What You Are Doing
Today’s psychologists call this being “mindful”, but it simply means to pay better attention to what is going on, or to what you are doing. One example of the impact of mindfulness on working memory is following a conversation in a social gathering. This is also an example of how many people do not pay adequate attention, and their working memory fails them. Likely you have been guilty of being introduced to a person and, because you were nervous or concentrating on something else, you didn’t register the person’s name when you were introduced. Let’s say this is a work conversation, and as two others in the group are talking you allow yourself to become distracted, thinking of something you want to do later. Suddenly, someone addresses you by name and asks for your input – your input on what, you wonder, because you weren’t paying attention. Often, issues with following are conversation can be cured by actively paying more attention, by engaging with what is going on. A recent study of mindfulness found that it can be very effective in increasing working memory and general cognition!
Use Mnemonics as You Work
Mnemonics are tricks for remembering things. If you have ever noticed that you learn songs better than you learn lists or facts, that is because music and rhythm are mnemonics. Ah, if only you could memorize the periodical table of elements like you can remember your favorite holiday song! But maybe you can. You can use mnemonics to remember things, both short term and long. Is your child having trouble remembering your phone number? Learn the tune to the 1980s hit song “Jenny: 867-5309” and then replace the words with “Mommy” or “Daddy” and your phone number. You’ll be amazed how quick they will learn it. There are other mnemonics that you can use daily as well. Heading to the grocery store and don’t have a pen to write a list? Turn the list into a different word. If you need coffee, apples and tangerines, remember that you need C.A.T. – with that acronym you can jog your memory if you need something.
Play Chess
You probably never heard this suggestion before, but research has actually shown that playing the strategic board game “chess” can actually improve working memory. In fact, people who played chess every day for a few months had an increase in their IQ! The simple fact is that practicing activities that expand your working memory, such as chess, can actually have a long term effect on your overall ability to learn and remember.
Get Enough Sleep
Working memory is at least partially dependent upon your general cognitive functioning and long term memory, which are both aided by a good night’s sleep. You may not know it, but your sleeping time is when your mind organizes and files away what it has learned during the day. During the day most of what you do, experience and learn sits in your working memory; it doesn’t get filed into long term memory until you go to sleep. When you sleep you solidify new knowledge and in a way you empty your working memory so that it is ready for a new day.
Most people can hold about four items in their working memory at any one time. This is useful if you need to remember a telephone number while also remembering the two things that you wanted to tell your mom when you call. But what if you are rebuilding a car engine? Or cooking a very complicated recipe? Or building a rocket ship? You might find that you need to hold a bit more in that working memory. The good news is, you can improve your working memory. And if that isn’t enough, research has shown that when people expand their working memory they feel so good about it that their body releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that makes us feel good. So, when you push your mental limits and learn more your body will actually reward you with a natural feel good drug! Brains that feel good? It doesn’t get much better than that.