How can walking your dog improve your memory?

Our capacity to keep track of ideas from one moment to the next is connected to our capability to navigate spatially. This is why you can improve your memory by walking your dog.

Don’t have a dog?–you can use the same trick of linking information to locations to other ‘everyday’ spaces such as rooms in your home or sights on your daily commute.

Here’s how to study for exams by walking your dog:

1. Break down your exam materials into big chunks, e.g. 1 chunk for each main topic of the unit.
2. Break each big chunk down into smaller chunks, e.g. 3-5 important ideas.
3. As you go for your daily dog walk, pick out locations, e.g. a letterbox, a big tree, a shop, a playground, etc.
4. As you walk past each location, think about the content of the small chunks as they relate to the big chunk.
5. Use index cards to write ‘cheat-sheets’ to help you think about the information at each location.

For more tips and tricks to improve your memory, check out these books in the QUT Library Catalogue