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Don’t you find it embarrassing when you can’t remember the name of the waitress who served you last week?  Or the name of the your neighbor who came around to introduce himself to you just yesterday?   You are not alone.  In almost any society, when people are asked what is the biggest problem with their brains, most will say that memory is their greatest concern.

 

Interestingly enough, despite years of research, scientists do not know for sure how the process of recall occurs in the brain, but American psychologist Roger Sperry established in 1981 that two sides of the brain deal with different functions.  The right side focuses on pattern recognition, music emotion and creativity, while the left deals with order, sequence, logic and language.  The study of music helps the study of math, for example, and the study of rhythm helps the study of languages.  Now scientists know that the more people use both sides of their brain, the more each side benefits the other.  And scientists are aware that  a person who uses both sides of the brain can have an excellent memory. 

 

The way memory works is complicated and it’s still an emerging science.   So what goes on in your brain if you ran into a woman in the store and you can’t remember her name? Seeing the woman triggers your hippocampus, the brains command center for creating new memories.  It immediately begins to form impressions based on the woman’s characteristics, such as hair color, height, clothing and mannerisms.

 

To look for any of these same impressions, the hippocampus’s neurons-tiny nerve cells that act as transmitters-start connecting and activating other teams of neurons located in your cortex, where long-term memories are stored. 

 

This thinking process will access any stored pieces of information on the woman.  If her name can’t be located, other regions of your cortex, such as the prefrontal cortex, will be called upon.  They’ll then go back to your hippocampus and other cortical regions to “brainstorm” together, and hopefully come up with the woman’s name.  If they don’t, it’s time for you to work on your memory-boosting techniques. 

 

That’s what Dave Williams did.  The 45-year old mechanical engineer decided to improve his memory  with memory training as a way to counteract the effects of a car accident.  He was amazed at how much he was able to achieve.  After two years, he entered the U.S. Memory Championships.  He now teaches people on how to improve their memory.  Williams says one of the most important factors is first believing it’s possible.  “We tend to remember what we forget.  We don’t value all the amazing things we do remember.  It’s like we’re psychologically sabotaging ourselves.” 

 

Remembering names is a good example of how defeatist we can be.  How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m so bad with names”?  “Most people give up even trying to remember names because they figure they can’t”, explains Jane Clements, a life coach who also runs memory workshops.  She suggests the following tips;

 

Decide you actually want to remember a person’s name.
Get the name right.  If you need to, ask the person how he or she spells it.  Listen to it, look at the person’s face and say the name to yourself, creating a mental attachment.
Explore the person’s face and look closely for interesting features.  If the person has  a square face or wears spectacles with square frames, think about “Sponge Bob”
Imagine the person in another setting.  Picture them in a swimsuit at beach, on a swing in the park  or in a fast food restaurant uniform.
Rhyme the name if possible.  Rob the slob,  Liza loves Pizza, Scarry Larry, Georgie Porgie, Ester Fester.
If there’s a long last name, break it into syllable sounds since thinking about the whole name at once overwhelms your memory.  For example, Kancheski, picture a guy with a can glued to his chess on skis.
Make your association exotic or erotic, in your own mind of course, without actually saying it in front of the person.

 

So with a little bit of imagination, you can align the functions of both the left and the right brain.  It doesn’t really take much effort to improve your memory and enhance your learning skills.  All you need is good memory techniques to train your memory to be sharp.  Anyone can do it.

Tags: Easier, Good, Having, Memory, Than, Think

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.