You Can Memorize Anything

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Most of us feel as if we possess a fairly good memory. We can remember phone numbers, our address, anniversaries, passwords, and with the boon in modern technology, we have lots of help with our computers, cell phones, and other toys. But what makes memorizing possible, after all. Is it some kind of strange phenomenon in our brain? Why is it in a room full of people I can detect the sound of my husband’s voice, or pick my mom’s face out instantly in the crowd. Amazing, isn’t it. Yes, our brain files away tons of pertinent information all along the path of our lives.

So, how does it get up there, and how do we get it to stay there. As a teacher, I am often training students in the fundamentals of memorizing–an essential tool of learning. Let’s start with the basics. The human brain is a mix of nerve tissue, plasma or fluid, and chemicals. Electrical impulses travel from neuron to neuron along a pathway of nerve tissue, and the signal is promoted or carried along by the intricate chemicals and elements surrounding these tissues–such as potassium, calcium, magnesium, serotonin, and dopamine, which make the whole process possible. Like cars racing along a freeway, thoughts flow through the brain making connections to a destination.


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The key that unlocks the whole thing is simple: Repetition. Just as a coach will encourage an aspiring young baseball pitcher to practice, practice, practice, our brain requires the same thing. The practicing pitcher will throw hundreds of baseballs over and over again to perfect their technique, and in order to memorize something, we must repeat the information to the brain in the same way. That’s why your mother nagged you to study and then study some more for your school tests.

Here’s how it works: Let’s use the example of remembering someone’s name. When they say their name it goes into our brain and the first stop is what we call short-term memory. And it’s short—a matter of seconds is all it stays there, unless, of course it gets bumped over into long-term memory. The determining factor? Yes, you guessed it–repetition.

Most of us won’t remember someone’s name on first hearing, so we end up asking them later, What did you say your name was? But that doesn’t have to happen if we learn how to memorize. So when you hear the person’s name, repeat it to yourself over and over silently. This will trigger the brain’s chemistry to store the information instead of dumping it as unnecessary, and it will be sent to long-term memory. With short-term memory, any information that goes there is considered useless and will be tossed if it is not repeated. Repeat it and it gets locked in instead.

Then, there are a few things we can do to help this process along, namely, engaging our senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, and the ethereal one: feelings. How we feel about something or someone may help or hinder memorization, as when we get scared, excited, aroused, or angry. Take the example of a person’s name again. As they say their name, look at them taking note of their height, facial hair, hair color or style, eye color, anything to distinguish them and match them visually with their name. Listen to the way they speak, laugh, sound, a distinctive scent. All the senses can link information about them with their name as the brain sets up the pathway in long-term memory. Then, when you meet them again, those sensory clues will be recalled as the brain retrieves the linked information down the pathway to the stored memory. Even with large chunks of material to recall, use the sensory tools by writing notes on what is read, reading outloud to hear the material, and visually displaying the material or performing it such as a play or experiment. Writing and reading outloud reinforces information through our eyes and ears.

Pretty amazing stuff, especially when you consider how much the brain goes through this process in the course of one day. So, you can memorize anything. First, engage repetition—no matter the size of the material, the more you repeat the information the deeper will be the pathway it forms in the brain. Next, use sensory clues you observe to further enhance the information and make finding it easier. Then, the more you revisit the information over time, the clearer the memory will remain. And one more thing, don’t keep saying you can’t remember things, because, actually, your brain remembers what you say and it will act on that, and you can develop what I like to call lazy brain. Train your memory and keep it sharp instead.

My mom passed away last year, but in my memory I can still recall with great clarity the way her voice sounds, or the way my husband looked on our wedding day, the smile on my daughter’s face when she graduated high school. Without memory we would never recall great scenes from a movie we loved, or that engaging conversation we had with our grandfather before he died. Ah, the power of memory. That’s something you never want to lose . . . or forget.



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