Many people face every day in their lives problems with their memory. Memory is a very important brain function that affects life quality overall. It is very frustrating when you happen to be in the middle of a very important exam and you forget what you had studied for so many hours the previous days. In some cases it not only frustrating but also destructive. Good or bad, memory is the mind's property responsible for the evolution of our species. How to improve memory is a question that all we should care about.
As we realize the great value of the human memory, it is very rational to wonder how we can increase it. Better memory equals to a great increase of your intelligence, consciousness, education and life quality in general. Fortunately, the human memory can be enhanced effortlessly by using some very effective mnemonic techniques. Most of these techniques rely on the ability of the human brain to distinguish and recall mental images in great detail. Especially a unique, ridiculous or unusual image tends to be remembered for a long time in great detail.
Do this tiny test if you want to confirm to yourself this fact of the human brain. Try to remember what you have eaten for lunch 3 weeks ago. You can't remember? Don't worry it is natural. You would be able to remember clearly and straight away what you were eating 3 weeks ago if you had found a cockroach in your food...The disgusting bug might have ruined your appetite but it was this distinctive moment that marked the experience to be stored with every single detail into your long term memory.
Now, the second law is the fact that the human brain can't distinguish what is real and what is imagination. Which means it treats every mental experience as real. You have also confirmed that this is correct. You know this silly game that mostly kids play when somebody is still eating on the table. Have you wondered why your appetite goes away when you hear about disgusting things when you eat? Because your mind draws the images and they bring them in front of you to live them. You experience them with all of your senses and your hunger is disappeared.
Probably the most memory strategies take advantage of these two capabilities of the human brain. In point of fact they require from the individual to visualize the items that have to be remembered and connect them with mental images that will serve as hooks. Some mnemonic techniques that work like that are the following:
• The linking method or Chaining System: Typically used to remember short lists of items. This system creates a chain of mental images that are connected with the items that you need to remember. Every mental picture may contain at least two objects. Thinking the images one after the other may create a weird or unreal story.
• Method of loci: You can rmember long list with this method. This mnemonic procedure seems like the linking method but at this point the hooks are the places of a very recognizable building, like your house. You visualize that you move from location to location into the house and in each different place you can find the objects of the list. Generally these visualizations are formed with exaggeration for making the experience unique and abnormal. This helps with the memory.
• Peg system: Ordered lists of items can be remembered easily with the peg system. The peg system needs the creation of a peg list which is a number-word combination. The words sound like the numbers as you speak them. A peg list can be also created by using the alphabet or by using words that in fact have the same shape with the number. These are two renowned variations of the peg system. The individual have to create and learn the pegs. After that he can assosiate the peg words with every list he wants.
• The Major System or Phonetic Number system: This memory technique is used for memorizing long numbers. It is actually a conversion between numbers to consonant letters. The vowles can be utilized freely and so you can form words or phrases that correspond to the number that you want to remember. This technique requires from the individual to learn very well the conversion table. This table is a standard one and you don't create it by yourself as you do with the mental images in the previous systems. That's why this method is considered more complex and tricky than the previous ones.
These mnemonic techniques are very effective and popular. Actually there are hundreds of such techniques and variations that can help you improve your memory.
The usual learning way is time consuming and ineffective. I never understood why learning systems such as the above never introduced to our schools. We have the potential, we know it and we don't use it...
Well, never is late to expand mind's functions. Do you want to know more about memory strategies? Please visit for more mind expanding techniques.
