Easy Ways to Improve Memory

Easy Ways to Improve Memory

There is no such thing as a "bad memory", and everyone can improve their memory, as long as you are not suffering from memory loss as a medical condition. Individuals have specific techniques through which they facilitate there memory and learning of new information,  A strong memory depends on the health and vitality of your brain. Whether you're a student studying for final exams, a working professional interested in doing all you can to stay mentally sharp, or a senior looking to preserve and enhance your grey matter as you age, , If you want to improve your memory, there are lots of things you can do to improve your memory and mental performance. Some of these are as follows.

Knowledge of Results

Knowledge of results is a term in the psychology of learning A psychology dictionary defines it as feedback of information. Learning occurs most effectively when feedback or knowledge of result allows you to check and see if you are learning. Feedback also helps you identify material that needs extra practice, and it can be rewarding to know that you have answered or remembered correctly.

Attention

A setting that enhance your focus while studying, and ensures minimal distraction will turn your attention to the memory job at hand. Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a separate aspect of information, whether consider subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. It is the taking possession by the mind in clear and graphic form of one out of what seem several simultaneous objects or trains of thought.

Recitation and Rehearsal

This Means repeating to yourself what you have learn. If you have ever repeated a rhyming poem from memory in front of an audience, you have given a recitation, A rehearsal is a practice, especially for a performance of some kind. You're likely to be nervous about your magic show if the rehearsal goes badly.

Organize

If you systematically put something in order, you organize it or to arrange  methodically or in order .  An organized activity or group involves a number of people doing something together in a structured way, rather than doing it by themselves it is also a organized way.

Selection

Selection is all about choosing. The action or fact of carefully choosing someone or something as being the best or most suitable. Think about a salad bar: you can make a selection from among several choices, Practice careful and selective marking in your textbooks and marginal notes to further summarize ideas. Most Students mark their texts too much  instead of too little. If everything is underlined, you have not been selective.

Serial Position

The position an item occupies in a series which is to be learn and recalled as part of a serial test; frequently attributive. Whenever you must learn something be aware of the serial position effect. This is the tendency to make most errors in remembering the middle of the list. If you are introduced to a long line people, the names you are likely to forgot will be those in the middle, so you should make an extra effort t attend to them. The middle of a list, poem or speech should therefore be given special attention and extra practice.

Mnemonics

A method or system for improving the memory. Mnemonics aid original information in becoming associated with something more meaningful which, in turn, allows the brain to have better retention of the information. Mnemonics techniques rely on the linking or association of to be remembered material with a systemic and organized set of images or words that are already firmly established in long term memory and can therefore serve as retrieval cues. The basic principles in the formation of mnemonics are:

1-      Use mental Pictures

2-      Make things meaningful

3-      Make information familiar

4-      Form bizarre, unusual or exaggerated mental associations.  

Attach emotions, feelings:

Attach emotions, feelings or link up with an event using mental pictures or visual imagery to enhance retention. One way to simply imagine unusual scene that includes the various elements you want to remember
For instance on your way home, you have to shop for a newspaper, notebook, pen and shaving cream. To remember this list of items you have to make up a mental image of something funny and bizarre such as you, opening up the front page of newspaper to find out a picture of a person reading a notebook with one hand and using a pen to wipe of the shaving cream on his face with the other hand, with every buddy having a good laugh. We hardly ever forget what is emotionally significant in our lives.

Over learning

Over learning refers to practicing newly acquired skills beyond the point of initial mastery. The term is also often used to refer to the pedagogical theory that this form of practice leads to other beneficial consequences. In other words after you have learn material well enough to remember it without error, you should continue to study the material. Over learning is your best insurance against going blank on a test because of anxiety.

Speed practice

Spaced practice generally is superior to massed practice. By improving concentration, three 20 minutes study sessions can produce more learning than one hour of continuous study.

Whole versus part learning

Generally it is better to practice learning whole packages of information rather than smaller parts. Learning technique in which the task to be learn is broken down into its parts for separate practice. The part-whole method is commonly used when parts do not form a natural and meaningful sequence of actions and do not need to be practiced together. The only notes that will benefit you will be the ones that you make your self based on steps listed above selection.

Sleep

Sleep is defined as a natural and reversible state of reduced responsiveness to external stimuli and relative inactivity, accompanied by a loss of consciousness. Sleeping after study is helpful and reduce the interference. Similarly breaks and free times in a schedule are as important as the study periods. Stay awake the hole night before exams is after all not the smart thing to do.  

Review

The process of going over a subject again in study or recitation in order to fix it in the memory or summarize the facts, Reviewing shortly is helpful, through one should avoid the tendency to memorize new information at the point. The review should however over an however over an hour or so rather than spending the whole night prior to the exam.