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8 Strategies for Remembering
1. Become interested in what you're learning. We're all better
remembering whatinterestsus. Few
people, for example, have a difficult time remembering the names
of people they find attractive. If
you're not intrinsically interested in what you're learning or
trying to remember, you must find a way to
become so. I have to admit I wasn't so good at this in medical
school
theKrebs cycle(I provide thelink only to prove how immensely
boring it is) just didn't excite me or relate to anything I found
even
remotely exciting.
2. Find a way to leverage yourvisualmemory. You'll be astounded
by how much more this will enable
you to remember. For example, imagine you're at a party and are
introduced to five people in quick
succession. How can you quickly memorize their names? Pick out a
single defining visual
characteristic of each person and connect it to a visual
representation of their name, preferably
through an action of some kind. For example, you can remember
Mike who has large ears by creating
a mental picture of a microphone (a "mike") clearing those big
ears of wax (gross, I knowbut all the
more effective because of it). It requires mental effort to do
this, but if you practice you'll be surprised
how quickly you can come up with creative ways to generate these
images. Here's another example:
How often do you forget where you left your keys, your
sunglasses, or your wallet? The next time you
put something down somewhere, pause a moment to notice where
you've placed it, and then in your
mind blow it up. If you visualize the explosion in enough
detail, you won't forget where you put it.
Remember: Memory is predominantly visual.
3. Create a mental memory tree. If you're trying to memorize a
large number of facts, find a way to
relate them in your mind visually with a memory tree. Construct
big branches first, then leaves.
Branches and leaves should carry labels that are personally
meaningful to you in some way, and the
organization of the facts ("leaves") should be logical. It's
been well recognized since the 1950's we
remember "bits" of information better if wechunkthem. For
example, it's easier to remember 467890
as "467" and "890" than as six individual digits.
4. Associate what you're trying to learn with what you already
know. It seems the more mental
connections we have to a piece of information, the more
successful we'll be in remembering it. This is
why usingmnemonicsactuallyimproves recall.
5. Write out the items to be memorized over and over and over.
Among other things, this is how I
learned the names of bacteria, what infections they cause, and
what antibiotics treat them.Writing out
factsin lists improves recall if you make yourself learn the
lists actively instead of passively. In other
words, don't just copy the list of facts you're trying to learn
but actively recall each item you wish to
learn and then write it down again and again and again. In doing
this, you are, in effect, teaching
yourself what you're trying to learnand as all teachers know,
the best way to ensure you know
something is to have to teach it. This method has the added
benefit of immediately showing you
exactly which factshaven'tmade it into your long-term memory so
you can focus more attention on
learning them rather than wasting time reinforcing facts you
already know.
6. When reading for retention, summarize each paragraph in the
margin. This requires you to think
about what you're reading, recycle it, and teach it to yourself
again. Even take the concepts you'relearning and reason forward
with them; apply them to imagined novel situations, which
creates
moreneural connections to reinforce the memory.
7. Do most of your studying in the afternoon. Though you may
identify yourself as a "morning person"
or "evening person" at least onestudysuggests your ability to
memorize isn't influenced as much by
what time of day you perceive yourself to be most alert but by
the time of day you actually study
afternoon appearing to be the best.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/cp-tbm042706.phphttp://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/cp-tbm042706.phphttp://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/cp-tbm042706.phphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cyclehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cyclehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cyclehttp://cvcl.mit.edu/MM/pdfs/BradyKonkleAlvarezOliva2008.pdfhttp://cvcl.mit.edu/MM/pdfs/BradyKonkleAlvarezOliva2008.pdfhttp://cvcl.mit.edu/MM/pdfs/BradyKonkleAlvarezOliva2008.pdfhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_%28psychology%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_%28psychology%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_%28psychology%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonichttp://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDF%27s/Roediger%201980.pdfhttp://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDF%27s/Roediger%201980.pdfhttp://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDF%27s/Roediger%201980.pdfhttp://psychsocgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/51B/4/P226.pdfhttp://psychsocgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/51B/4/P226.pdfhttp://psychsocgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/51B/4/P226.pdfhttp://psychsocgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/51B/4/P226.pdfhttp://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/neurosciencehttp://www.scielo.br/pdf/bjmbr/v41n6/7019.pdfhttp://www.scielo.br/pdf/bjmbr/v41n6/7019.pdfhttp://www.scielo.br/pdf/bjmbr/v41n6/7019.pdfhttp://www.scielo.br/pdf/bjmbr/v41n6/7019.pdfhttp://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/neurosciencehttp://psychsocgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/51B/4/P226.pdfhttp://psychsocgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/51B/4/P226.pdfhttp://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDF%27s/Roediger%201980.pdfhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_%28psychology%29http://cvcl.mit.edu/MM/pdfs/BradyKonkleAlvarezOliva2008.pdfhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cyclehttp://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/cp-tbm042706.php
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8. Get adequatesleep to consolidate and retain memories. Not
just atnightafter you've studied but
the daybeforeyou study as well. Far better to do this than to
stay up cramming all night for an exam.
Why Memory Malfunctions
Memory loss is one of the most common complaints I hear in my
clinical practice. Unfortunately, as anormalpart of the aging
process,many people start to find they can't bring to mind names,
places, and things as easily
as they used to be able to do and worry they're facing the
beginning ofdementia.
"Benign forgetfulness" is the name we give to a process that
occurs with normalagingin which a memory
remains intact but our ability to retrieve it becomes
temporarily impaired. Usually we try to describe the name or
thing we can't recall and when someone names it for us we
instantly remember the word we wanted. As long
as this is age-appropriate and doesn't significantly interfere
with normal functioning, there is no increased risk
for progression to dementia.
However, the trick lies in assessing what is and isn't
"age-appropriate." Formal testing is sometimes necessary
in ambiguous cases. Reassuringly, in onestudy,patients over the
age of 50 who initially presented with what
was considered to be benign forgetfulness had only a 9% chance
of progressing to dementia.
Unfortunately,cognitive impairments other than memory lossare
correlated with a higher risk of progression to
dementia.
Another reason people often have trouble remembering things is
because memory is a function
ofconcentration.Which means when you multi-task you tend to
forget more easily. Have you ever entered a
room only to forget why you did so? More likely you'd remember
if you weren't simultaneously planning your
dinner for that night and trying to remember the phone number of
the person who just left you a message. This
also explains why people who suffer from depression or anxiety
have a harder time remembering things: Both
conditions interfere substantially with the ability to
concentrate. The strength of a memory is also determined by
the emotional state that accompanied the original
event.Emotion,negative or positive, tends to embed events
in our memory like a chisel carves lines in stone
a double-edged sword for people suffering fromPTSD.
Decreasing Deterioration
Here are three things that have been shown in studies to
decrease the risk of mental deterioration as you age:
1. Exercise your body.Evidencesuggests this not only retards
normal age-related memory
deterioration but reduces the risk of developing dementia. It
doesn't even have to be vigorous
exercisejust 150 minutes of walking per week has been shown to
be of benefit. Whether more
intense exercise results in a greater risk reduction remains
unclear.
2. Exercise your mind.Evidencealso suggests that doing things
that work the mind may delay or
prevent memory loss. This research is just in its infancy, so
here's as good a guide as any to figuring
out what activities will work: If an activity requires you to
take breaks, it probably qualifies. We can
watch television, for example, for hours on end without becoming
mentally fatigued, but solving math
problems, learning to knit, or even reading all require effort
that tires the mind.
3. Take ibuprofen. Though onestudysuggests a daily dose of
ibuprofen decreases the risk of
developing dementia, the risk reduction appears too modest to
justify the increased risk of stomach
bleeding that accompanies ibuprofen's daily use, so I
donotrecommend this. However, if you're
already taking ibuprofen for some other condition, like
arthritis, this might be an added benefit.
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