Are you somebody that forgets something the minute somebody tells you or asks you something? Are you one of these people that repeats things over and over in their minds so as to keep the information from slipping from your thoughts? Read on for more..



Click Here to Improve Your Memory

Let me tell you, I am exactly the same, and always have been. When I was younger, if my mum asked me to do something, I would say “Yes”, then carry on with what I was doing. When mum would later ask me if I had done what she had asked, it is only at this point that the memory re-emerges, leaving me feeling stupid and sheepish. I can remember things from my past without any problems. Its just my short term memory. But is there really anything that can be done to improve this?

Experts will tell you that you have to continually use your brain, to keep it stimulated and to slowly train it to be more efficient. They say that doing crosswords or Sudoku can improve your intelligence, and therefor increase your memory capacity. They even bring out video games on the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS to supposedly help us, but I’m not so sure that these are actually helping in any way.

Over the years I have tried a few techniques, some being better than others, but have not really found the ideal solution to the problem. Many techniques might work for a limited amount of time, others have even made me worse, but I think there is only one technique that I have found that could potentially work, if I had the time and energy to implement it into my every-day life.

This technique I mentioned was one that uses imagery instead of words. If you try to remember something, you will undoubtedly find it easier to remember a picture or a place rather than the word that describes the picture or the place. Let me explain:

Lets imagine you wanted to remember a list of objects. I’m going to use a list of objects that was taken from the book I was reading at the time, as I can still remember the objects in order, but I cannot remember the book. The objects are Carpet, Paper, Bottle, Bed, Fish, Chair, and Window. There were many more objects in the book, but we will use these for now. What we need to do is to link all the words together, so that as long as we can remember the first object, we will remember them all, in order.

Now, think about your first object, carpet. Imagine a carpet. Imagine how it looks, how it feels, how it smells. Spend a couple of minutes really thinking hard about carpet, strange as it sounds. Now do the same for paper, except this time, link it with the carpet. For instance, imagine a carpet made of paper, and what it looks like, how it feels, and importantly, how it sounds. Sound is another good way to remember things. Now take the bottle, and imagine the paper is wrapping around the bottle and tightening to conform to the bottle’s shape. Imagine the bottle falling and landing on the bed. Picture the bottle as being large, and hitting the bed with some force, making a loud sound. Now the bottle starts wiggling like a big fish, and slowly turns into a fish, thrashing about. Suddenly the fish springs out of the bed and lands on a chair. So picture the fish sitting on the chair, imagine that chair. Now imagine that chair hurled through a window, and picture the sound and the destruction, glass flying everywhere.

If you have given enough time to each part of this exercise, you should now have built a small story within your mind. And believe me, to this day I can still remember the whole story, with all the objects remembered in the correct order. A visual story that you created in your mind is not something you will forget easily, no matter how bad your memory is.

Now try to remember the objects, but try to remember them using your story and not just your memory alone. Picture the carpet, it’s made of paper that crackles under your feet. The paper wraps round a bottle, and falls heavily onto a bed. The bottle thrashes about like a fish, then the fish hurls itself into the air and onto a chair. The chair is now thrown through a window, shattering the glass. Try it again, does it help you to remember the words? If you replayed the story in your mind a few times, I bet you will still remember this tomorrow. Try adding extra objects, and link them all together in the story, using sights, sounds and movement.

You can use this technique for many things. Maybe you are giving a presentation, and you want to remember each point to raise, without having numerous bits of paper. You will be able to pick up the story at any point to remember what the next item was very quickly. I have found this to be a very positive way to remember things, but I have to admit, I do not implement this all the time. I find it hard to concentrate sometimes, and I just can’t be bothered. I think this is the main reason my memory is so bad. I cannot take the time to implement techniques that work. I rely on my memory itself too much, and am let down time and time again. If you do use this, then make sure you continue to use it regularly, and you will see instant improvements.


Click Here to Improve Your Memory

I also don’t think it works too well for items that are not physical objects. Its harder to link other words together in a story if you cant imagine what the word looks like as an object. So this technique is very limited. But if you can create objects to associate with words, then you can link the words together in a story. It does work, and I’m sure this will help some people, somewhere. If anything, it demonstrates that there are other ways to use your brain, and just relying on the memory to do its job will always end in frustration, especially if you are someone like me.

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