" the best thing you can do is practice exercises that require memory and the acquisition of new skills and knowledge (like posting and reading here on SFN!). Many people enjoy cross word puzzles, others like to write and essentially author memoirs (which really forces one to activate those memories). You can also practice short term retention such as reading lists of words and practicing how many you can recall 5 minutes later. "
The best way to improve memory is by learning "memory tricks." They are not really tricks but are techniques to build associations between things you already know and things you want to recall. Alzheimer's patients have benefitted greatly from learning the methods and I was able to teach my 8 year old daughter the US presidents in order and the main events of their terms by using a method called the "Journey System." It took about an hour and she was tested three weeks later and got them all! Here is a URL that will take to a site that has a lot of the methods and how to use them:
http://www.mindtools.com/memory.html
Many of these methods have been in use since the Gweek and Woman classical times and were extensively improved and used by medieval academics. They didn't have notepads and PDAs so they had to develop memory and some had prodigious memories. Well, actually their physiological base memories were the same as everyone else but they were highly skilled at using the techniques. Daniel J. Boorstin gives some examples in The Discoverers.
