How to Remember the Seven Continents

Use an acrostic as a mnemonic device. An acrostic is when you use the first letters of each word in a phrase to remember the letters or other words. For instance, one acrostic for remembering continents is "Eat an apple as a snack." The "E" in "Eat" helps you remember "Europe," while the "AN" in "an" reminds you of "Antarctica," and it continues down the line: "A" for "Australia," "AS" for "Asia," "A" for "Africa," "N" for "North America," and "S" for "South America."^[4]

• An alternative to "Eat an apple as a snack" is "Eat an aspirin after a nighttime snack.^[5]
• Another phrase to help you remember the continents is "SEAN got three AAAs," where "SEAN" stands for "South America, Europe, Asia, and North America" and "AAA" stands for Australia, Antarctica, and Africa.^[6]

Create a "memory palace" of the seven continents. Cicero outlined this method in his De Oratore as a way to memorize material. In Cicero's method, you create a mental map of a physical place in your head. To memorize new material, you attach pieces of information to each room or place in your head, and you retrieve them by walking through the area in your mind. Try creating a mental map for the continents by imaging yourself walking over the globe with one foot landing in each continent every time you step.^[7] Attach the name to each continent as you go. When you need to recall the names, walk around the globe again in your head.

Learn a continent song or poem. Continent songs attach information to familiar tunes to help you remember it. For instance, you can sing "I've got the whole globe in my hands. I've got the whole globe in my hands. I've got the whole globe in my hands. I've got Europe, Africa & Asia in my hands. North and South America in my hands. Australia and Antarctica in my hands. I've got the whole globe in my hands." to the tune of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."

• Alternatively, try memorizing this poem about the seven continents, which reminds you how to remember them in the poem: "To name the seven continents, think of the letter a,/and when you're down to only one an "e" will save the day!/There is Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Asia, too./The oceans run between us, with waters deep and blue./There is also two America's, North and South you see,/and now you're coming to the end, Europe starts with 'E!'"

Try creating a mental tree. That is, hang the continents off the tree in your mind. You could try going in order from the smallest at the top to the largest at the bottom. By visualizing the continents and their names, you'll be more likely to recall them later.^[8]

Create and memorize a story for the continents. Use the continents as the names of children in the story or the destinations that a detective visits around the world to help solve a crime. Keep it short, but use enough detail to make it stick in your head.^[9]

Get enough sleep. Being sleep deprived can affect your memory. If you get enough sleep, it will help you retain memories as you learn them, and it can also help with recall later.^[10]

Eat more salmon. Any food rich in Omega-3s, such as salmon, tuna, walnuts, or Brussels sprouts, is brain food. Though eating a handful of walnuts won't give you the brain power to memorize a phone book in an afternoon, eating these foods over time can increase your memory.^[11]

Learn in the afternoons. Some studies have shown afternoons to be the best time of day to help with fact retention, so try studying the continents in the afternoon instead of the morning or night.^[12]

Keep your brain engaged. Read something challenging. Play a new board game with friends. Try crossword puzzles or sudoku. By keeping your brain engaged in new activities, you'll keep your brain active, which in turn helps memory.

Take a deep breath. Stress can harm your memory recall when the hormone cortisol is released. By staying calm, you can increase both how much you learn in the moment and what you are able to remember later.^[13]