How to Improve your Memory

Health, Learning — By 88DB Knowledge on August 15, 2012 11:17 am

It’s on the tip of your tongue, you know it, but literally just can’t voice it. It could be a name, a date, an extra item on the grocery list or some fact we learned in school. Here are a few known and practiced techniques to help improve your recall.

1. VISUALIZATION

This method literally involves conjuring up images in your mind. Start with something that is more familiar, such as your home or car. Then picture what you need to remember and compartmentalise it there. For example, imagine your grocery list in the car. If you need to get vegetables, fruits and meat, imagine a carrot in your back seat, a cow riding shotgun and an apple rolling about in your boot. The more outlandish, the more likely you are to remember it.

2. MNEMONICS

Mnemonics is a memory strategy that uses a little phrase or rhyme used as a memory tool that help you remember a list of things. For example, a common one is VIBGYOR – violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red – to recall the colours of a rainbow. Or “rightey tightey, lefty loosey” to recall how to screw on a light bulb. Another common one is PEMDAS or “Please Excuse my Daft Aunt Sally,” for the Order of Operations: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication/Division, Addition/Subtraction.

improving your memory

3. STORYTELLING

If you’re not a particularly visual, you could also invent a story or pattern that relates everything you need to remember together. So if you want to remember your grocery list of meat, vegetables and fruits, you could say – Mr Cow went for drive with his friends Mr Carrot and Mr Apple. Again, like visualization, the more silly the story, the easier it is to recall.

4. MIND MAPPING

This technique is normally used for something more complicated, such as memorizing a text. It is particularly helpful for students while studying. A mix of both visualization and storytelling, a mind map is a diagram drawn to visually outline information and show their co-relation (if any) to each other as a whole.

Aside from visualisation, mnemonics and such to help with recall, there are other things that you could do to improve your memory. It is said that we do not exercise 100% of our brain’s potential all the time, so why not improve the odds with mental exercises, like crossword puzzles, sudoku or even reading – these help improve our memory in general. Some also claim that supplements such as gingko biloba aid in memory function. If you’re a forgetful person, don’t fret – any number of these techniques when employed are sure to help you.

Get your gingko biloba here before you forget.