The habits that help memory after sixty, ranked by how good the evidence is

By Walt Kessler · October 10, 2026

In the shop, before you changed a process you wanted to see the numbers. So when my doctor told me the best things for my memory were "exercise, sleep and watching my blood pressure," I nodded and then went home to see the numbers. Here is what I found, ranked roughly from strongest evidence to weakest. I left out anything that only worked in mice.

1. Walking, and other exercise that gets you breathing harder

This is the one with the most convincing study I read. Researchers took 120 older adults and had half of them walk briskly three times a week for a year, while the other half did stretching. They measured the hippocampus, the part of the brain that handles new memories, with brain scans. In the walking group it grew by about 2%. In the stretching group it shrank, as it normally does with age (Erickson, 2011). The walkers also did a little better on a memory test.

Two percent does not sound like much. The researchers pointed out it was roughly like turning back one to two years of normal shrinkage. For walking around the block, that is a good deal.

The National Institute on Aging's exercise pages have plain advice for getting started at our age, including how to do it safely if your knees are like mine.

2. Blood pressure

High blood pressure in middle age is one of the clearest risk factors for later memory trouble. The question was whether bringing it down helps, and a big trial called SPRINT MIND tested exactly that. Thousands of people with high blood pressure were assigned either to a strict target (under 120) or the usual one (under 140). The strict group had fewer cases of mild cognitive impairment, the stage before dementia, though the difference in dementia itself was not large enough to be certain (Williamson, 2019).

My takeaway: take the blood pressure pills, check it at home, and ask your doctor what target makes sense for you. The NHLBI page on high blood pressure explains the numbers.

3. Hearing

I resisted hearing aids for three years. Then I read this. A trial called ACHIEVE gave nearly a thousand older adults with hearing loss either hearing aids plus counseling or a health education program, and followed them for three years (Lin, 2023). Overall, the hearing aids did not slow memory decline. But in the group that was older and had more risk factors to begin with, decline was about half as fast with hearing aids.

That is a mixed result, and the researchers reported it straight. But hearing loss is also on the 2024 list of fourteen risk factors you can do something about, and the NIA page on hearing loss is worth reading. I wear mine now. My wife says I am more pleasant at dinner, which was not one of the outcomes they measured.

4. Sleep

Older people tend to sleep lighter and wake more. The evidence here is less tidy than for walking, but poor sleep is tied to worse memory, and treating sleep apnea seems to help people think more clearly. The NIA's advice on sleep and older adults is practical: keep a regular schedule, keep the bedroom dark and cool, and be careful with sleep aids, which can fog your thinking.

5. Blood sugar

Diabetes raises the risk of dementia, and that is well established. Whether tight control of blood sugar protects memory is less clear. What I took from my reading is simple enough: if your doctor says your sugar is creeping up, take it seriously for your brain as well as your heart and feet. There is the blood sugar side of the memory question explained well on a supplement review site, including the "type 3 diabetes" idea you may have seen in ads.

Loneliness and isolation are on that same list of risk factors. The evidence comes mostly from following large groups of people over time, which shows a link but not proof. Still, it is the cheapest thing on this list. I go to the Thursday coffee at the VFW. Some weeks that is the best part of my week, memory or no memory.

7. Supplements

Last place, and I put it there on purpose. A few supplement ingredients have small studies in people. Saffron is the best example. Most have only lab or animal studies. None of them comes close to the evidence for walking or blood pressure control.

If you want to try one anyway, I would pick it the same way I would pick a tool: read the specs, check what it is made of, and know the return policy. The Phytomem One review I read is a good example of that kind of homework, ingredient by ingredient. And show the label to your pharmacist before you start.

What did not make my list

A few popular things left out on purpose.

Brain-training apps and games. They make you better at the games. Whether that carries over to remembering where you parked is a lot less clear. One of the best-known companies in that business settled with the Federal Trade Commission in 2016 over claims that its games could delay memory decline, which tells you how thin the evidence for those big promises was.

Crossword puzzles. I love them and will keep doing them. People who do puzzles do tend to have better memory, but that may be because sharp people enjoy puzzles, not because puzzles make people sharp. It is a fine hobby. It is not a treatment.

Expensive "brain foods." Eating more vegetables, fish, beans and olive oil is linked to better health in general, and I eat more of them than I used to. But no single food has strong evidence on its own, and blueberries are not going to undo a lack of sleep.

Most supplements. More on those below. A few ingredients have small studies. Most have none in people.

None of these will hurt you, except maybe your wallet. They just do not belong above walking and blood pressure control.

Smoking and drinking

Two more from that list of fourteen risk factors, and I will keep it short because nobody likes a lecture. Smoking is on it. So is drinking more than a moderate amount. I quit cigarettes in 1994 and it was the hardest thing I ever did, harder than the machine shop's night shift. If you still smoke, it is never too late to get a benefit from stopping, and your doctor can help.

My own routine, for what it is worth

Thirty minutes of walking most mornings, rain or shine, with a neighbor who keeps me honest. Blood pressure checked at home on Sundays. Hearing aids in by breakfast. Bed by ten-thirty. Coffee with the guys on Thursday. None of it is exciting. All of it has better numbers behind it than anything I could buy in a bottle.

Walt Kessler ran lathes in an Erie, Pennsylvania machine shop for thirty-eight years. At 72 he writes for people his age who want straight answers about memory without the sales pitch. He is not a medical professional.