Improving your short- and long-term memory can boost overall work performance, reduce stress and improve your decisions-making and organisational skills. Try these games and puzzles to help boost your memory!
Memories are a crucial part of what makes us who we are. Yet we all know it can become more difficult to remember things as we get older. From forgetting why you came into a room, to not being able to recall details of a special family event, to forgetting familiar names.
According to this study published in the journal PLOS ONE, memory games challenge the mind and help the grey matter in our brains to grow and expand. Research shows that just 15 minutes each day of brain training can improve brain function. GIve these games a try!
Build a puzzle!
It may have been a few years since you built a puzzle, but jigsaw puzzles are effective brain training games. They reinforce the connections between the brain cells, which improves mental speed and improves short-term memory, plus they help reinforce visual-spatial reasoning.
Challenge a friend to Chess
Chess was designed to be mentally challenging. With TV shows like The Queen’s Gambit, chess playing has also seen a resurgence in popularity. Chess requires reliance on short-term memory to fully analyse the board and create a strategy for each move. You will also have to anticipate the moves of your opponent and make sure each move works in a way to help you achieve your end goal. This action triggers your long-term memory so you are exercising both.
Sign up for Sudoku
This is a great game to play while you’re travelling – on the bus, in a plane – or killing time between tasks. Sudoku can help improve your memory retrieval and stimulate other parts of your brain because you are required to keep a range of numbers in your head while placing them mentally in one of the nine spaces on the grid.
Wordle for the win!
You may have lost some Wordle steam, but it’s great training for the brain and memory. Your brain needs to recall words from your vocabulary, but this game also involves the visual working memory area. For a greater challenge, try crossword puzzles which require the brain to remember meanings of words as well as words of different lengths.
Struggling with your memory? Here are signs that it might be time to talk to a doctor:
- Asking the same questions over and over again
- Getting lost in places a person knows well
- Having trouble following recipes or directions
- Becoming more confused about time, people and places
- Not taking care of oneself, such as eating poorly, not bathing or behaving unsafely