Memory expert Dr. Gary Small talks about memorizing four details of people you encounter out in public. For example, let’s say someone is wearing a black hat, has blonde hair, a triangular ring, and a green sweater. The goal is to observe the details first and then recall them later. No need for ancient memory techniques or anything like that. You just naturally encourage your brain to recall the details you selected earlier in the day.
I can’t emphasize this enough: Numeracy is a powerful skill to boost your cognitive abilities. It’s something I work on to boost logical thinking – both with and without memory techniques in play. “Add 3 Minus 7” is a fun numerical memory exercise you can try today. To get started, all you do is pick any 3-digit number. Then, add 3 to that digit 3 times. Then minus 7 from the new number 7 times.
In a book called Happiness Beyond Thought, Dr. Gary Weber shares a powerful means of experiencing your conscious mind directly. It sounds deceptively simple, but it’s actually quite a challenge. To complete the exercise, you count from one to ten.
But instead of visualizing each number, you skip the even numbers on the way up. By “skip,” you don’t count 1, 3, 5, etc. You actually pause on where the even digits should be. But you actively try to not represent them.
We think of brain exercise as a 20th century need due to issues like digital amnesia. But this is not the case. Aristotle knew his students needed his certain exercises, which is why he talked about mentally manipulating the alphabet. I shared his suggestions for doing this in “Aristotle’s Nuclear Alphabet.” Basically, you create one row of letters in your mind, from A-Z. Then you navigate them forward and backwards. Later, just as you did with number-skipping, you manipulate the alphabet by traveling the row by the odd-letters first, and then back along the even numbers.
We all know in our hearts that no one is really listening when we speak. And that’s sad. All you would need to do to complete this brain exercise is repeat everything the person is saying silently in your mind. You’ll automatically boost your cognitive function and remember more by doing this. It works because simply asking your memory to recall information exercises it. The more challenging the information, the more exercise your brain will get.
