How to Enhance Your Memory

Jan 19, 2015

Think of a library with shelves and shelves of books and their mysteries. It is quite normal to have a yearning to embrace every story and bask in their beauty. Our brain is like this library. And we are all hoarders of memories. But the problem arises when you cannot recollect the name of the person waving a “Hello!” to you, or the answer to the questions in your exam.

The brain should be able to pull information at the drop of a hat, be it a dusty memory or an immediate information you just processed. Who would like a library that loses its books or shelves? Memory lapses can be trivial and embarrassing; like when you tear apart your house for the glasses perched innocuously atop your head or when you refer to your colleague as “that guy” because you simply cannot remember his name.

Let’s find out how to avoid such situations and emerge more knowledgeable than before.

Get organized

Clutter reduces the ability of brain to process information. How many times have you felt frustrated for not being able to remember where you kept your Geography notes? It is high time for you to consider assigning a position to every object in your room. Jot down a to-do list and tick off the ones you are already finished with. You can set aside a place for your keys, wallet and other essentials. Once done, you will have an environment promoting recollection. You could take a few ideas from here.

Focus on one thing at a time

Even though multitasking seems suave, it can pose a bit of a problem when you try to think back on the tasks separately. Think, texting in class. When has that ever helped anyone? Concentrate on one thing at a time.

Mugging up might help in aiding your short term memory,but it falls short when you wish to recollect it at a later time. While you are at it, you might want to check that as well.

Word associations

What happens when you forget something in the middle of a conversation? Abandoning ship remains your last resort. Try this for a better recollection. Let’s say that the Battle of Yorktown is playing a nasty hide and seek with your memory. The Battle of Yorktown signaled the end of American War of Independence, the British lost. Now think, a battlefield where it is raining egg yolks and the Americans rushing in with joy to have their new saucepans with boiling water tested for making a poached egg, which they have won from the British! There you go! You will never forget Battle of Yorktown again, even though I made a little tweak with “York”, but you can consider that a necessary evil.

You can try this with other facts, all you need is a vivid imagination to relate incidents with creativity. But remember to visualize it and not think. Let the ideas flow.

Try chunking

Let’s take the numbers 17761848181218651898. Now let’s put some sense into the series of numbers. Try putting a space between every four numbers. You will get a set of four years which you can try associating with historical incidents, for example the Revolutionary war of 1776, Mexican-American war 1848 and so on. For phone numbers, you can group 3 or 2 numbers together. This process is known as chunking and it is highly beneficial in remembering things.

Use acronyms and acrostics

Acronyms are words made from the first alphabets of each of words of the sentence which you have to remember. Let’s have a look at a few examples.

VIBGYOR – Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red (colors of the rainbow in order)

HOMES – Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior (used for remembering the Great Lakes)

Acrostic is just the opposite of acronym. This is where you make a fun sentence of your own to remember a series of information. For example,

King Philip Can Only Find his Green Slippers – This can be used to memorize the classification system: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.

Some People Have

Curly Brown Hair

Turned Perfectly Black – This was one of my favorites to remember Trigonometry rules.

Exercising helps

Have you ever gone out for a brisk walk after a long study session? Trust me, they make great memories. Coming back to the point, it helps in exercising the brain and the more you exercise it, the better it functions. As you exercise, you get your blood pumping and all the essential nutrients in your food aid in the process of enhancing your memory. And exercise also helps in cutting down the extra fat. So it is a win-win situation.

My father times his sudoku and 17 minutes has been his record till now, for a very difficult level. And he has an incredible memory. Learning a new skill comes in handy for a healthy brain exercise.

Involve multiple senses

A friend of mine relates incidences in her life with smell and whenever she gets a whiff of a certain smell, that respective memory comes streaming back to her. And she has a certain fondness for the word “seldom”, which she uses extravagantly in any conversation. We call her, “Smelldom”!

My point here is, when you come across information you need to remember, do the following four things:

  • Read
  • Speak
  • Write
  • Practice

Once you see the information and read it out loud, you are involving your eyes and ears. Writing it down and recounting it to someone help too.

Employ the Method of Loci

One night in Ancient Greece, a poet named Simonides was called upon to recite a poem at a banquet. But somehow the whole building collapsed down killing everyone and by some strange stroke of luck Simonides was not present inside the building at that time. Simonides later identified the dead, for their families by recalling where people were sitting at the time of the accident. This method of associating things with their location later came to be known as the “Method of Loci”.

Apart from this, you can employ flash cards or incorporate rhymes and many more to reap the benefits of an improved memory. Whatever you do, remember that you are to believe that you are good at it. It is as much about the psychology as it is about the above methods.

Article Posted in: Articles

Adilah

Adilah, graduated from Malaysia University and is a social activist. He focuses on various areas including education and takes notes on measure which could help in the overall pattern of studying. Recently he is registered with MyPrivateTutor Malaysia and has gained reputation in his field.

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