How To Boost Your Memory (Without Supplements)

While we do recommend having a good diet and taking advantage of various supplements that have been found to help memory, that only gets so much mileage. With that in mind…

First, how good is your memory? Take This 2-Minute Online Test

Now, that was a test of short term memory, which tends to be the most impactful in our everyday life.

It’s the difference between “I remember the address of the house where I grew up” (long-term memory) and “what did I come to this room to do?” (short-term memory / working memory)

First tip:

When you want to remember something, take a moment to notice the details. You can’t have a madeleine moment years later if you wolfed down the madeleines so urgently they barely touched the sides.

This goes for more than just food, of course. And when facing the prospect of age-related memory loss in particular, people tend to be afraid not of forgetting their PIN code, but their cherished memories of loved ones. So… Cherish them, now! You’ll struggle to cherish them later if you don’t cherish them now. Notice the little details as though you were a painter looking at a scene for painting. Involve more senses than just sight, too!

If it’s important, relive it. Relive it now, relive it tomorrow. Rehearsal is important to memory, and each time you relive a memory, the deeper it gets written into your long-term memory until it becomes indelible to all but literal brain damage.

Second tip:

Tell the story of it to someone else. Or imagine telling it to someone else! (You brain can’t tell the difference)

And you know how it goes… Once you’ve told a story a few times, you’ll never forget it later. Isn’t your life a story worth telling?

Many people approach memory like they’re studying for a test. Don’t. Approach it like you’re preparing to tell a story, or give a performance. We are storytelling creatures at heart, whether or not we realize it.

What do you do when you find yourself in a room and wonder why you went there? (We’ve all been there!) You might look around for clues, but if that doesn’t immediately serve, your fallback will be retracing your steps. Literally, physically, if needs be, but at least mentally. The story of how you got there is easier to remember than the smallest bit of pure information.

What about when there’s no real story to tell, but we still need to remember something?

Make up a story. Did you ever play the game “My granny went to market” as a child?

If not, it’s a collaborative memory game in which players take turns adding items to a list, “My granny went to market and bought eggs”, My granny went to market and bought eggs and milk”, “my granny went to market and bought eggs and milk and flour” (is she making a cake?), “my granny went to market and bought eggs and milk and flour and shoe polish” (what image came to mind? Use that) “my granny went to market and bought eggs and milk and flour and shoe polish and tea” (continue building the story in your head), and so on.

When we actually go shopping, if we don’t have a written list we may rely on the simple story of “what I’m going to cook for dinner” and walking ourselves through that story to ensure we get the things we need.

This is because our memory thrives (and depends!) on connections. Literal synapse connections in the brain, and conceptual contextual connections in your mind. The more connections, the better the memory.

Now imagine a story: “I went to Stonehenge, but in the background was a twin-peaked mountain blue. I packed a red suitcase, placing a conch shell inside it, when suddenly I heard a trombone, and…” Ring any bells? These are example items from the memory test earlier, though of course you may have seen different things in a different order.

So next time you want to remember things, don’t study as though for a test. Prepare to tell a story!

Try going through the test again, but this time, ignore their instructions because we’re going to use the test differently than intended (we’re rebels like that). Don’t rush, and don’t worry about the score this time (or even whether or not you saw a given image previously), but instead, build a story as you go. We’re willing to bet that after it, you can probably recite most of the images you saw in their correct order with fair confidence.

Here’s the link again: Take The Same Test, But This Time Make It Story-Worthy!

Again, ignore what it says about your score this time, because we weren’t doing that this time around. Instead, list the things you saw.

What you were just able to list was the result of you doing story-telling with random zero-context images while under time pressure.

Imagine what you can do with actual meaningful memories of your ongoing life, people you meet, conversations you have!

Just… Take the time to smell the roses, then rehearse the story you’ll tell about them. That memory will swiftly become as strong as any memory can be, and quickly get worked into your long-term memory for the rest of your days.

“Good health” is quite a broad umbrella, and while we all have a general idea of what “healthy” looks like, it’s easy to focus on some areas and overlook others.

Of course, how much one does this will still depend on one’s level of interest in health, which can change over the course of life, and (barring serious midlife health-related curveballs such as a cancer diagnosis or something) often looks like an inverse bell curve:

• As small kids, we probably barely thought about health
• As teenagers, we probably had a narrow view of health (often related to whatever is considered sexually attractive at the time)
• In our 20s, may have a bit of a health kick in which we learn and apply a lot… Which often then gets to later take a bit of a back seat to work responsibilities and so forth
• This is commonly followed by a few decades of just trying to make it to Friday by any means necessary (definite risk factor for substance abuse of various kinds), double if we have kids, triple if we have work, kids, and are also solely responsible for managing the household.
• Then just as suddenly as it is predictably, we are ambushed when approaching retirement age by a cluster of age-related increased health risks that we now get to do our best to mitigate—the focus here is “not dying early”. A lot of health education occurs at this time.
• Finally, upon retirement, we actually get the time to truly focus on our health again, and now it’s easier to learn about all aspects of health, even if now there’s a need to juggle many health issues all at once, most of which affect the others.

See also: How Likely Are You To Live To 100? ← in which we can also see a graph of 10almonds subscribers’ ages, consistent with the above

So, let’s recap, and personalize our health plan

There are often things we wish we could have focused on sooner, so now’s the time to figure out what future-you in your next decade (or later!) is going to thank you for having done now.

So, while 20-year-old us might have been focusing on fat levels or athletic performance, how much does that really help us now? (With apologies to any readers in their 20s, but also, with the bonus for you: now’s the perfect time to plan ahead!)

At 10almonds, while we cover very many health topics, we often especially focus on:

• Brain health
• Heart health
• Gut health

…because they affect everything else so much. We’ve listed them there in the order they appear in the body, but in fact it can be useful to view them upside down, because:

• Gut health is critical for good metabolic health (a happy efficient gut allows us to process nutrients, including energy, efficiently)
• Metabolic health is critical for good heart health (a nicely ticking metabolism will not strain our heart)
• Heart health is critical for good brain health (a strong heart will nourish the brain with well-oxygenated blood and the nutrients it also carries)

So, this isn’t a catch-22 at all! There is a clear starting point:

Stop Sabotaging Your Gut

“How do I do the other bits, though?”

We have you covered here: Your Health Audit, From Head To Toe

“Wait, where’s the personalization?”

This comes once you’ve got those above things in order.

Hopefully you know what particular health risks you have—as in, particular to you.

First, you will have any current diagnoses, and a plan for treating those. Many chronic illnesses can be reversed or at least lessened with lifestyle changes, in particular, if we reduce chronic inflammation, which is implicated in countless chronic illnesses, and exacerbates most of the rest.

So: How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation

The same goes for any heightened risks you have as a result of those current diagnoses.

Next, you will have any genetic health risks—so here’s where genetic testing is a good one-shot tool, to get a lot of information all in one go.

Learn more: The Real Benefit Of Genetic Testing

…and then, of course, take appropriate steps to avoid suffering the things of which you are at increased genetic risk.

Finally, you will have any personal concerns or goals—in other words, what do you want to still be able to do, later in life? It’s easy to say “everything”, but what’s most important?

This writer’s example: I want to remain mobile, free from pain, and sharp of mind.

That doesn’t mean I’ll neglect the rest of my health, but it does mean that I will regularly weigh my choices against whether they are consistent with those three things.

As for how to plan for that?

Check out: Train For The Event Of Your Life! ← this one is mostly about the mobility aspect; staying free from pain is in large part a matter of avoiding inflammation which we already discussed, and staying sharp of mind relies on the gut-heart-brain pipeline we also covered.

You can also, of course, personalize your diet per which areas of health are the most important for you:

Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean (most anti-inflammatory, gut-healthiest, heart-healthiest, brain-healthiest)

Take care!