Five Ways to Flex Your Memory Muscle
As important it is to live an active lifestyle as you grow older, it’s just as important to keep your mind and memory just as active and in shape for full body and mind peak performance. Just as there’s routines for your body there are also small exercises for your brain. Try these five tips to flex your memory muscle so your whole body can perform at optimal performance.
- Brush Your Teeth—Backwards
Using your non-dominant hand to write, draw, or do any routine activity confuses—and, in turn, challenges the brain. Your non-dominant hand is actually linked to the non-dominant side of your brain, and using it will activate those brain cells you don’t use as often. According to memory experts1, you should add a simple non-dominant activity–like brushing your teeth, buttering toast, or pouring milk–to your daily routine to utilize more gray matter.
- Laugh It Up
A study at Loma Linda University2 showed that laughter may indeed be the best medicine for the mind. The study compared the stress level and memory of 20 older adults who watched a comedic video for 20 minutes to a similar group who sat calmly and quietly for the same amount of time. The test showed those who spent the 20 minutes laughing scored better on quiz testing short-term memory. They also had significantly decreased levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress that negatively affects memory.
- Honor Your Partner, Do-Si-Do
Square dancing is a great activity for building memory muscle. After all, we do most of our movements automatically, almost mindlessly. But when square dancing, participants must pay close attention and quickly move following the caller’s instructions, while maneuvering around with a group of seven other dancers. When we have to think about our movements, our memory process is given a workout. Similar benefits are also associated with ballroom dancing.
- Clench Your Fists
Get a grip on your memory by clenching your fists. A study by New Jersey’s Montclair State University3 showed that clenching a ball in the right fist helped with remembering things, while gripping it in the left hand led to increased recall. When you clench one hand, you activate the opposite side of the brain. In the study, a group of people who memorized a list of words right after clenching their right hand and recalled them after clenching their left did better than those who clenched in the opposite sequence (and slightly better than those who didn’t clench at all). Physical bonus: when under pressure, right-handed athletes perform better if they make a fist with their left hand4.
- Chew for Cognition
Remember that rule about not chewing gum in class? Forget it. To boost your short-term memory, pop a stick of gum in your mouth, cites a U.K. study, which showed it increases brain activity, and that test scores for immediate word recall were 24 percent higher for gum chewers.
As with any exercise routine, mental workouts should be done on a regular basis in order to keep your brain performing well. Choose an activity that challenges you for the best results, and maintain a regular routine to keep your memory in prime condition.
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1 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236613184_Comparison_of_nondominant_and_dominant_hand_performances_on_the_Wechsler_Memory_Scale-Fourth_Edition_Visual_Reproduction_subtest_copy_and_memory_component
2 https://medical-center.lomalindahealth.org/patients-visitors/health-and-wellness/live-it/online-health-show/episode-5-laughter-and-memory
3 http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/29/grasping-memory-with-both-hands/
4 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/study-athletes-perform-better-under-pressure-when-they-make-a-fist-with-their-left-hand/262605/