Unlike long term memory that can last for years or even a lifetime, short term memory has a very limited capacity. Short term memory retains important information just as long as that information is needed or it retains information just until that certain information will be replaced it with another or information or it will be transferred to long term memory. Problems with short term memory are not uncommon to seniors and even to people younger. Short term memory problems involve difficulty of remembering anything that just have been heard or read, commonly names, numbers, addresses, dates, and list items. Unless a person is suffering from a psychological or psychiatric mental disorder that affected his or her short term memory, there are several ways on how to effectively improve one’s short term memory.

Tips to Improve Short Term Memory

1. If you love playing board games, puzzles, or any game that needs thinking, then you are already helping in the improvement of your short term memory. Famous and common games that are used as short term memory exercises are crossword puzzles, Sudoku, cryptograms, trivia games, cards, scrabble, chess, and even math equations. Try to play various games so that you can challenge yourself to think more.
2. To help you remember things you have just seen or heard, you can associate those certain things with specific symbols, colors, images, or whatever you find easy to remember. You can even create a song with your newly acquired information. To make it easier for you to understand, take the colors of the rainbow as an example. For children and adults alike to memorize the colors of the rainbow correctly, they gave it an acronym of ROYGBIV, which stands for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
3. Alcohol consumption can impair a person’s short term memory. If you are regularly drinking alcoholic beverages, then stopping consuming alcoholic beverages can help in improving short term memory.
4. There are certain recreational drugs that can cause impairment in the short term memory. To make sure that the medication you are taking can’t have negative effects to your short term memory, try to talk to your doctor or even pharmacist about medications that can cause negative effects to your short term memory. And also make sure not to take any medications if you have not consulted your doctor or before your doctor prescribed that certain medication.