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College is a serious investment in your future. You can spend 3, 4, 5 hours or more studying every single day! What if there was a better way?

Well guess what? You already have the potential to memorize tremendous amounts of material in one sitting! Memory is a skill, and it needs to be developed. Just as how you can’t get in physical shape by reading a book, you can’t get in mental shape by reading books about memory improvement. The only way to get into shape is to work out, and the only way to improve your memory is through practical training!

If you really want to improve your memory, the first step is to understand how your brain works. The brain uses several different processes to handle information. The thinking, memorization, and remembering processes.

 

Thinking Process:

The thinking process mainly consists of visual images. We think with images. This is such a natural process that you might not even realize that it happens, but understanding requires you to ‘translate’ information into visual images. The following sentences demonstrate this fact easily:

• The book is on the table. An image of a book on a table came into your mind as you read that. In other words, the sentence was represented by visual images. This is how you understand this sentence. Compare this to our second sentence:

• The qwimjal is on the parchik. You don’t get any images from this sentence. With no visual representation, you don’t understand it.

 

Memorization Process:

The memorization process is directly connected with the thinking process. If you can represent information with visual images, you can easily and efficiently memorize it. You can more easily memorize ‘The table has a book on it’ than ‘The parchik has a qwimjal on it’.

Now let’s examine exactly how your brain memorizes information. When you read the sentence ‘The book is on the table’, the information is ‘translated’ into visual images in your mind, and a connection between those images was formed. Connections are created when two images are viewed together simultaneously in your mind.

 

Remembering Process:

All information is connected. When one information element in a connection is stimulated, the connected element is activated, and you remember.

Let’s return to our examples. If tomorrow I asked you the question ‘What is on the table?’, the connected information element is stimulated, and you would remember ‘book’. If, however, I asked you ‘What is on the parchik?’, there would have been no understanding, no image-representation, and no information connection. With no connection, no recall is possible.

 

This is a simplified explanation of memory and how your brain works. For free memory-improvement tips, tricks, and techniques, along with more in-depth articles, visit these additional resources:

Zachary Memory

Secrets Of Phenomenal Memory E-Book

Squidoo Resource For Study Skills