Tips to Maximize Memory

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a photographic memory? Yes, of course it would. While there are exercises people can practice to enhance their long-terms memories, what follows are simple tricks that can be employed immediately, in order to help maximize memories in the moment.

These tips take time to perfect, but when applied consistently and methodically, they are proven to make a difference:

Do something enjoyable before attempting to commit items to memory in order to reduce stress

• Stress inhibits your brain’s ability to retain information.

• Spend a few minutes relaxing or doing something fun before you begin

• If you enter this time stressed out (as many of us do), then you are less likely to remember the information that you are attempting to learn.

Make an item memorable by making guesses about it as you learn

• ‘Guess What’s Next’: Give yourself a chance to connect to material as you learn.

• Try to guess what comes next, or what something means, etc.

• Our brains are more likely to latch onto the information once it comes into focus.

• Was our prediction correct? Were we way off?

• Now you have a connection to the material, making it somewhat familiar.

• Our memories retain the familiar over the foreign.

Use colors

• Color-code your notes.

• Brains are more likely to retain material associated with light/color than not.

• Information enters your memory with a boost if it is colorful.

• Our brains prefer color to data.

Your brain loves novelty

• You’re more likely to remember a new experience, and new info comes with it.

• Diversify your sources (e.g. books, websites, index cards, songs, etc.).

• Breaking routines makes memories.

• Keeping the same process puts your memory to sleep.

Make information meaningful to you

• Info that doesn’t connect to our sense of self is less likely to make a memory.

• Brains are likely to retain items and ideas that relate to one another.

• Make associations between the material and anything that you care about.

• Connect your everyday life to the information that you’re trying to learn.

• Give your brain a reason to make space for the new info.

• Effective for both short-term and long-term memory.

Mnemonics

• Your brain is more likely to retain information that it finds appealing.

• Trick it into believing that the material you are studying is in fact interesting.

• Make sentences, games, songs or stories out of the items you want to remember.

• Create acronyms, rhyming words and silly stories in relation to the new info.

Practice recalling the info

• Repetition is a fantastic way to force facts into our brains.

• Continuously writing items by hand is a very effective method for memorization. •Practice writing out the new information from memory, if possible.

Take short breaks every 15 minutes

• Brains should be given a chance for rest, breaks and fun every 10-15 minutes.

• Get up and do a silly dance, throw a ball against a wall, eat a little snack, etc.

Sleep!

• Pre-teens and teenagers should get no less than nine hours of sleep per night and adults should get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep.

• Memories get filed away as we sleep.

• Sleep deprivation has very serious consequences.