Seven Simple Steps to Improving and Building Your Memory

Memory has been said to be the diary of life we all carry with us. Memory is important to every human and even all living organism. Practically, all of our actions and reactions depend on our memory. Memory allows us to retrieve events and situations from the past and from moments ago. Memory has been defined as processes by which people and other organisms encode, store, and retrieve information (“Memory (psychology)”, 2008). Simply put, memory is the act of storing and recalling information which you have learned or experienced. Most of us use only five percent to ten percent of our memory capabilities. How can we increase this? Some of the simple steps are outlined below:

• Conviction and Determination
• Create a relaxed environment
• Pay attention and concentrate
• Associate information with what you already know
• Use memory techniques
• Develop healthy habits
• Practice, practise, practise

The first step is to convince yourself that you do have a good memory and that this would improve. Most people have a misconception that they have a bad memory. There is no such thing as a bad memory. There are can only be trained or untrained memories. Remove the thought that you have a bad memory and decide to improve it. You need to commit yourself to the task and revel in your achievements. As you go on, you test yourself. It would motivate you when you are happy with your success.

The next step is to monitor your learning environment. The place where you want to study should be free and not cluttered with books and the likes. The memory works in an organised way, so your environment also should be organised. The brain cannot do much productive work under stress. Any learning process done under such condition would amount to nothing. It is important to relax the brain so as to accommodate enough facts as possible during the learning process.

Also, concentration is vital to the learning process. You cannot remember something you never learned in the first place. This means if you never encode it into your memory, you would never be able to recall it. It takes about eight seconds of intent focus to process a piece of information through your hippocampus and into the appropriate memory centre (“Improving Your Memory”, 2009). Do one thing at a time. No multitasking. This is why a quiet and relaxed atmosphere is needed for constructive learning.