How to Improve Your Memory: Top Mnemonic Techniques to Improve Your Life

The world is a rough place to live for students. Tons of text has to be memorized for exams that keep getting more complex every year. The rate of knowledge scientists are gaining is nearly exponential in the 21^st century. Ironically, the young have to suffer such knowledge with countless all-nighters.

Take medical school for example. It's filled with anatomy and physiological terminology that some people are sure doesn't even exist. Thankfully, mankind invented psychology and the concept of using mnemonic devices.

What is a mnemonic device and why does it sound so far-fetched?

Another moment of irony. Why is a mnemonic device so strange to pronounce? Perhaps its strangeness makes it easier to remember?

Case in point.

Mnemonic devices are special cues or words that help people remember. It can be used as an art form to relate things to events or people a person already knows - in order to remember the entire concept altogether. It is a topic much discussed in advanced placement psychology.

There are two ways the typical person thinks when given something to remember; Rote Rehearsal and Elaborative Rehearsal. Rote rehearsal is good for short term memory. It is when you repeat the word in your head over and over till it's imprinted there for later use.

But psychologists note that rote rehearsal is not recommended for remembering things for the long run. If you are given the phone number to someone important and spend the next ten seconds repeating it in your head, how are you going to recall it in a week?

Elaborative rehearsal is where the magic begins. It is the process of relating something you just learned to something you already know. For example, if you happened to be in a paintball match where it was just you and two others against a whole armada, you have to be careful what you choose to say. Relate this feeling to the movie 300, in which King Leonidas and his best fight millions of the Persian army. It's actually not the best thing to say to your teammates in those circumstances, if you think about it.

But the idea of relating that memory to Leonidas' last stand significantly improves your ability to recall it years later. Who doesn't want to tell their friends about the time they all got massacared by paintball pellets and grenades after their buddy gave them an inspirational speech about 300? Definitely a fun time it will become, especially if alcohol is involved. Good luck to them remembering what happened that night (which would include what they remembered from the past). Two birds with one stone.

Have to remember who Albert Einstein was? Just think of him to science the way Obi Wan Kenobi was to the Jedi arts. Both were ingenius pioneers to the art, are still practically the iconic characters to science and the Jedi arts, respectively. If the analogy doesn't work, then see how similar they looked in old age. The more cross connections you form, the better chance you can remember the answer to the initital question, "Who was Albert Einstein?" years from right now. A simple cue can stick with you for a lifetime for some things.

Still remember poetry and speeches in your childhood that you tediously studied for? In some elementary schools, the teachers will not allow the kids to play during recess if they don't memorize stanzas of a particular poem and recite them as a class test.

It could be a dance, a special talent, ordinary things like trivia, and the list goes on. Memory is most remembered when we are in a state of high stress and what we were working for meant a lot. Events in childhood and up to adulthood are the most remembered parts of a person's life. If we use elaborative rehearsal or work emotionally hard to remember something in the far past, it is extremely likely we remember that thing perhaps decades later. You might be aware of this already but never quite put it to words. This is a phenomenon of episodic memory, which is put simply, our autobiographical memory. We do write our own stories, but our mind replaces the paper. Autobiographical refers to events we've had in life; times, places, and emotions of things we've experienced in life. This includes knowledge of particular concepts.

Rote rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal work best when used together, augmenting each others' weaknesses. While elaborative rehearsal is perfect for remembering things in the long run, rote rehearsal has it beat in remembering things in emergency, when the information has to be recalled soon. The less time you have of ever forming a connection to the information, the better off you are using rote rehearsal - unless you have become adept enough to use both. To achieve the next level in perfecting memory, you have to master the concepts of both. After all, one couldn't exist without the other.

The objective to both styles of remembering things is taking something you know well, which could be a hobby or on a topic, and applying it to whatever you're trying to remember. If you had to figure out a way to learn several types of white blood cells, here is another example of how mnemonic devices come into play, something medical students could really use.

The White Blood Cell Army

Neutrophils - The Marines, first responders, present in large numbers (54-62%)

Eosinophils - The Special Operations Forces. They are very few in number but specialize in killing parasites (1-6%).

Basophils - The Medics. They trigger inflammation by secreting histamine, which causes the body to fight an infection. They stain blue, a clear distinction from the commonly pink stained white blood cells of other types. Blue also signifies health, which is the opposite of Red (12-15%).

Lymphocytes - The Army. The versatile, numerous, and reliable. They branch into Natural Killers, B-Bombers, and Tie-Fighters. In appearance there is a deep staining in the shape of a large circle. It looks much like the red dot crosshair of a sniper rifle. Lymphocytes are built to search and destroy. They are the second line of defense (25-33%).

Monocytes - The Siege Tanks. They clear large debris of pathogens and are bi-lobed - heart-shaped as cells. Kind of like getting mono when you kiss someone you love (14-17%)

If you are a big fan of military history, you can relate a lot of those things to the way our body's immune system works. Using that knowledge, you can look at a picture of a monocyte and say to yourself what it looks like, what it can cause, and its function as an extension of its role as a military unit. Siege tanks do clear debris and pathogens (bacteria and other harmful micro-organisms).

And always keep a plan B on hold. If you forget the military unit analogy, then remember that a monocyte looks like a heart. And what do you get when you kiss someone infected with 'mono'?

That's how others can ace their anatomy tests and even more if they keep practicing this skill. Combine sight, emotion, analogy, and medical knowledge and you have a mnemonic device you can perfect for the rest of your life. The theory states that the human mind's working memory model has unlimited capacity. What goes into our heads is infinite but what we can remember from it is where the battle begins. Everything in the environment; all sound, sight, smell, feeling, and experience is information that the brain acquires. However, we can only remember so much of it. If we don't pay attention to certain cues, we cannot recall them.

Improving memory isn't something one can do overnight. It takes consistent practice and integration into one's thought pattern. But once the concept is learned it is easy to master; rehearsal and comparision techniques can become instinctual and second nature. You won't even realize how much more comprehensive your memory has gotten. In the business world, such a skill can make or break crucial partnerships. If you can't remember the name of a person you met just a minute ago, how does that look on your character? Don't get caught in such a situation. Pay attention to the world around you, start practicing.

The chances of you remembering reading this article is already significantly higher since said article is about memory itself. Take that as a cue to figuring out how your brain unconsciously helps you remember important things. It's not that we don't use 90% of our brain. It is that most of the iceberg is hidden and only the superficial surface can be seen from the outside.The same way, the brain works to perform other vital functions while we think. See? Forming analogies to remember things is easier than you think. As a writing skill, it can help strengthen abstract concepts for argumentative articles.

High school students, give psychology a chance and take a look at advanced topics. An irony in high school was that psychology class had a test for the chapter memory. So you had to study for an exam where all the material tells you how to remember how to remember things better. Smart students would take advantage of that chapter and really learn something in the process. Irony is also a mnemonic device.

A final last resort method of remembering something should be mentioned. It's not effective when you really need it but it sometimes works wonders. One mnemonic device I've made for myself is hitting yourself on the head. It ensures that when you come across the word again in the future, you either get nothing but a funny look from your buddy, or you get one of the best reminders for an emergency you least expect. It truly is one of the best.

The techniques one can use to remember are limitless. One can even create their own personal way of remembering things. What you've read are only the most known. You have the power to create your own way of remembering crucial information. The brain is the paper and you are the writer. The capacity for the brain's long term memory is literally infinite. For example, the cumulative amount of data stored in the brain over a 70 year lifetime is therefore only in the order of 125 MByte. The long term memory capacity of a human is infinite. If one mildly trains his or her mind to simple cues over a period of years, imagine how good a person can get with memory.

Don't you want to be the guy who can name the title of any movie a particular actor has been? Are you already skilled enough to instantly know a celebrity or important person's name as soon as you see his face? If so, then you're already on the right track. Keep practicing.

So make use cognitive control and make a difference in the lives of everyone you meet.

References:

Landauer,Thomas K. (1986). "How much do people remember? Some estimates of the quantity of learned information in long-term memory". Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal 10 (4): 477-493. doi:10.1207/s15516709cog1004_4

A Dictionary of Psychology 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001.

Tulving, E. (1984). Precis of Elements of Episodic Memory. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 7, 223 - 268.