7 Ways to Improve Memory

Memory is critical to learning. When we learn, we take the information, store in our brain as memories to use information learned, or be a source to create new knowledge. It is where our creative ideas come from. That is intelligence. And as we learn new things, we emphasize new and important things and set aside old or impractical knowledge. Our memories are in constant modification mode.

Learning depends on inputs. Each word we read and each sight we see changes our memory in some form or fashion. Memory’s role is to interpret and place these inputs. It must decide what’s worth keeping by determining what the meaning of the information and how it relates to previous knowledge it has already stored.

Memory organization depends upon the meaning we attached to it and thus is organized in a way that has a connection to an old memory.

Memory can be improved. We experience life through our senses, which creates an impression in our brain cells and nerve centers.

The difficulty in improving memory is to highlight the impressions created, which are thoughts and feelings, and file them away in a well-ordered way that the memory or the impression will stay complete in our brain. The clearer the impressions, the more orderly your mental storehouse, the easier it will be to recall, the more effortless to remember.

“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, don’t you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.” ― Cormac McCarthy,

Henry Link and Robert Norman, in their article Seven Ways to Improve Memory, gave us the strategies to improve our memory.

7 Ways to Improve Memory

1.Repetition

It is the most basic method of memorizing. We can learn and remember anything if we repeat it frequently enough.

“Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.” – Napoleon Hill

2. Use As Many of our Senses

Bring in as many of our senses as possible on what we want to remember.

Impressions received from our sense of sight are recorded on a different cell from that relayed through touch or any other senses. All cells of the nervous system are interconnected, but the more impressions we get from, let’s say an object or an experience, the more strings we have with which to pull it out of our subconscious mind when we want to.

“Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.” ― Vladimir Nabokov

3. The Power of Attention

People with excellent memories have great powers of observation, concentration, and attention. We need to pay attention to one thing at a time. When we pay attention, we sidetrack everything except the thought or experience we want to remember. We note the details of what we want to remember.

“The true art of memory is the art of attention.” – Samuel Jackson.

4. Association

It is the shortest and definite way of remembering: the simpler the association, the easier to remember.

“Many think of memory as rote learning, a linear stuffing of the brain with facts, where understanding is irrelevant. When you teach it properly, with imagination and association, understanding becomes a part of it.” — Tony Buzan

5. Interest

Try to develop a true interest in the subject we want to remember.

“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.” ― William Faulkner

6. Understanding

If we do not understand an object or situation, we cannot expect to remember it.

“The three indispensable of genius are understanding, feeling, and perseverance; the three things that enrich genius are the contentment of mind, the cherishing of good thoughts, and the exercise of memory.”–Robert Southey

7. Mental Outline

Select only the points of the things that are needed for us to remember. Many things belong in our notebook rather than in our minds. We need to focus our memory and attention wisely. We should always be taking pictures, if not with a camera, then with our mind. 

Isaac Marion once said that the memories we capture on purpose are always more vivid than the ones we pick up by accident.

One of the strategies to help us commit things into memory is mind mapping. Tony Buzan defines mind mapping as a technique based on memory and creativity and comprehension, and understanding. When somebody uses the mind map, it helps them in all cognitive and learning skills as they are using their brain in the way it was designed to be used. It simply helps them in what the brain does naturally.

Choose to Remember

A memory is created from an intentional act on our part to remember. We choose to remember, so we apply one or more of the seven strategies to imprint the memory in our brain.

Kazuo Ishiguro said that memories, even our most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But the memories we value most, we don’t ever let them fade.

Source

Link, H & Norman, R.  “Seven Ways to Improve Memory”. How to Live With Life. Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.,1965. p. 183-185

https://www.engines4ed.org/hyperbook/nodes/NODE-2-pg.html