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10 Brain Exercises That Boost Memory

You already know physical fitness supports good health, but you may not realize exercising your mind is equally
important to keep your brain in top shape.

By Linda Melone (/authors/linda-melone/)

Medically Reviewed by Samuel Mackenzie, MD, PhD (/authors/samuel-mackenzie/)
Reviewed: September 15, 2022

Medically Reviewed

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Learning new things is one of the best ways to improve brain health.
Yaroslav Danylchenko/Stocksy

The old adage “use it or lose it” applies not only to our physical health but also to our cognitive health. We
know that regular physical exercise is important, especially as we get older and want to reduce our risk of
developing diseases and other health issues associated with aging. For instance, strength exercises can help
build muscle and boost bone density, per the Mayo Clinic (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/osteoporosis/in-depth/osteoporosis/art-20044989);
(/) balance exercises can help prevent falls,
per MedlinePlus (https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000493.htm); and regular moderate-to-
vigorous exercise can help maintain your range of motion to keep you limber, according to the National
Institute on Aging (NIA) (https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-do-we-know-about-healthy-aging).

Similarly, your brain's cognitive reserve — its ability to withstand neurological damage due to aging and
other factors without showing signs of slowing or memory loss — can also benefit from exercise, both
physical and cognitive. Just as weight workouts add lean muscle to your body and help you retain muscle in
your later years, the NIA (https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/cognitive-health-and-older-adults) notes
that following a brain-healthy lifestyle and performing regular, targeted brain exercises may help increase
your brain’s cognitive reserve, though more research is needed to confirm the effects.

5 Surprising Causes of Memory Loss

5 Surprising Causes of Memory Loss (/)

Being forgetful can have underlying causes you may not know existed.

A Whole-Body Approach to a Healthy Brain

So what types of exercises might benefit your brain? Research suggests that when it comes to keeping your
mind sharp, exercising your body as well as your mind and sticking to healthy habits is the ideal formula.

Authors of a study published in July 2019 in The Journal of the American Medical Association
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31302669/) followed about 196,400 participants ages 60 and older who
didn’t have cognitive impairment or dementia when they joined the study for eight years. They gathered data
on participants’ lifestyle habits, such as current smoking status, regular physical activity, healthy diet, and
alcohol consumption. Ultimately, researchers found that a healthy lifestyle was associated with a
lower dementia risk among participants, regardless of genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related
dementias.

Another study, published in Neurology in July 2020 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32554763/), found that

people who participate in multiple healthy behaviors significantly reduce their risk for Alzheimer’s disease,
the most common form of dementia (/dementia/). For about six years, the study tracked five healthy lifestyle
behaviors — nonsmoking, regular physical activity, low to moderate alcohol consumption, adherence to a
Mediterranean-style diet, and engagement in activities that boost cognitive skills — in nearly 2,800 adults and
found that those who followed at least four of the behaviors were about 60 percent less likely to develop
Alzheimer’s disease.
“Approaches to brain health include a well-balanced
(/) diet low in fat, low in cholesterol, and high in
antioxidants,” says Robert Bender, MD (https://www.broadlawns.org/about/medical-staff/robert-bender),
section chief of the Geriatric and Memory Center at Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Foods
high in antioxidants (/diet-nutrition/high-antioxidant-foods-that-prove-food-is-medicine/) include nuts, fruits
(especially berries (/diet-nutrition-pictures/amazing-health-benefits-of-berries.aspx)), veggies, chocolate, and
herbs and spices, past research (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2841576/) notes.

In addition to good nutrition, regular exercise can promote vascular health to help protect brain tissue.
Avoiding ruts and boredom is also critical. “The brain wants to learn new things,” says Dr. Bender, adding
that some researchers believe people are more vulnerable to dementia when they pay less attention to the
things around them. “When the brain is passive, it has a tendency to atrophy,” he adds. Therefore, sedentary
and relatively passive activities, such as sitting in front of a TV for hours a day, can be detrimental to brain
health over time.

Physical exercise can also be particularly beneficial for the brain. In a small study published in September
2018 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(https://www.pnas.org/content/115/41/10487), researchers found that a single 10-minute period of low-
intensity pedaling on a stationary bike was associated with increased activity in the brain’s hippocampus, the
part of the brain responsible for creating new memories and remembering facts and events.

And a small study published in July 2019 in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society
(https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-international-neuropsychological-
society/article/semantic-memory-activation-after-acute-exercise-in-healthy-older-
adults/07DE0F919CEFBCE268A95474DFA1BC47) found that a single moderate-intensity workout session
immediately before a cognitive task resulted in (/) greater brain activation. The researchers measured the brain
activity of 26 healthy adults ages 55 to 85 on two separate days. On one day, they had participants rest for 30
minutes before identifying famous and nonfamous names; on a separate day, they had participants pedal a
stationary bike for 30 minutes before doing the same activity. The result: There was significantly greater brain
activation after exercise. This finding led researchers to conclude that exercise can immediately change the
way our brains function, which added to existing scientific evidence that physical activity helps strengthen
brain function and memory.

10 Brain Exercises to Boost Memory and Cognitive Function

In addition to following the aforementioned healthy lifestyle habits, you can also keep your mind and
memory sharp with exercises to train your brain — and you don’t have to break the bank to do so. While
there are scores of computer games and apps that promise to enhance cognitive function, there isn’t any
definitive research that shows these products have significant neurological benefits for older adults. A meta-
analysis of eight clinical trials published in February 2020 in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30864747/) found that while computer cognition training was associated
with small, short-term cognitive benefits, there’s not enough high-quality research to support the use of
brain games (/senior-health/alzheimers-disease/12-fun-brain-games-adults/) for preventing dementia
(/dementia/preventing-dementia-can-you-ward-it-off/) or improving long-term cognitive function.

Health experts recommend sticking to brain training that involves real-world activities instead. Exercises to
strengthen brain function should offer novelty and challenge. “Almost any silly suggestion can work,”
says David Eagleman, PhD (https://profiles.stanford.edu/david-eagleman), a neuroscientist and adjunct
professor of psychology and public mental health (/) and population sciences at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences
Institute at Stanford University in California. “Drive home via a different route. Brush your teeth with your
opposite hand. The brain works through associations, [which is why it’s easier to memorize lyrics than it is to
try to remember the same words without music], so the more senses you involve, the better.”

Your morning newspaper is a great place to start. “Simple games like Sudoku and word games are good, as
well as comic strips where you find things that are different from one picture to the next,” says John E.
Morley, MD (https://www.slu.edu/medicine/internal-medicine/geriatric-medicine/index.php), a professor of
medicine in the division of geriatric medicine at St. Louis University in Missouri. In addition to word games,
Dr. Morley recommends the following exercises to sharpen your mental skills. (Keep in mind that there’s a
lack of high-quality research in this area; these recommendations are based on Morley’s clinical experience.)

1 Test your recall. Make a list — grocery items, things to do, or anything else that comes to mind — and
memorize it. An hour or so later, see how many items you can recall. Make the list as challenging as
possible for the greatest mental stimulation. One small past study
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8673643/) suggested that writing and organizing lists helped older
adults recall word lists more effectively.
2 Let the music play. Learn to play a musical instrument or join a choir. Learning new and complex skills
is good for the aging brain, and a past review published in The Gerontologist
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4229893/) suggested that musical activities (like playing
a musical instrument, singing in a choir, or taking piano lessons) showed particular promise for healthy
brain aging, though research is limited. 
3 Do math in your head. Figure out problems (/) without the aid of a pencil, paper, or computer. One small
study, published in Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology in 2021
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34973027/), suggested that solving math problems had a positive
effect on participants’ cognition. You can make this exercise more difficult — and athletic — by walking
at the same time.
4 Take a cooking class. Learn how to cook a new cuisine. Cooking uses a number of senses — smell,
touch, sight, and taste — that involve different parts of the brain. Plus, you’ll use cognitive skills like
planning the meal, problem-solving, crafting a grocery list, multi-tasking, and organizing, according to
the Cleveland Clinic (https://health.clevelandclinic.org/cooking-for-cognition-why-making-a-meal-is-good-
for-your-brain/).
5 Learn a foreign language. The listening and hearing involved in learning a new language stimulates the
brain. Plus, being bilingual was associated with a lower risk of developing dementia in one meta-analysis
published in October 2020 in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
(https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-020-01736-5).
6 Create word pictures. Visualize the spelling of a word in your head, and then try to think of other words
that begin (or end) with the same two letters.
7 Draw a map from memory. After returning home from visiting a new place, try to draw a map of the
area. Repeat this exercise each time you go somewhere new. One past study
(https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(11)01267-X), which focused on London taxi
drivers (who are expected to memorize the complex layout of the city), found that drivers who
 successfully memorized the city map showed
(/) permanent changes to brain structure and better cognitive
function.
8 Challenge your taste buds. When eating, try to identify individual ingredients in your meal, including
subtle herbs and spices.
9 Refine your hand-eye coordination. Take up a new hobby that involves fine motor skills, and can help
you keep your hand-eye coordination sharp. Per Harvard Health Publishing
(https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/activities-to-sharpen-your-eyehand-coordination), this
could include racquet sports, tai chi, knitting, drawing, painting, or playing video games.
10 Learn a new sport. Start doing an athletic exercise. A review published in Frontiers in Psychology in
December 2019 (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02658/full) noted that boosting
your balance, strength, and aerobic (/fitness/workouts/why-you-need-aerobic-exercise.aspx) capacity —
that is, your body’s ability to use oxygen for energy — can help protect your brain as you age. Morley
specifically suggests yoga, golf, or tennis as exercises that boost brain health, while Harvard Health
Publishing (https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/train-your-brain) recommends swimming
for its brain-boosting benefits.

Soon people will realize they can take steps to keep their brains healthy, just as they know they can prevent
heart disease by taking certain actions, says Bender: “In the coming decade, I predict brain wellness to be
right up there with heart health, now that there’s proof that living a brain-healthy lifestyle works!”

Additional reporting by Lisa Rapaport (https://www.everydayhealth.com/authors/lisa-rapaport/).

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