Remember When
Remember When
By Shane Sauer
Today we’re going to discuss memory. To know how to train your memory, you need to understand its various parts:
Short Term Memory - Temporary storage that holds information for a few seconds.
Working Memory - System that includes Short Term Memory and allows you to work with the information.
Long-Term Memory - A collection of memory types for holding on to information.
While these systems are intimately related, they live in different parts of the brain. Working Memory is processed in the prefrontal cortex while Long Term Memory is in the temporal lobe.
With that technical stuff out of the way, there’s one more important thing to realize -- because both of these systems live in your brain, they are both subject to neuro-palsticity. And that means you can train your memory and see it improve or take it for granted and see it deteriorate.
If you want to train your memory, there are some really cool things you can do to improve your chances of success.
There are a lot of games out there that have been shown to improve Working Memory. I like Lumosity, but you can also play card games or board games. To supercharge your progress, add some movement before and/or after the games. Movement activates the frontal lobe (which is right next to the prefrontal cortex) giving a metabolic boost to your brain in the right area.
Improving Long Term Memory takes some training. Have you ever heard of a Memory Palace? In a nutshell, it means linking information you want to remember to something visual. For the same reason you are more likely to remember a face than a name, visualization can greatly enhance your memory. Want to supercharge this process, too? Before and after building your visualization, practice hearing or smell something. This will drive more temporal lobe activation.
As you enhance both your Working and Long Term Memories, you can also work on how you transfer information between them. Technology can streamline the learning process, saving you time and effort. Check out Anki if you're interested.
Don’t forget, ageing is real, but you can control the process. A lot of what you lose with age are skills that have been neglected. Now that you know the skills can be trained, take action on what matters most to you. And if you need help, just reach out and ask!