Superboost Your Memory
I hate it when I forget where I put my car key, or the name of someone I worked with for ten years.., or the title of a movie I saw last night. It’s frustrating and increasingly common as I turned 50. Sound familiar
Whether it is forgotten names, misplaced keys, missed appointments or simply not being able to recall something that you know, experts say we don’t have to put up with forgetfulness, and it has nothing to do with age. We can have a great memory well into our 80s and beyond, but only if you are willing to invest some time and energy. "Your memory declines with age only if it’s not used," insists Tony Buzan, a leading expert on memory, who is 61 and says his memory is better than ever. "But you have to work at it." The bonus A better quality of life in your senior years. Research has shown that seniors with a sharp memory and an alert mind are more socially active and participate in a broader range of activities, which in turn helps maintain brainpower and memory in the process.
Remarkable Human Capacity
Buzan’s interest in memory was first aroused at the University of British Columbia in 1960. On the first day of classes, his English professor recited from memory the entire class list--plus the students’ addresses and phone numbers. (Yes, really.)
Indeed, so remarkable is the human capacity for recall that some people have trained themselves to remember the order of playing cards in ten shuffled decks (十副洗乱的牌), 1,000 random digits and 99 new names and faces. These are the mental equivalents of superathletes, and many compete in the annual World Memory Championship. Launched by Buzan in 1991, it has become so popular that the championship has sprung up in countries everywhere.
Mnemonic Techniques
While most of us won’t need to memorize the order of ten decks of cards, having a reliable memory is important, not only in our personal lives but professionally. So what do the memory champs know that we forgetful people don’t Mnemonics, that’s what. Pronounced ne-MON-iks and rooted in Greek mythology (Mnemosyne was the goddess of memory), these are proven techniques for remembering everything, including names, lists, facts and numbers. And you don’t have to be brilliant nor study for years to see the results. Once you understand the basics and use them regularly, you’ll be on your way to having a better memory and probably faster than you think.
There are dozens of mnemonic techniques, but they all boil down to two things: imagination and association, what Buzan calls "the pillars of brain function". Since the brain has difficulty remembering abstract symbols, like names and numbers, the key is to make them memorable by attaching vivid images to them.
Henry Evans, a 40-year-old owner of a busy restaurant, learned this lesson during a one-day memory course he took to help him remember customers’ names. It worked. "For example, there was one woman who kept coming in, and I could never remember ff her name was Deb or Cathy," says Evans. "After I took the course, I started picturing a web over her head -- a web over Deb. I never forgot her name again."
So even though one of the easiest ways to improve memory may sound obvious, it’s important. The most common reason healthy s forget is that they fail to focus. Distractibility can account for memory problem no matter what your age.
Working in our favor, say the experts, is the’ fact that the mind naturally strives to make connections between things that aren’t naturally associated. Harnessing this natural tendency, then exaggerating the image using your imagination so it’s unforgettable, is the key to memory.
Roman Room System
One of the most popular techniques is the Roman Room System (the Romans developed their own mnemonic techniques based on Greek research). It’s helpful because, after names and faces, forgetting objects is one of the biggest categories of forgetfulness. The idea is to use the rooms in your house or sites in your neighborhood -- anything you know really well -- as links on which to mentally hang things you want to remember.
Let’s say you don’t want to forget three things you need to pick up: flour, milk and bread. Picture walking through your front door and there’s flour thrown all over the shoes on the rack. Proceed to your living room and imagine milk spilled on your Persian carpet. Continue down the hall and picture slices of bread glued on the wall. The more ridiculous the images, the quicker the recall. Once you have done this, take a mental walk-through of your home to help with the memorization process. Since these elaborate pictures -- which you. create in seconds -- have sprung from your own imagination, they are much harder to forget.
The Brain Functions in Recall Process
Scientists don’t known for sure how the process for recall occurs in the brain, but American psychologist Roger Sperry established in 1981 that two sides of the brain deal with different functions. The right side focuses on pattern recognition, music, emotion and creativity, while the left deals with order, sequence, logic and language. The study of music helps the study of math, for example, and the study of rhythm helps the study of languages. Now scientists know that the more people use both sides of their brain, the more each benefits the other. And a person with an excellent memory uses both sides of the brain.
The way memory works is complex, still an emerging science.
What happens in my brain if I run into a woman in the grocery store whose name I can’t recall The experts explain: Seeing this woman activates my hippocampus, the brain’s command center for creating new memories. It immediately begins to form impressions based on the woman’s characteristics, such as hair color, height, clothing and manners.
To look for any of these same impressions, the hippocampus’s neurons (神经元) -- tiny nerve cells that act as transmitters -- start connecting and activating other teams of neurons located in my cortex (大脑皮层),where long-term memories are stored.
Together they search for any stored pieces of information on the woman. If her name can’t be located, other regions of cortex will be called into service. They’ll go back to my hippocampus to brainstorm together, and hopefully come up with the woman’s name. If they don’t, it’s time for me to work on my memory-boosting techniques a bit more.
A Few More Tips
One of the most critical factors for a good memory is first believing it’s possible. But we tend to be psychologically self-defeating. Remembering names is the perfect example of defeatist we can be. How many times have you heard someone say, "I’m so bad with names" Most people give up even trying to remember names because they figure they can’t. The following are the tricks suggested by the memory-experts:
·Decide you actually want to remember someone’s name.
·Get the name right. Listen to it, look at the person’s face and say the name to yourself, creating a mental connection.
·Remember the face and look closely for distinguishing features. If a Carol you meet has an angelic face, frame her in your mind with a halo (光环), or think, "Christmas Carol" (圣诞颂歌).
·Picture the person in another setting. Imagine them on a beach or swinging from a tree.
·Rhyme the name, if possible.
It also helps to make connections between unconnected thing. Next time you park your car in a busy lot, create an image of the surrounding environment. This will create a memorable map with your car fixed in it.
Ever since I started learning about mnemonics and paying attention to what I want to remember, I’ve noticed a huge improvement. I especially like to use Roman Room system, which has greatly shrunk my dependence on reminder notes. The experts are right: It’s really not that hard to remember things once you know how. Sure, writing a list doesn’t take long, but nowadays -- just in seconds -- I’m giving my brain cells some essential exercise.
The author tells the story of Henry Evans imagining a web over the head of an customer to illustrate the use of a basic mnemonic technique.