Improving Your Memory
We all read about people with so-called photographic memories and wish that if only we had such a memory, exams would be easy, we would never have the embarrassment of forgetting a persons name, and many things in life would generally be easier.
However the reality is that memory is something we can learn to improve and develop. Indeed many world memory experts emphasise the importance of using techniques to boost memory and stress that they naturally did not have a better memory than anyone else.
It is strange that, given how important and useful memory is, people do not learn memory techniques in school, and old fashioned and ineffective techniques such as learning by rote are still how many people try to 'cram' information into their brains.
There are many powerful techniques to improving memory, here we look at one of the most powerful and easy to understand - known as assocation.
The idea is simple - our brain forms connections between different cells in the brain, neurons, when we remember. Similarly, it is easier to remember something by forming a connection or association between what we are trying to remember and something else, rather than simply doing so in isolation.
Imagine that you are trying to remember a list of ten objects. Let's have a list now:
- Clock
- Calculator
- Monitor
- Water bottle
- Cup
- Microphone
- Diary
- Desk
- Tree
- Car
Just learning it off-by-heart is very difficult, and also hard to recall at any significant period of time later.
Much better to use the association technique to link them together. We combine this with the use of vivid mental images in our association to make the link clear and strong in our minds. Thus we might think of a big, inflatable fluorescent pink clock that, on closer examination, has two calculators going around it in place of the hands. Really imagine that image and what it would look like in your head, and how silly it is.
Then on examining one of the calcuators closely, you notice to your surprise that instead of the dull liquid-crystal-display so beloved of calculators, it has a full colour monitor in it showing the results of all those calculations you are performing.
Carry on creating links, make them as silly as you like, make them vivid, really imagine them, and include sound and other senses if you like too - such as touching the monitor only for lots of water to start pouring out of it like a bottle - to remember the images.
Once you have done this, you will be astonished how easy it is to recall the list. Try it now - create an association between each of the objects above; feel free to start with the suggestions above or create your own if these don't work for you.
Then come back ten minutes later and try to recall the list, and you will be pleasantly surprised. And best of all, the list will tend to stay in your mind for a long time if your associations and images were sufficiently robust.
And there you have it - a simple but powerful memory technique.
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