Your brain sometimes feels saturated in the morning, between urgent emails, video meetings and endless news feeds. In these pressured environments, memory becomes much more than a simple memory of codes or first names: it is a strategic asset for deciding quickly, keeping an overview and not getting lost in the flow.
However, many delegate everything to their screens and experience their forgetfulness as an inevitability. Recent research among American intelligence analysts shows something else: with targeted training, memory behaves like a mental fitness muscle, capable of regaining sharpness. And this approach is a surprisingly simple habit.
An overloaded modern brain, not “bad at memory”
Between notifications, multitasking and piling up files, information overload especially exhausts attention. Memory is not a simple hard drive: it encodes, organizes, then retrieves information. When this sorting is done poorly, your head spins, you reread the same notes over and over again and your concentration ends up breaking down.
Considering memory as training, and not as a fixed gift, changes everyday life. Short mental routines free up bandwidth: instead of spending energy remembering, the brain can devote itself to analyzing, deciding, creating. This effect matters even more among professionals over the age of 34, when responsibilities and the risk of cognitive decline increase together.
Cody Herr’s experiment: when the elite memory palace proves itself
In 2025, analyst Cody Herr tested this idea with thirty intelligence professionals. Selected at random, some received training in three ancient techniques: the memory palace method, the major system for numbers and elaborative encoding, which transforms abstract data into vivid images. Everyone had to memorize sequences of actors and actions, then recall them immediately and a week later.
The results were surprising: the trained group obtained 45% higher scores on recall exercises, retained 57% more information after a week, and its members were five times more likely to achieve perfect recall. Neither years of experience nor level of education made a difference; on the other hand, practicing these memory techniques increased performance.
Transform this science into a habit to improve memory and concentration
Concretely, everyone can transform these results into a ritual of a few minutes. We choose a familiar route, like our apartment or the journey to work, with notable points. Each morning, a few key pieces of information from the day become striking, emotional scenes, “deposited” in these mental locations. In the evening, we repeat the journey in thought: the facts come back and the mind remains available to concentrate on what really matters.