How to Improve Your Memory During a Cardio Workout

A cardio work-out is a great time to exercise your memory. Memorize a Tarot deck. A Tarot deck is an ideal memory building tool. Pictures, words, numbers and the suits of the cards offer multiple opportunities for memory links. Working with the cards regularly creates rich, robust neural networks essential for healthy memory.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Tarot Deck

1. Get a tarot deck. There are hundreds of different decks. Rider-Waite is the most popular and a good one for this memory exercise. You can find them in bookstores or on-line. There is a link in the Resources section.

2. Open the pack and familiarize yourself with the cards. The deck actually contains two separate decks within it. One deck is 22 cards making up the Major Arcana. The other deck is 56 cards falling into four suits like a regular deck of cards and is called the Minor Arcana.

3. Separate the two decks from each other and sort each into numerical order and suits for the Minor Arcana.

4. Start with the Major Arcana. Lay-out the first seven cards. You will see each has a picture, a title and a word. Study each card to fix it in your mind.

5. Now collect up these seven cards and try to remember them. Review them as many times as necessary until you can recall them without peeking.

6. Now get started with your cardio work-out. This can be in the gym or out for a leisurely run. Once you warm up, call the first card into your mind. Imagine the picture, the title and the number.

7. Once you can do this move on to the next card and all the way down the line. If you get stumped by a card, move on to the next one. The forgotten card may jump into your mind once you stop focusing on it.

8. A wonderful way to remember the sequence of the cards is to learn their meanings. The Major Arcana can be broken into three sets of seven cards. Each set represents a stage of human development. The story behind the cards helps to map the images in your mind. You will find many books on card meanings. There is a link in the Resources section to a good one.

9. Once you have mastered the first set of seven cards, move on to the next set and finally to the third. Eventually you will be able to remember the entire Major Arcana forwards and backwards.

10. You may have noticed that three sets of 7 cards equals 21 cards and the Major Arcana has 22 cards. The 22nd card is numbered O and is the Fool. He's easy to remember.

11. Once you've mastered the Major Arcana, move to the Minor Arcana. Lay out the first card in each suit. It is useful to develop a story to link these cards in your memory. Once you can remember all the ones, move to twos, and so on.

12. Now it is time to work through the suits. As you chug through your workout, start with the ace of a suit and call to mind each card within the suit sequence. Now do this backwards.

13. Once you have memorized all of the cards of both decks, you have innumerable opportunities to enhance your memory network. You can call two cards to mind and work out a story to link them. This will link them together in your neural network. The more cards you call-up at one time, the more challenging this becomes.

14. The Tarot deck is especially interesting for memory games because of the rich history embodied in them. As you are memorizing the images and working out stories to link them, you are also coming to understand the aspects of yourself the cards represent.

Resources

• Rider-Waite Tarot Deck
• Tarot Book for Card Meanings

[writinghigh]

on 10/24/2009 What an innovative way to boost memory. I took a course a few years back in American Sign Language. Before my final exam, I took my note cards and studied them as I ran around Lake Balboa. I aced the exam. I didn't realize at the time that the cardio was actually a boost to memory. I'm going to do it again, thanks to you.