How to Improve Your Memory Quickly in 5 Steps

In this article I will explain How to improve your memory Quickly with techniques and tricks based on Psychology.

Having a fast and high capacity memory is not only useful, desirable and admired in our society, but in recent years it has become so popular that it is on its way to becoming a sport.

You may think that I am exaggerating but, the truth is that, throughout the world there are many memory championships every year, both by countries and Countries.

I'll give you two incredible examples. ¹

- The world record for memorizing random words is 300 in 15 minutes.

- The world record for memorizing random numbers is 1014 in 15 minutes.

Why can you memorize more numbers than words at the same time? In this article I will give you the answer to this and much more. Memory is Comparable to magic because, in both disciplines, there are tricks.

• Is having a good memory question of superdotion or being â?? a geniusâ?? Do not.
• Is being a magician a question of having paranormal powers? Do not.

There are two key keys to developing a good memory:

1-Know how it works

Just as we can not use a computer well if we do not know how it works, we can not use it well Our memory If we do not know your functioning.

2-Train, train and train

Just as we have a titanic effort to speak in a second language learned the first few times we do it, it will be very costly to memorize a lot Information or very fast the first few times we do it.

Let's start by clarifying What is memory? "Is one of the most intriguing complex brain functions, consisting of the ability to store
Information and remember much of it at will" ² .

The other side of the same coin is learning:"process by which new information is acquired by the nervous system and can be translated into a Observable outcome through changes in behavior" ² .

5 Steps to Improve Your Memory

1-Choose your sensory modality star

From the above definitions we can conclude that memory and learning always go hand in hand.

As you can see, while the definition of memory speaks of the brain, in the definition of learning we speak of the nervous system. Which the difference?

He nervous system , Plus many other things like brain , Includes the peripheral sensory systems: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. The Sensory perception of information is the first step towards memorization and learning.

What is the best of them to memorize?

First of all, you must know what the sensory modality for which it is easier and faster to memorize the information you receive. On the other hand, Although you have a"favorite"sensory modality, in some occasions you must use another because of the nature of the task or stimulus presented.

Humans use for almost everything instinctively the sense of sight, this being the most developed sensory modality in our Brain (it occupies the whole occipital lobe !).

The view is so fast and detailed that we can perceive a stimulus visually in less than 100 milliseconds! ³ . In addition, according to Grill-Spector and Kanwisher, as soon as you know there is something there, you know what it is" ³ .

However, is sight the best sensory modality to memorize?

Although the hearing gives us more information and more detailed, the hearing is much faster. It takes 15 to 30 milliseconds to receive a stimulus aurally! ⁴

Let us reflect on why the decision is controversial:

How long does it take to memorize the lyrics of a song? How long does it take to memorize a written poem? Which of these two tasks requires more effort?

It is not my intention to marginalize the other senses but, let's face it, we will not use them frequently to memorize because it is very rare that the
Information is presented to us in the form of odors, flavors or textures.

However, have you ever forgotten what you know something about? And what does something smell? Have you ever forgotten what the texture, temperature, etc. are? from some material?

Evaluate your"favorite"sense and, to train!

If we stayed at the level of perceived information without doing anything else about it, the information would be stored in the" Sensory memory ".

This information store is specific to sensory modality, does not require attention to the source of information for its storage, has a capacity Almost unlimited but only lasts about 500 milliseconds.

Let's move to the next level, what do we need to do to store the perceived information?

2-Care and motivation

What have you eaten yesterday? What websites did you visit today? When was the last time it rained?

Try to answer these questions. Surely this is information that at one point you knew but forgot quickly. Why? Because it is Routine information that you do not need to remember and that you care little about.

Equally fascinating and important that our ability to memorize and learn is our ability to forget ² .

If we did not systematically forget all the irrelevant information prioritizing what is important, our memory would be a chaos of information Inaccessible, noisy and unusable.

How was your first kiss? How does betadine smell? What does the chorus of your favorite song say?

Try to answer these questions. As you remember this information will surely re-emerge associated emotions.

These are memories very difficult to forget because they have left a very powerful trace in your memory thanks to the emotivity and importance of them.

We see, therefore, that the other side of the coin of memory is forgetfulness.

What should we do to make sure we remember something? Perceive it and try to store it as if it were our life in it.

In our brain there is a set of interconnected and interrelated structures called the limbic system . They form part of this System two brain structures fundamental to memory: The hippocampus And the amygdala.

The key to the functioning of this strategy is the function of the amygdala to"help"the hippocampus.

In emotional situations, the amygdala and the hippocampus interact in a subtle yet important way ⁵ . Through this interaction, the Amygdala has the power to modulate both the coding and storage of information by the hippocampus ⁵ .

Generally speaking, if the amygdala does not want to, the hippocampus will not store the information and, therefore, you will forget it without being able to do anything about it.

Your role in memorizing is to tell your amygdala:"What I am learning at this moment is of the utmost importance and I must remember it at all costs".

As I always say, we must not forget that we are animals and, for an animal, what is important always has an emotional content. Did you ever feel it is more
Easy to learn what you like and attract you?

Once the information has come into the hands of the amygdala, the security guard, we are about to file the information in a higher warehouse Level than the previous one. This is called"short-term memory".

Short-term memory is the most functionally sophisticated of memory stores available to humans.

However, it is not Still the definitive warehouse because it has two weak points: it has a capacity of 7 +/- 2 elements and is only available in an active way for a Certain information temporarily (minutes).

It is in this store where everything happens. Once the amygdala has let the information through the door, everything else is in our hands.

3-The importance of the association

The human capacity to recall relatively meaningless information is surprisingly limited (for example a list of 7 to 9 random numbers). This capacity, however, can be dramatically increased ² .

As you recall, at the beginning of the article I promised to reveal the magic secret of memory. Well, the time has come. The secret is partnership.

The dramatic increase I'm talking about is going from memorizing a list of 7 to 9 random numbers to memorizing a list of 1014 random numbers in 15 minutes (or more, who dares to beat the record?).

The secret of the association is to endow information with meaning and form groups with it. How to group and provide information to the numbers?

My favorite strategy is the dates, although a lower level strategy could be, for example, the ages. You could also use mathematical operations.

Something we should never forget and what I have already said is that human short-term memory has an average store of 5 to 9 elements (the magic number 7 +/- 2) although training, we could reach an amplitude of 12 to 13 elements.

That of numbers is the most complex example of memorization given the highly abstract character of them. However with words it would be much more easy.

With words, it is tremendously easy to form stories, everything depends on our creativity and imagination. I recommend you to inform yourself About the Loci method or other mnemonic techniques.

In this article you can learn other techniques of association.

4-Establish memories: the role of repetition

In 2008, the work of Karpicke and Roediger had a great impact on the scientific community. They evaluated the two most Used worldwide: the repetition of the information in the form of rereading and the memory of the same in a repeated way ⁶ .

Both are forms of repetition but their biological nature is completely different. The results were overwhelming and, best of all, that makes sense.

The repetition of the information in the form of rereading is totally useless whereas the repetition of the same in the form of memory improves the Learning qualitatively and quantitatively (with qualitative I mean that lasts longer in memory) ⁶ .

Why?

To fully understand it, I must introduce the concept of habituation.

Do you remember the amggle? This is our friend, she does not like the irrelevant. It is a very VIP guard who will only let important information pass. If we reread the same information over and over, we will be asking the friend to tell the hippocampus a thousand times the same thing. What will happen? It will prohibit you from entering.

I am being very metaphorical but this is exactly what happens. I am going to put a very familiar example.

The first day we carry the mobile (or cell phone) in our pocket bothers us and we know at all times that it is there. After two days or three wearing it Pocket we will not realize that we take it and even ask incessantly, have I fallen?

The same thing happens with the watch, the glasses, the rings, etc. This is the phenomenon of habituation. The amygdala will stop telling the hippocampus that it is important.

In fact, you can even tell the opposite:"do not pay attention because this is not important, forget it". The hippocampus relies blindly on the amygdala. Has enough work.

What is effective then? The repetition by means of the memory!

5-Remembering goes much further: concentration

I guess you're wondering what does the hippocampus do then? Is it just the amygdala who decides?

The hippocampus is concerned with long-term potentiation (PLP) and long-term depression among many other fascinating things.

I have had the pleasure of meeting this year Kenneth Myer, the current PLP global leader, who worked in Oslo in the laboratory of Terje Lomo in Moment of its discovery, in 1966 ⁷ . It's a pleasure for me to pass on what Myer said.

PLP is the way in which the mammalian brain stores information.

Although the exact mode in which this miracle is achieved and where the information is going to stop is something that is still unknown, it is known that the hippocampus Achieves, through the rhythmicity of its electrochemical pattern, create a momentary synchronization that will convert, to the transmitted information Synaptically, into something unforgettable.

This is only achieved if, in some way, we have the necessary concentration.

This is why it is said that in order to memorize it is necessary to be in a moderate level of activation, that is to say, neither very anxious nor very relaxed.

Why then does repetition of memory work?

It's information with open doors. Therefore, make the effort to recover it from wherever you are and make the amygdala and the hippocampus boost it again Through their infallible teamwork.

And what other ways do you know about improving your memory?

References

2. Purves, A. (2004). Neuroscience. 3rd edit. Sinauer.
3. Grill-Spector, K and Kanwisher, N. (2005). Visual Recognition: as soon as you know it is there, you know that it is. Psychological science.
4. Kraus N, Kileny P, McGee T (1994) The MLR: clinical and theoretical principles. In: Katz J (ed) Handbook of clinical audiology.
5. Phelps, E. (2004). Human emotion and memory: interactions of the amygdala and hippocampal complex. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 14; 198-202
6. Karpicke, J and Roediger, H. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, Vol. 319, no. 5865; Pp. 966-968
7. Lomo, T. (2003). The discovery of long-term potentiation. Philosophical Transactions. Royal Society Lond B Biol 358 (1432): 617-620.

8. Campayo, R. (2005). Develop a prodigious mind. EDAF.
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