Have you ever heard something important – the name of a movie, a joke, or a song – only to forget it after a while? If so, you probably need to improve your memory!
No matter how hard you try to recall any of the above, it is in vain, you only remember half-sentences, distorted images, or in the worst case, you don't remember anything at all! Even great events in our lives sometimes "fade" very quickly.
In other words, if you want to be sure that something important to you will be etched in your memory forever, just waste a minute of your time!
There is a very simple way to train memory ! According to research by Chris Bird at the University of Sussex, all it takes is a few seconds of your time and a little imagination. Bird asked some students to go into an MRI scanner and watch short YouTube videos .The videos mainly contained jokes and pranks between friends. After the videos were over, they had forty seconds to recall what they had just seen and then describe it to each other. It turned out that describing an event surprisingly increases the chances of remembering it a week later or more. On average, they were able to remember twice as much information. Want to prove it to yourself? All you have to do is try it! Take a look at a video using this simple technique and you will be surprised by the results!
Bird also found that brain imaging reflects the strength of memory: the length of time their description lasted reflected the brain's response while watching the video, suggesting that students had built a particularly strong foundation for future memory recall.
This could, perhaps, be a sign of how much effort they put into remembering the video in detail during the brief description. It could also be that the students were allowed to associate the scenes in the video with memories they already had. One student associated a character in the clip with James Bond, for example – this automatically helped him remember it.
In other words, if you want to be sure that something important to you will be etched in your memory forever, just waste a minute of your time! Describe it to yourself, emphasizing the details, and you will be amazed by the results!
