•Can't remember your lessons, dates, proper names?
•Do you sometimes have blackouts? It is not inevitable!
There are simple techniques to improve your ability to memorize: we tell you everything ✓
1. Pay attention
It is often said that listening well in class represents 50% of memorization work: it's true! The more focused you are on the information you receive, the better you understand it, and the more likely you are to remember it.
It's worth the effort to save the chatter for the interclasses! Same thing when you study at home: isolate yourself and unplug everything that could interfere with your concentration (telephone, internet, television…).
2. Sort
Memory needs to be organized, structured, classified. Also to retain information, it is important to give them an order of importance (to appear on your review sheets).
Arranging them in a logical order will also help, like unrolling a ball of yarn.
So, try to visualize your course as a road with a succession of stages, or a house with its different rooms.
3. Play parrot
To learn something by heart, you don't just have to read it, you also have to repeat it in your head or out loud volume.
Do this several times right away, then half an hour later to make sure the information is recorded.
But be careful, don't try to learn everything by heart! Remember a lesson plan, a formula, dates… but not every word, which would be counterproductive.
You can also use recorder for quick revision.
4. Make Mnemonic
Memory uses different things to retain information, such as where or when you learned it, who you were with, how it felt, etc. Thus by associating an element during the encoding phase (see box), you increase your chances of rendering it. Some people are more sensitive to the visual, the auditory or the movement: you have to find the technique that suits you the most.
5. Escape the routine
There is nothing worse for memory than putting your brain on autopilot. In order not to soften up, try to regularly change your Study plans, your places of exit, your morning or evening “rituals”. Likewise, avoid passive activities.
If you watch TV, try to choose a show that will get you thinking or that you can engage in a discussion with your Friends or family. Or take the opportunity to remember one or more sentences.
6. Sleep
Memory also works at night! The different phases of sleep are indeed used by our brain to classify and consolidate knowledge, whether it was acquired during the day or whether it is more distant memories.
It is therefore essential to sleep well , and especially in sufficient quantity.
7. Play Sports
Playing sports helps oxygenate the brain and thus improves its cognitive functions. In addition, the fact of taking breaks in its revisions is capital, because it gives the possibility to the memory to classify the information and to record it well.
These are moments when your brain is working effortlessly for you: take advantage of it!
8. Stress Free
Being depressed or stressed can disrupt the learning process. In these moments, we are indeed less available and attentive to the information received. Then, stress promotes the production of cortisol, a hormone harmful to the recording of memories in long-term memory. And above all, we will be less tempted to remember information linked to a negative emotion ...
9. Take care of your Food
If there is no miracle food or magic pill that allows you to remember everything by heart, some foods stimulate memory. This is the case for fruits and vegetables which contain vitamins and antioxidants, but also fish, chocolate and all foods containing Omega 3 , which strengthen the walls of neurons.
Conversely, avoid foods that are too fatty as well as excess caffeine or alcohol which disturbs digestion and sleep.
10. Strengthen your memory
To optimize the capacities of your memory, you must train it regularly with small, simple exercises . Each day, try to remember a phone number or a list of objects.
Likewise at the end of the day, try to piece together what you did, who you met, what he or she was wearing, what you said to yourself, what you ate at lunchtime, etc. . A good exercise in brain gymnastics!