Thursday, February 7, 2013

Useful Tips on How to Improve Memory


The ability to remember things is vital human mental function. This is an ability that most of us take for granted, but even those who have the clearest heads will occasionally forget things. Some people think that their memory is a static thing, and that it is not something that they can improve upon. This is not correct. Our memory can be just like other parts of our body – if we use it properly and put some effort into developing it we will end up getting more from it. If people wish to improve their memory there will be steps that they can take to achieve this aim.
Tips on How to Improve Memory

The following 10 tips will allow people to get more from their memory:
1 – Use Mnemonic Devices
A mnemonic device refers to different techniques that work by increasing memory retention. They work by turning complicated information into something simple to remember. A good example of this would be the way that people remember the guitar strings – EADGBE. This can be turned into the mnemonic ‘Even A Dog Gets Bored Eventually’. The nice thing about this technique is that it turns otherwise boring stuff into fun things to remember – our memory seems to work better when what we are remembering is fun.
2- Learn to Look for Patterns
One of the keys to improved memory is the ability to look for patterns. This ability is what makes people good at puzzles – they are able to notice patterns that other people might miss. Once you recognize the pattern you no longer have to remember all the information because you know how to replicate it. For example if you realize that a list of numbers is made up of adding a certain number to the last number you no longer need to remember all the numbers.
3 – Learn the Art of Chunking
Another way to increase our ability to remember things is to learn the art of chunking. This means breaking things down into chunks and then remember each of these – this can be much easier than trying to remember the whole things. Chunking can be particularly effective when it comes to remembering numbers. For example, when memorizing a telephone number you can remember the area code (one chunk) separately from the rest of the number. When it comes to chunking numbers it seems to work best with chunks that only contain 3 or 4 digits.
4 – Use All the Senses
The more senses you involve in remembering something the more you are likely to remember it. For example, if you were trying to memorize a long list of exotic fruit you might want to use things like color, taste, and texture to improve your ability to remember. For some reasons using more senses when trying to remember something reinforces it into our memory.
5 – Make Use of Associations
The brain depends on its ability to form associations in order for it to function. If we wish to improve our memory then one of the most effective ways of doing this is learning how to find associations within any information we want the learn. The more associations we can find the stronger it will be imprinted in our memory. It is particularly important that you learn how to connect the dots between information you already know and new information.
6 – Get More from Images
Images can be easier to remember than words. Knowing this makes it easier to remember information by turning it into images. Probably the most effective example of this technique can be when trying to memorize people’s names. For example, if the person’s surname is Smith we could imagine their face and them working as a blacksmith.
7 – Turn Information into a Story
Humans have evolved to tell stories, and this is why it is easier for us to remember stories than lists of information. In order to remember things we can turn them into stories. This can be done with practically anything – including numbers. The more ridiculous you can make the story the better you will be at remembering it.
8 – Learn how to visualize
The ability to visualize can also be a great help when it comes to remembering things. One of the most effective forms of visualization is known as the Locci technique. This involves imagining a room in your house, and putting all the things you want to remember in that room. This works better for things like to do lists or shopping lists – it is not so effective when it comes to remembering numbers.
9 – Learn how to alphabetize
If you need to remember a long list of words (for example all the states in the US) you can try alphabetize. What you do is start at A and then add words all the way to Z. If you have more than one of each letter you can create additional lists. This technique can work well with some word lists, but at other times it can be a bit time consuming and confusing.
10 – Put Things in Categories
Humans naturally like to put things into groups, and doing so can benefit us when trying to remember things. Most types of information that we will be dealing with will belong to some type of category. The trick is to break up all the information into separate categories and then just memorize each category. For example if there were food items in our list we could group all these together under the category of food.

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