Activities and Games for Memory

Everyday life can be filled with information to remember: names, ID numbers, and shopping lists, to name a few. You can benefit from memory exercises at any age. Young children are just developing their brains' capacities for memory, while students have to memorize facts for tests, and older adults may want to keep their already-developed brains in shape. There are many simple methods and games to help you refine your recall.

Rhyming Numbers

• Break down lists of numbers by associating each number with a words that rhymes with it. For example, let's say you have to remember the code 3521. For "three", think "free". For "five", think "alive". For "two", think "true", and "one", think "fun". Now you have the phrase "Free, alive, true, (and) fun". It may also help to use positive words or ones that create a striking visual.

The Roman Room and Journey Methods

• The Roman Room Technique, or the Method of Loci, is a centuries-old strategy for remembering groups of information. Visualize a familiar room, such as your living room, your bedroom, or your office. Next, add decorations, furniture, or other visual reminders of the list you need to remember into the room. A variation on this is the Journey Method, which features an imaginary tour of the room and is designed for groups of information that need to be in a specific order. For example, let's say you need to remember the names of the 20th and 21st American Presidents. Imagine yourself touring your room. There's a number on the door that says 20-21. Pretend that there's a stuffed Garfield cat in the corner. The cat's so fat, you think he probably should go to the gym--"gym" being a homophone for "Jim", as in James, as in James Garfield. Oddly, there's also an old chest on the floor. You open it and find it's filled with paintings--art. "Chest" stands for "Chester" and "Art" is a nickname for "Arthur", so that visual represents Chester Arthur.

Memory Card Game

• This classic game helps you use your short-term visual memory. Select eight pairs from a deck of cards, such as a pair of sixes, a pair of jacks, and so on, for a total of sixteen cards. Shuffle them and arrange them face down into 4-by-4 card square. Flip two cards over, one at a time. If they match, remove them from the square. If not, flip them back over and try again. Try to remember the numbers and locations of the cards you previously turned over in order to create as many pairs as possible as fast as possible. Continue until you've cleared out all the cards. Repeat with a higher number of cards, all the way up to the full deck, which is 26 pairs.

Online Games

• Those more technologically inclined can benefit from the variety of free online memory games provided in the Resources section. An online version of the memory card game, a shape positioning game, and a virtual recipe memorization game are some examples.