One of the biggest myths about memory is that “you can’t increase your memory by training it”. This is just not true, and is really dangerous misinformation.
I can sort of appreciate why this myth might be accepted (the logic might go something like: ‘”Well, If I can’t do anything about it, there’s no point trying. Sweet – less effort for me.” The inconvenient truth – or perhaps refreshing truth – is that there are plenty of ways to improve your memory, or simply get the most out of what is already there.
If you’re reading this, there’s a decent chance you’re currently at, or have been to, university. If that’s the case, then you’ve probably developed some techniques (maybe effective) of your own. Wherever you are at in life, having a great memory is very seldom a liability.
Here are seven tips from science that you can use to help you crush exams, impress people at parties, and just remember more stuff in general. Some of the following can supplement rather than replace what you’re already doing.
1. Sleep after learning
Right after you learn or do something, it’s fresh in your memory and you can remember it fairly vividly. With the passage of time, as you do/read/learn more things, memories slowly decay, and become less and less accurate approximations. In addition, new memories are fragile and can easily be forgotten.
So how do you strengthen memories for recently learned things, and protect new memories? We know that consolidation (both system and synaptic) takes place on a neural level without us doing anything (or at least being aware of it), and this does strengthen our memories.
However, there are things we can do to considerably improve the consolidation process. You might be surprised to learn that one of them is sleep.
Recent research supports the idea that consolidation is particularly strong during sleep. A 2006 study appearing in Learning and Memory found that students who went to sleep within three hours of learning material remembered nearly 16% more content than a group that waited 10 hours and then slept.
Going to sleep probably eliminates a lot of environmental stimuli that might interfere with the learned content. While sleeping instead of studying may not be that helpful, there are certainly cognitive problems associated with not getting enough sleep, it might be worthwhile going to bed shortly after a study session.
2. Visualise
Sometimes our brains can’t really tell the difference between what’s real and what we imagine. We know that mental imagery can activate some brain regions, and that mental rehearsal can lead to measurable improvement for some tasks. Mentally “visualising” information can also help tremendously.
If you haven’t heard of the method of loci (aka the “memory palace”), I would definitely recommend Googling it and/or reading about it extensively. You know those people that perform astonishing memory feats such as remembering decks of cards, pi to a thousand places, or the names and faces of hundreds of people, all in a single sitting? Well, with the exception of savants like Kim Peek and Daniel Tammet, most of them are just average people with inherently average memories.
A group study appearing in the new year 2003 edition of Nature Neuroscience investigated the reasons for memory champions’ superior performance. Their conclusion was that they employed “strategies for encoding information with the sole purpose of making it more memorable”, but that superior memory was not driven by exceptional cognitive ability or structural differences in the brain.
Essentially, those that are highly adept at memorisation tasks “encode” information (store it in their mind) very effectively. The most common way of encoding large amounts of information effectively is with visualisation. This basically involves using mental imagery to represent the information you’re trying to remember.
3. Chunk it up
Most people probably know we can theoretically store seven (+/- two) pieces of information in our short-term memory at any given time. So we can remember, at least temporarily, the names of the Seven Dwarves after hearing them, but we’d be in trouble if there were 10 of them.
Sometimes (often) it can be beneficial to be able to remember more than seven or so bits of information. One technique that can help is chunking.
Chunking is essentially just breaking up a long stream of information into manageable “chunks”. Let’s consider the 14-digit number string 1-9-6-9-4-8-1-2-1-6-1-0-6-6. At first sight, this might seem fairly meaningless, but if I rewrite it as 1969, 4, 8, 12, 16, 1066, suddenly it becomes pretty easy to remember. Instead of remembering 14 separate pieces of information, all you have to remember now is: 1) moon landing; 2) multiples of four; and 3) the Battle of Hastings. Most information strings will not be this easy to reduce, but you get the idea.
4. Take breaks
Study for a few minutes and then take a break. Taking a break, however, doesn’t mean giving up entirely. What you ideally want to do is study in a number of short bursts, mixed with breaks, rather than doing all of your study at once (cramming).
You may have heard of the Pomodoro method (basically doing focused study or work for 25 minutes before taking a short break). Although this is often described as a general productivity technique, it was originally designed for studying. Personally, I can’t speak highly enough of it. However, the 25-minute block may not be optimal for you. Definitely tinker until you find something that works for you.
As well as leading to a significant decrease in academic performance, all-night cramming may be causing serious health problems. Avoid using this strategy if possible. Preparation and forward-planning are very important here.
You can really only concentrate effectively on one thing for a certain stretch of time. The advantage that short, intermittent bursts of study have over one continuous session (assuming the total amount of time spent studying is the same) is referred to as the spacing effect.
5. Don’t cram
The root of the problem is that people procrastinate. Some people do it more than others, but regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or IQ, people procrastinate. The catch-cry of the procrastinator may as well be: “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow.” Sometimes this makes sense, but the bottom line here is that, despite its immense popularity, cramming just doesn’t work.
There’s plenty of research showing that studying in small sections (broken up by “downtime”) leads to better memory retention than when all of these smaller sessions are crammed into one long session.
A study by UCLA researchers appearing in the Journal of Child Development suggests that trading sleep for study time (a common by-product of cramming) is likely to lead to more academic problems, not less, the next day. The authors stress that sleep is critical for academic success, and that sleep deprivation dramatically impedes the learning process.
6. Test yourself
There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that taking an active role in the creation of revision material is an effective way to achieve strong encoding and promote good long-term retrieval of memories.
Making up questions yourself and then testing yourself on them (not immediately) involves active involvement with the material, and actually strengthens the encoding of material to be learned. Even just reading text with the idea of making up questions based on what you have read is beneficial.
What a lot of students don’t realise is that self-testing is possibly even more important than simply reviewing information. Self-testing gives you an idea of what you know and increases your ability to remember it.
To really improve your understanding and recall of a concept, you can always try and explain it to someone else (or yourself). Educators have known about the benefits of self-explanation (essentially, thinking out loud) for some time.
When you ask yourself questions/work on answers/try different solutions/comment on mistakes/identify changes in approach, you force a conscious awareness of the processes the mind is going through. When attempting to learn new material, try asking (and answering) yourself things such as:
- Am I doing this right?
- How can I understand this better?
- What is an example of this?
- Why didn’t/wouldn’t this work?
7. Elaborate
Thinking about something (a concept/idea/proposition) and adding meaning to it by relating it to other things you know about helps you remember it better. But not only that, the material is much more likely to be transferred into your long-term memory. This process is known as elaboration.
This association tool partly accounts for why techniques such as the method of loci (possibly the most effective memorisation technique you’ll ever learn) and similar image-creation/linking techniques are so powerful. These are used to some extent by pretty much all of the top memory “experts” around the world.
These techniques are just some of the more effective ways to enhance your memory, but there are plenty more. The bottom line is, you can definitely improve your memory, but often it takes a bit of effort.
This article was published by Lens.
