How to study tips - Tips to help students and parents - Part 8
How to improve your memory!
The older we get the harder it gets to remember things. If we often do activities that would help our brains to stay strong and if we practice NOT to forget things, or if we find ways to remember things more easily, our brains stay active and this can be to your advantage later in life. The more you practice the easier something becomes. We can literally train our brains to remember better.
Here are some techniques used for various ages to improve their memory:
Nobody can really tell how precisely our memory works, but experiments have suggested that there are three different stages of memory.
Only a few items at a time can be kept in your short term memory. It can only remain for approximately 30 seconds before being lost. It can however be refreshed and reinforced through attention and repetition. For example, when you need to remember a phone number it will only stay in your memory long enough to dial the number. It is very unlikely that you will remember the number for a long period of time except though repetition.
If material is more interesting or we connect to it emotionally then our brains retain that as a long term memory where it can be stored in unlimited amounts for long periods of time. A good example of a long term memory is how to tie your shoelaces or how to ride a bike.
It is now obvious that we remember things easier if we connect ourselves to it, and we need to make the work as interesting as possible to remember it.
Short-term memory (STM) is the human equivalent of RAM (random access memory) in a computer in that it is easy to manipulate and process, but also easy to erase and quick to fade.
You can do a little test to see just exactly how good your memory is:
Do this test a few times. Make up your own list with different pictures and do the same little test. Remember the more you practice the easier you will remember.
How to make that gif?