Feeling forgetful lately? Tricks to keep your memory sharp in the AI age

If you’re leaving it to digital aids to remember things for you, you’re not alone. In our modern world, it has become second nature to rely on our devices as an extension of our brains. While convenient, it means we use our internal memory less and less.

And as the old saying goes: Use it or lose it.

Practice recall

It's natural to wonder why one should take the effort and strain the brain by trying to remember seemingly minor things. It's all just a click away, after all, and we're getting to be such experts at finding information in the blink of an eye.

But there's one important fact we are losing sight of. Memory is a core brain function, needed for most other cognitive abilities. Regularly recalling information helps form durable neural structures that are foundational for intuitive reasoning, evaluation, judgment, error-checking, flexible thinking, and more. Without the mental effort of remembering, people risk cognitive atrophy or digital dementia, if you want to call it that. And now, agentic AI wants to go further and do various tasks for you so you neither have to remember nor take action.

There’s a big cost to all the magical convenience. Becoming more reliant on AI leaves us with a superficial understanding. This, in turn, leaves us vulnerable and open to misinformation, making us more likely to believe the next conspiracy theory or outright lie that comes up. We will go about life with greatly diminished judgment.

Workout to work better

Luckily, there are strategies to keep those memory muscles in working order. However, the first thing needed is a strong, conscious, and deliberate intention. You have to want to keep your brain healthy. This may seem like stating the obvious, but given that it’s more tempting to take the shortcut offered by technology, not everyone is willing to put in the effort to do otherwise. Children and the elderly may totally prefer the easy way out.

It will come as no surprise that exercise, a balanced diet, and proper sleep all contribute to a good memory. The exercise should include aerobic activity that increases blood flow. The diet should include fruits, fresh vegetables, and protein, all backed by good hydration. Your sleep should be seven to eight hours, as we’re constantly told. Interestingly, social interaction also improves memory.

Beyond lifestyle, there are a few deliberate habits that can help. Try recalling before you search. When a name, fact or number eludes you, pause before reaching for your phone and give your brain a chance to find it. That little mental struggle is the very exercise that strengthens neural connections. When you come across something interesting, don’t just bookmark it. Rephrase it in your own words, or share it with someone. The act of summarizing or sharing fixes it far better in memory than passive saving. In fact, psychologists recommend you write things by hand now and then because that also enhances retention.

There are also structured memory techniques that can make a difference.

One of them is the 2-3-5-7 method, a spaced-repetition pattern in which you revise something two days later, five days after that, and seven days after that. These staggered intervals amount to just over two weeks but are enough to move a fact from short-term to long-term memory. Another is the ancient method of loci, or memory-palace technique, where you mentally place what you want to remember along a familiar path, perhaps through the rooms of your home, and later “walk" through it to retrieve each detail.

Both work because they enlist attention, imagination and structure, the very things AI can’t automate for you.

If you’ve ever picked up your phone only to find you don’t remember why you did so, avoid multitasking when possible. Attention is the front door to memory, and if you divide it too much and too often, almost nothing gets through. Do one thing at a time, even something as routine as replying to a message or making tea.

Make remembering playful: quiz yourself on what you read, recall what you had for lunch yesterday, or mentally retrace your steps before going to bed. These small acts keep memory active, the way walking keeps joints from stiffening. You don’t need to spend a huge amount of time on this, adding to your workload: Just make sure you do sometimes, and incorporate it as a habit.

Mindful memory

Be clearly aware of what you’re using and what you’re allowing AI to do for you. Engage with digital tools, but deliberately and by your own choice. Pair this with intentional efforts to drop AI support and do something yourself. Add conscious downtime and make the effort to remember something, calculate something, or work out something. Use AI for the things that it’s best at and like a thought partner, not a thought replacement.

In the end, it’s a person's own motivation that drives the allocation of attention and cognitive resources, which are essential for encoding, consolidating, and retrieving memories.

Memory is one of those skills that makes us human, and it’s foundational. To sacrifice it to technology would be a shocking pity. Just for the record, I do remember my 16-digit credit card number. It’s the 4-digit pin that totally escapes me.

The New Normal: The world is at an inflexion point. Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be as massive a revolution as the Internet has been. The option to just stay away from AI will not be available to most people, as all the tech we use takes the AI route. This column series introduces AI to the non-techie in an easy and relatable way, aiming to demystify and help a user to actually put the technology to good use in everyday life.

Mala Bhargava is most often described as a ‘veteran’ writer who has contributed to several publications in India since 1995. Her domain is personal tech, and she writes to simplify and demystify technology for a non-techie audience.