Every man desires to have a sharp incisive and outstanding memory. Indeed enhancing faculty of memory is essential prerequisite for personality development and success in life.
To better your memory, you must take cognizance of the following head:
Collating
This connotes exercise of putting two things/facts together for purpose of appraisal and memorising. This way, mind is impacted sanguinely and synergistically, creating lasting cerebral impressions. Also, in the process of recalling one, the other fact automatically comes to surface.
For example, the mere mention of Aligarh brings images of padlocks and pair of scissors—the famed signature items of this city. And when you think of Agra, the heritage monument Taj Mahal automatically floats before your eyes.
Sympathetic Collation
This includes such recalls as go hand in hand with item in question. For example, remembering rice automatically triggers image of pulses which are routinely consumed with rice meal. Mention of Ganga brings forth similar rhyming Yamuna. Similarly Ram and Rahim seem to go together.
Parasympathetic Collation
Like similar sounding-rhyming-meaning items in previous example, even the opposites may come alive with a word or thought. For example, ‘happiness’ comes tagged with ‘sorrow’, day and night seem hand-in-glove. Sheep and goats flash together on mind’s screen even if one of them in called or recalled.
Collateral Collation
This refers to a range of addendums flashing in thoughts when a principal item is remembered. For example, when we say bathroom, it is more than a particular room which comes to our cognizance viz. we inadvertently see accessory items like tub, bucket, mug, soap etc. placed therein.
Faith in power of memory
You must have impeccable faith on your mind’s retention power. Should you harbour even slightest of doubt about remembering a particular item or event, it shows you don’t believe adequately in your memory power. So you must work on your self-confidence and say to yourself : “My mind is superior to best of electronic computers the worldwide over,” To improve your memory you should go on convincing yourself that you can remember with ease and that your grasping power is excellent. Intoning such testaments will repose your faith on your mental abilities.
Art of Meditation
Pooling mind’s concentration unflinchingly on a subject at a time is what meditations is all about. When you see or hear something, concentrate only on that, and nothing else. Even erratic thoughts, at that point of time, shouldn’t be entertained. For example, when you watch TV, reading and writing should be put on hold. Otherwise you would do no justice either to reading, writing or to the small screen. Hence in order to concentrate your mind, take up one thing at a time.
Aptitude
A good memory owes much to a person’s likes and dislikes. If you have a deep interest in a particular subject, you will easily understand it. You tend to repeat what you are fond of, and that gives you enough of mental exercise, Good memory goes hand in hand with a favourite subject. You like a job—you do it again and again—exercising your mind. Hence invoking passion for work is essential to enhance your memory.
Acuity of senses
Take help of your sense perceptions to pep your memory. To whatsoever you intend remembering add a helping of your creative imagination. Try to see it, hear it and if possible—taste it. This experience will put your senses into the memory kitty. Doubtless, this would create an unforgettable impression on mind.
So, whenever you desire to memorise for good, try mobilising your senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching into the act. Even speed and mobility of body may be taken into account. These sense perceptions will take inputs of learning into deeper recesses of mind matrix where memory would be firm and tapable.
Inflate presentation
It is observed that if you exaggerate and enlarge (with creative imagination) a subject matter, it is not only understood easily but also stays in memory for pretty long. For example, if we carcicature a pot bellied person as Sumo wrestler, we remember him as a grappler with a big shaking belly. All such morphed presentations need to be visualised in details to make a better impact.
Reasoning
Logic and coherence are integral to good memory. Understanding is also called intellect. And, for good reasons, infants and children are called novice for want of intellect. When you understand something very thoroughly before putting it to memory, it is easily retained in mind. Hence, a keen awareness of diverse fields of knowledge is imperative to hone your memory skills.
Picture Perfection
Try picturising lucidly the subject matter of what you intend consigning to memory. Even thoughts and dates can be muted to mental images of discrete formations. Mind works better when assisted with imageries. That explains why verbal discourses have a better impact when accompanied with pictorial illustrations. Words accompanied by diagrams stick to memory in a better way.
Paradox prevails
It is in the nature of mind to be fascinated by the weird and the wayward.
So why not tap on this speciality of human brain? Suppose your teacher happens to teach you while standing on chair; would you be able to forget this incident? What is off track and abnormal, tends to stay longer in memory.
And here is the key. If you have difficulty memorising something, try adding spice to it making it hilarious. As something funny and tantalising it will not only go down well into your memory but you will also enjoy the thrill of it. So add humour to a text and be sure it would stay in your memory permanently.
Musings
It is common knowledge that remembering things in abstract is tough job. To make it easy, it is necessary to picturise your thoughts. These mental images will help you remember your thoughts that are otherwise formless. All said and done, your hazy thoughts won’t stay in your memory unless they are assigned a concrete shape. A shape that can be seen, heard, and caricatured. Trying to memories a concept or idea without forethought (pretext) is as untenable as trying to deposit foreign currency in your indigenous bank account. Because precondition for converting foreign currency into Indian denomination is in this that first of all you will have to deposit an equivalent of former into your bank account. Then, and then only will the foreign currency get mutated to Indian money—and be available to you. Ditto for memory. What you must store in memory, you ought to convert into a cogent shape that can be seen or heard, and made into something that impacts mind and stays there.
