What Can Seniors Do to Improve Memory? Top 5 Memory Exercises for Seniors

You do physical exercise for your body, but when was the last time you did cognitive training for your brain?

In the first blog post of this month, I talked all about cognitive health. In that article, we touched on the importance of keeping the mind active to lower your risk of dementia and/or cognitive decline. We also discussed how chronic stress and untreated mental illness and be detrimental to brain health, and how meditation can serve as an antidote.

However, we left off without discussing the specific brain exercises and memory games that can be beneficial to seniors interested in maintaining good cognitive function for years to come. In this blog, we'll cover:

• Breathing exercises for seniors that help improve focus and reduce stress

• Meditation techniques that exercise memory skills and provide mental health benefits

• Memory and brain games that will help strengthen your mind.

You'll leave knowing how to do 6 effective, brain training techniques. Plus, as my gift to you, I've included a FREE Printable Brain Games pdf for you to download, packed full of fun brain activities to improve your memory and cognitive skills.

---

Table of Contents

Best brain exercises for older adults

1. Even breathing

2. Bumble bee breath

3. Music meditation

4. Reflection meditation

5. ABC Categories

Grab your FREE printable brain games pdf

Let's stay connected!

---

Best brain exercises for older adults

#1 Even breathing

Even Breathing is one of the most simple and effective exercises seniors can do to reduce stress and feel an instant boost in emotional wellness. Here's how to practice:

1. Come into a comfortable seated position, with your spine long in an alert, yet serene posture.

2. If it feels safe and natural, you can allow your eyes to close. However, if this isn't available to you, you can also simply soften your gaze and rest it on a point in front of you.

3. Start by breathing in through your nose for a count of 3, then breathe out through your nose for another count of three. You can increase or decrease the count to suit your unique lung capacity. All that matters is that your inhales and exhales are equal in length.

4. Repeat this pattern of breathing for 5-10 minutes or until you feel adequately relaxed.

Pro Tip: Ideally, you would practice this breathing exercise at home, seated somewhere quiet with adequate support for your back and joints. However, this is also a great activity to practice while driving, seated in a waiting room, or even standing in line.

Benefits:

1. Stress reduction: Even Breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system. That's our body's mechanism for lowering stress levels. Keeping stress levels at bay is not only important for our overall brain health but also essential for mental clarity. When was the last time you were able to focus with a thousand anxious thoughts running through your head?

2. Improved Focus: Keeping your mind focused on your breath and the length of your inhales and exhales is no simple task. You'll probably find yourself getting swept up in unrelated thoughts and needing to redirect your attention to the practice. Each time you do this, it's a kind of brain training, helping strengthen your attentional skills.

#2 Bumble bee breath

Bumble Bee Breath, or Bhramari in Sanskrit, is a breathing technique described in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, an ancient yogic text.

The traditional method of practicing Bhramari involves plugging your ears with your thumbs and covering your eyes, nostrils, lips, and chin with your other four fingers (see picture). You can try this if you like, however, what follows is a more simple variation of Bumble Bee Breath:

1. Find a comfortable and quiet place to sit.

2. If it feels comfortable for you, go ahead and let your eyes close and fix your internal gaze toward the center point in between your eyebrows.

3. Cup your hands over your cheeks, and plug your ears with your index fingers.

4. Curl your tongue so that the bottom of your tongue is pressing against the roof of your mouth. If this isn't accessible, you can also simply press your tongue against the front of your teeth.

5. Inhale, and begin one long hum on the exhale. Repeat this humming for 5-10 rounds.

6. Take 3-5 minutes to sit in silence after completing the exercise to simply observe your state of mind and body.

Benefits:

1. Stress Relief: Similar to even breathing, Bumble Bee Breath will help you feel emotionally and physically relaxed. This is important, as we have already discussed that chronic stress can significantly increase your risk or dementia and/or cognitive impairment.

2. Increased Mental Clarity: I don't have any research papers to back up this claim, but Bhramari feels like walking through a cold waterfall for your mind. It provides an almost instant sense of refreshment and mental clarity. You'll have to give it a try and see if you agree with me!

3. Enhanced Sleep Quality: The calming effects of Bumble Bee Breath alone can help us have an easier time falling asleep. However, the unique tongue position in this breathing exercise mimics the feeling of yawning and can make us feel even more ready to hit the hay. Sleep is a vital time for our brains to rest and encode events from our day into long-term memory, so this practice is definitely worth giving a try!

#3 Music meditation

Music Meditation, also known as "sound healing", is probably my all-time favorite style of meditation. That's because of how easy and effective it is. Here's how you can practice:

1. Choose relaxing instrumental music to listen to. There are many options available on YouTube that you can browse through to suit your personal preferences. Just be sure that it is a video that is ad-free.

2. Come into either a comfortable seated or reclined position. Lying down to practice can provide deeper states of relaxation, whereas sitting can be better for those of us prone to falling asleep during meditation.

3. Start playing your music and let your eyes close if it feels comfortable.

4. As you rest here, try to listen to the music with complete focus. See if instead of listening to the song as a whole, you can hear each note at a time just as it is. When you feel your attention start to drift, redirect it to the sounds. Allow yourself to become fully immersed in the music.

5. Continue the practice for at least 5-10 minutes.

Pro Tip: Experiment with using props to make your meditation even more relaxing and immersive. Earphones, eye masks/pillows, pillows, and blankets are all great options to consider.

Benefits:

1. Emotional Balance: Try it and you will experience just how relaxed Music Meditation can make you feel. Chronic stress, anxiety, and depression lead to reduced activity and brain volume in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, areas responsible for logical reasoning, attention, learning, and memory. That's why it's so important to be kind to your mind and carve out time for active relaxation.

2. Enhanced Focus: Similar to Even Breathing, actively focusing on the sounds of the music in Music Meditation is a true cognitive exercise. Just as regular physical activity will make you more physically fit, regularly practicing attention-based meditations is an effective strategy for boosting your mental skills.

#4 Reflection meditation

Reflection Meditation is a technique that I learned during my 900 hr Yoga Teacher Training in Mumbai. It's a simple practice but is deceptively challenging. Here's how it's done:

1. Come to a comfortable seated position. You can have your eyes open or closed, according to your preference.

2. Once you're settled, think back to yesterday. Start from the moment you went to bed to the time you went to sleep, and try to remember each thing you did in chronological order. To start, you can recall the events of the day in broad strokes. For example, "I got up, I had my coffee, I read my book for a while, I got a call from Susie," etc.

3. After completing the first round of this mental exercise, recall yesterday's sequence of events again. However, this time, to remember things as vividly and with as much detail as possible. Don't just think "I got up". Note what the first thing you did was, perhaps checking your phone or taking a sip of water. Try to remember exactly how each moment felt physically and emotionally.

4. Finally, once you've completed two rounds, you can take 3-5 minutes to simply rest in silence or you can reflect on what you did and how you spent your time. Reflect on what went well, what didn't, and how you'd like to approach things today.

Benefits:

1. Improved Memory: This brain exercise flexes our memory recall muscle. Reflection Meditation is almost like a brain game and practicing regularly is a sure-fire strategy for improving your memory skills.

2. Healthy Habit Formation: As the name suggests, Reflection Meditation also creates space for you to reflect on how you spend your days. Are you filling your retirement with activities you truly value? Are you making time for social connection and physical activity? Taking time to think about these questions can help you make healthier choices that will ultimately come back to benefit your body and mind.

#5 ABC Categories

Last but not least is a pure memory game for seniors. You can play this in your head on your own or you can play with friends. Here are the rules of the game:

1. Start by picking a category of thing. This could be anything: countries, fruits, four-legged animals, or movie titles. Just choose something general enough to provide a wide array of options.

2. Go one-by-one through each letter of the alphabet and try to think of something in your chosen category that starts with the given letter. For example, if your category was fruits, you might say, "apple, banana, cucumber, dragon fruit..." and so on.

Pro Tip: If you're playing with someone else, you can make it competitive by racing each other to think of a word first and tallying how many words each person gets.

Benefits:

1. Better Memory Recall: This brain game strengthens our brain's capacity for memory recall and word retrieval. This is an especially good way to reduce the frequency of your "senior moments".

2. Social Connection: If you play this game with someone else, you also get the added benefit of socializing. The quality of our relationships and frequency of social interaction is a major factor that positively contributes to both our mood and cognitive health.

Grab your FREE printable brain games pdf

Looking for fun brain games to improve your cognitive health as a senior? Don't worry, I've got you covered.

I've created a printable guide with instructions on how to do each one of the practices outlined in the article. Plus, I've provided a list with links to of some of my favorite online games for seniors, such as sudoku, solitaire, chess, trivia quizzes, jigsaw puzzles, and board games.

Ready to grab a copy? Click the button below to get your FREE Printable Brain Exercises for Seniors pdf!

Let's stay connected!

I genuinely hope you got value out of this article and that you give at least one of these practices a try. Here at Haiden's Yoga Practice, it's my goal to provide high-quality information about senior health and tangible resources to help you live out your golden years with more mental and physical ease.

You can subscribe to my newsletter to be notified anytime I share new content and to receive free printable chair yoga and meditation guides delivered straight to your inbox.

Visit my website to learn more about my yoga and mindfulness services for senior citizens or book a FREE consultation to speak with me directly.

• Book a Consult: calendly.com/haidensyoga/30min

• 1:1 Chair Yoga for Seniors: haidensyogapractice.com/private-chair-yoga-classes-for-seniors

• Group Chair Yoga for Seniors: haidensyogapractice.com/group-chair-yoga-for-seniors

• Private Meditation Sessions for Seniors: haidensyogapractice.com/mindfulness-for-seniors

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I wish you a lovely day ahead filled with mindfulness and ease.

All the love,

Haiden

Prefer a listening experience? No worries, I’ve got you covered!