If you are one of those students, who forgets things within minutes after you have heard them…Then read on to see how these simple tricks can be used to improve your memory.

 

Employ your senses – Our brain has different areas to store different sense impressions. Using all our senses can actually build multiple memory pathways to information retained in the brain. Thus, to remember the information about physical items or non-written material, you need to exploit your visual abilities and focus on its color, shape, texture, and even the material it is made of.

 

In the case of reading material, reading aloud will establish more memory ‘pathways’ in your brain. If you need to remember a lab procedure, then doing it again and again while adding a strong emotion will aid you to recall it later.

 

Drawing images - even if you are not a great artist. Simply sketching an image on the paper will invoke your creative and visual memory thus providing one more pathway for recall in the future.

 

Another effective way of remembering things, especially events, is to imagine them happening. For instance, if you were to remember a battle scene, you could imagine the location, the soldiers, the clothes they wore, the kind of weapons they used and so on to develop a photographic memory about the event. Detail in the thing visualized is the key.

 

Rhyme and Music – This technique, which is used in poems, draws on your auditory memory and helps you to remember key facts easily. Have you ever wondered how easily we remember the tune and the lyrics of a new song we just heard some time back on the radio? Well, that’s because it’s far easier to remember things when they are recited them in a pattern and music is an effective aid in itself. (You can hardly remember the same lyrics the moment you switch off the radio).

 

Rhymes and lyrics are nothing but mnemonic techniques that make studying so much fun. You have already used this technique in school when you learnt “I before E, except after C” to remember the grammar rule or “My Very Expensive Mercedes Just Smashed Up Near Paris” in astronomy to remember the planets. To remember the number of days in each month, we have often been taught, “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November; all the rest have 31 (except February)” based on the mnemonic technique of learning. Those who are really musical can go ahead and create a song for practically everything that they want to retain in your long-term memory.

 

With these easy to follow tips, you are sure to build a lasting memory.