Improving Your Memory (10 page)

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Part IV Techniques for Improving Your Memory

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Exploring Memory Improvement Strategies

So far we have learned about how memory works and about how memory changes as we age. We hope you have identified any factors in your life that may be affecting your memory. Now we are ready to explore strategies and techniques that can make a difference in your ability to remember.

There are several strategies for remembering different kinds of information. Once you have decided that you want to improve your memory in a particular area, you can select strategies for change. In this chapter we introduce seventeen techniques for improving your memory. In the chapters that follow we describe these techniques and how to use them.

Some techniques improve the way you encode information, so you can retrieve it more easily. They include

• Association

• Visualization

• Active observation

• Elaboration

• Repetition

Some techniques involve cues in your environment, such as notes, lists, signs, or buzzers:

• Written reminders

• Auditory reminders

• Environmental change

One technique is extremely useful for remembering whether you did what you meant to do:

• Self-instruction

Five techniques help when you have several items to remember:

• Story method

• Chunking

• First-letter cues

• Create a word

• Categorization

Some techniques are helpful in retrieving information that you know well but can’t quite bring to mind:

• Cue yourself

• Alphabet search

• Review in advance

Some of these techniques will be familiar; others will seem strange. It is difficult to know which ones will be useful for you without trying them several times. Look for chances to experiment.

It can be fun and rewarding to figure out a way to remember and then to succeed. In some cases, however, you may decide that the effort needed is not worth the benefit gained. Recognize that the choice is yours to make.

Here’s the best way to use these memory improvement techniques:

1. Choose something specific that you want to remember.

2. Review the possible techniques and select one.

3. Try the technique. (If it works, congratulations!)

4. If your chosen technique does not work, try something else.

5. Don’t feel defeated if some things are particularly hard to remember. Ask yourself whether it really matters.

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Improving Your Ability to Encode

Dates are hard to remember because they consist of figures; figures are monotonously unstriking in appearance, and they don’t take hold, they form no pictures, and so they give the eye no chance to help. Pictures are the thing. Pictures can make dates stick.

—Mark Twain

The five techniques described in this chapter can be used to encode almost any kind of new information. It takes thought and practice to incorporate these techniques into everyday life but they work so well they are likely to become a habit. The examples in this chapter illustrate strategies for encoding information, and the exercises let you practice these strategies.

Association: Associate What You Want to Remember with What You Already Know.

“Association” is the process of forming mental connections between what we want to remember and what we already know. Although we form many associations automatically, we also can consciously create a connection between new information and information that we know well. By doing this, we
are deliberately encoding new information. Once you make an association, you will remember it better if you repeat it several times, either in your head or out loud.

This technique can be used to remember such things as

• The name of your new neighbor

• The street where your friend lives

• The title of a movie you want to recommend

• Whether to turn right or left to get to the restaurant

• The number of the bus to catch for your friend’s house

EXAMPLES

Beth: My new neighbor’s name was Marsha. For some reason I had a hard time remembering her name, and I decided to use association to try to remember it. After looking carefully at Marsha, I noticed she had white, fluffy hair. I decided that I could remember her name by associating “Marsha” with “marshmallow.” Each time I saw her, I associated her hair with a big marshmallow and said to myself, “Marshmallow means Marsha.”

Miles: I could never remember whether my gas tank is on the right or left side of the car. Each time I went to fill up, I had to think about which way to approach the gas pumps, and I felt aggravated. I decided to consciously find an association that would register the information once and for all. I first noted that my gas cap is on the right side. What could I associate with “right”? This was easier than I thought—I have a red car! I associated the “r” in red with the “r” in right. Now when I go to the gas station, I say, “In this red car, the gas cap is on the right.” Problem solved!

(You may be saying to yourself, “Sure—he happens to have a red car with the gas tank on the right. What about my car that is black with the gas tank on the right?” In this case, you may need to go beyond the obvious. You may notice that both “black” and “right” have five letters. Again, problem solved! However, if you can’t find an association between your car and its gas tank, you need a different strategy. How about repeating “right is right” or “left is logical”? That should do the trick.)

EXERCISE: ASSOCIATION

Create an association between the following new information and something you already know.

1. You must remember to take the entrance marked “west” on the expressway to get to the doctor’s office.

2. You want to remember the year you retired, which is 2008.

3. You want to remember Rose Campbell’s name.

4. You want to remember the name “Turner Medical Clinic.”

Visualization: Visualize a Picture of What You Want to Remember.

It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Visualization takes advantage of this concept by consciously creating an image in your mind of what you want to remember: a task, a number, a name, a word, or a thought. If you take the time to create a meaningful picture and then hold that picture in your mind for a few moments, you are more likely to remember.

This technique can be used to remember such things as

• Items you need to buy at the grocery store

• The route from the airport terminal to where you parked your car

• The laundry basket you want to bring up from the basement

• The name of a new breakfast cereal you want to try

• An icon on your computer

EXAMPLES

Sue: I love to tell my friends about my favorite restaurant. It’s so expensive that I can only go there once a year, so I don’t see the name very often. It’s called Justine’s, which is a name I have trouble remembering. However, I do know that they have a young chef, so I imagine a very youthful face with a big chef’s hat on, and think, “Why, he’s ‘just a teen.’ ”

Henry: I get frustrated when I put on my coat, walk to the back of my yard to retrieve something from the garage, and then forget what I went out to get. I’ve learned from experience that, if I take the time to picture what I’m getting up for, I can usually remember. Yesterday I wanted the flashlight from my car. I remembered it as blue, and I envisioned myself using it to look in the attic. When I got to the car, I had no trouble remembering that I wanted my blue flashlight.

Tim: I took a memory improvement course through my local adult education department. The instructor taught us the technique of visualization and I decided to practice this technique to remember three errands. I had to go to the hardware store to buy a rake, to the jeweler to have my watch fixed, and to the library for a gardening book. So I visualized myself driving down the parkway past the swimming pool to the mall where the jeweler and the hardware store are located. I then pictured myself buying a new rake and handing my watch to the jeweler. Next I imagined myself leaving the mall and driving through the busy downtown area to the library. Finally I visualized myself checking out a colorful book on gardening. It took much less time to visualize all this than I thought, under a minute. I was pleasantly surprised that this technique was so easy and useful.

(You may think, “That’s too much work. I’ll just make a list of my errands on a piece of paper or make a note in my phone.” But we encourage you to give visualization a try, because it can be so useful. For example, you may think of a new errand while you are driving and not able to add an errand to your written or electronic list when it occurs to you.)

EXERCISE: VISUALIZATION