Increasing Short Term Memory:

There are six main themes that I use in my tutoring centres to help my students (usually children but they work for adults as well) increase their short-term memory.

1. Hydration
2. Visual Aides for memory
3. Emotional buy-in
4. Kinaesthetic learning
5. Brain Gym Kinesiology
6. Neural pathway – building

Hydration:

The human body is mostly water, and most of us don’t drink enough to replace what we use through normal bodily functions. The human brain alone requires 2 litres of water per day to work at its optimum. So, removing dehydrators such as coffee, tea, chocolate, some juices etc and replacing them with water automatically helps improve all brain functions.

Visual Aides for Memory:

Many people want to go from little or no memory function to super memories in a flash with no effort. Now whilst this is possible it requires a major shift in your self-talk and self-belief, so I recommend a slightly slower route. It may seem strange when you read it but stick with me.

First, make a visual list of some simple, but necessary items that you would like to remember on a consistent basis. This could be as simple as what you need to take to work with you each morning (but consistently forget). Take photos of you performing these actions (no more than 6). Print these photos out. Next, attach them to a poster board (see Appendix 1), write a simple description beside each and create spaces where you can mark when you’ve done them. Laminate or cover with clear contact and place in prominent place (eg Kitchen wall near fridge or sink).

Each day, go to the poster board, see what you need to do first, complete the task then return to tick off that days (eg Monday) space and reaffirm next action step. Continue down the list until you’ve done them all. As the weeks go by, you will find yourself being able to remember these items more consistently. Now you can change your self-talk from: I can’t remember/I’m hopeless at remembering/I forget things easily etc to: I can remember this/isn’t it great that I now remember everything on that list/wow, I really find it easy to remember what I need to do of a morning etc

Now you have proof of your ability to remember and we can shift to focusing on remembering new items. Say you need to memorise some important facts and figures for work or uni. In a similar way, create a visual list of things that help you remember the facts, have a picture, the facts (or questions that relate to the facts – with the answer) and then spaces for ticking off when you have the answer. Every time you walk past the list (have it on your work or study desk) pick it up and recall the facts that go with each question/picture – when you get it right (with or without looking at the answer) tick off the space. The more ticks you have in a day/week, the more your confidence grows because you have the evidence in front of you of the times you’ve already remembered. Which leads me to the next point.

Emotional Buy-in:

When you are looking at your list of facts and figures (or whatever else you would like to remember) ask yourself – “what does this mean to me?”  We all need to have an emotion attached to our memories for us to remember it well. This is called Emotional Buy-in.

Say that you’ve just been to a fantastic movie, you got really caught up in the storyline emotionally, you laughed, you cried, you may even have felt fear. Chances are that you can remember details quite readily from that movie (you may not be able to articulate them but you can remember them in your mind). Why? Emotional buy-in. You felt emotions around the content.

The same applies to anything we want to remember. We need to know what the information means to us – do we feel happy, sad, angry, frustrated etc when we think of, or read that information. If we feel nothing, or can’t see the relevance to us and our life experience, we don’t store the information. So, when you are wanting to remember information – what does it mean to you? Can you see a relevance to your life? Will it make an impact or is it something someone else has told you that you need to do? If you don’t know what the emotion relevance is (how is this information going to improve your life, change it for the better or increase your happiness/financial security/relationships) you are missing the “tag” which makes it stick in your memory.

This also relates back to your self-talk. What do you say when you realise that you’ve forgotten some information? Do you say things like: you idiot – you can’t even remember that simple fact! /you’re hopeless/you’re useless/ man, my memory is pathetic etc? This is emotional buy-in to the idea that you can’t remember. You have loads of negative emotion stacked around this piece of information – and this is then true for you. When you change your self-talk to: You know what? I can remember this – just like I remember what happened last night/I am getting better at remembering – I’m sure I will be able to remember this too/hey, everybody forgets sometimes – I sure can remember more now than I could a month ago etc . We create a new set of emotional buy-in points – ones that are nice to us.

Kinaesthetic Learning:

Many people who have difficulty remembering are attempting to teach themselves facts to remember in a way that they haven’t got a chance of doing. Sitting, staring at a piece of paper or a computer screen 9 times out of 10 isn’t going to cut it. Even constantly repeating facts etc to themselves isn’t really going to work all that well. The main way I help my clients improve their memory function is through movement and tactile learning. I do this in a variety of ways – drawing in sand, shaving cream, whipped cream, moulding clay, squeezing a ball, knitting, doodling, twirling a pen around their fingers – whatever works for them. If you have the space and are willing to give it a go – get a small bouncy ball and play ‘handball’ against yourself against a wall. As you bounce the ball against the wall, spell a word you have difficulty with, repeat a phone number or mathematical problem (first write out the word, number etc on a piece of paper and stick it to the wall where you can see it as you bounce the ball), start off with one component of the word/number etc. For example if you wanted to spell the word ‘caught’ you would start with the letter ‘c’ then the letter ‘a’ then the letter ‘u’ etc until you have spelt the entire word – keep repeating the spelling sequence through 8-10 times, next you spell the entire word each time you bounce and catch the ball . Repeat the entire spelling 8-10 times. This method works extremely well with two people as well. This can be extended to one person asking a question and the other person answering on each bounce and catch of the ball.

I use a lot of Kinesiology Brain Gym work with my clients – I find that many of them didn’t develop the neural pathways as they were growing that enable memory, communication, balance/coordination etc. These simple exercises take approximately 5 mins before a training session with me. Below are some of the most common exercises I use.

Video link to Brain Gym exercises: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpSBTVFgK0Y

Brain Buttons: Below the knobs of your collar bone at the base of your throat are two indentations between the collar bone (clavical) and the first rib. Take one hand, use your thumb and the first two fingers to rub these points in a circular manner 3 times.

Cross Crawls: March on the spot raising your knees to parallel, using your opposite hand, strike your fist gently on the raised knee. Continue for 1 min.

Hook Ups: Standing, cross one ankle over the other (it doesn’t matter which ankle), now cross your arms with the same arm as ankle on top, clasp your hands. Next turn your arms up towards your chest, then hold for 1 min. It is easier to understand if you watch the video.

Thinking Caps: Using both hands, one on each ear, gently unroll the curled top of your ear and pull gently out and up, continue from skull to lobe 3 times.

This brain gym movement is designed specifically to activate the memory function. Use prior to study or any learning. The more you use it the more you will see the benefit.

Energy Yawns: Locate the joint where your jaw meets your skull, open your mouth wide in a large yawn and massage this point for up to 1 min.

Lazy 8’s: Take one hand and make a fist with your thumb pointing up. Stretch out your arm to full extension, now trace large sideways figures of 8’s  (∞) and follow your thumb with your eyes (without moving your head if possible), repeat 5-8 times with each hand.

Double Doodles: Take a piece of paper or a white board, get 2 pens (suitable for your work surface), hold one pen in each hand. Now draw a symmetrical picture, attempting to keep both sides of your drawing the same size.

Non-dominant hand drawing: Using your non-dominant hand draw words, pictures, symbols etc.

Neural Pathway – Building:

Free form dancing: find a place where you can be sure you won’t be interrupted, put on your favourite music, close your eyes and allow your body to move to the music any way it chooses, sign along if you want to. By allowing your body to move to the beat, and relax (no one is watching so no one is going to judge you) you encourage your brain and your body to connect. Memory is as much a function of the body is it is a function of the mind. Basically your body is the hard drive RAM for your brain/mind – it stores all of your memories in various locations throughout your body.

Football/Soccer: Even if you hate soccer/football and feel that you can’t kick a ball to save yourself, this exercise is really valuable for building memory function. Weird but true. Head out with a non-judgemental friend or family member and just kick a ball around for laughs. 10-20 minutes is all you need to do, several times a week. Remember – this isn’t meant to be serious and the idea is to relax and just pass a ball around, laugh, giggle and focus on consciously moving your body so that it connects your foot with the ball.

Appendix 1 (sample for a child)

Hope this helps,

Diana Vogel