Imagine finding the solutions to your problems (business or personal) while you are driving or relaxing at home. How would it feel if you were the one people came to when they needed a sharp mind to help them? Applying what you learn from this site is a good start, but will you remember to? Guess what? I'll remind you. Your first name and e-mail address - that's all it takes.
Each time you receive your Brain Power Newsletter, you'll get quick tips to help you rev up your brain - information you can put to use immediately. You'll hear about the latest discoveries before others do. How about a supplement you can buy at your local health food store, which has been shown in scientific trials to improve memory and increase rate of learning? That will be covered in an upcoming issue. What type of music helps brain function? You'll learn that too.
Memory exercises increase brain power because in your conscious mind you can only work with what you can remember. Intelligence without memory is like a builder without tools. What could he build?
The simplest memory exercise is to start telling yourself to remember. If you just learned a person's name, for example, tell yourself, "remember that". This signals the unconscious mind to rank this input higher in importance.
Other good memory exercises involve telling yourself why you want to remember something, and how you will remember it. If you just learned a person's name, think about how that person will be important to you in the future, where you are likely to see them next, and anything you notice about them. Clearly seeing the importance of remembering will motivate the brain to retain the name, and the additional associations in the brain (where you expect to see the person next, for example) fix the name even more firmly in your memory.
Mnemonic Techniques
Memory exercises and techniques involving "peg words" and other mnemonic devices work well if you master them. They really do! Scores of books have been written on the subject. But do you want to study and master a mnemonic technique? Honestly, most of us don't want to take the time and effort to do so. The good news is that not all memory techniques are that complicated or time-consuming.
One memory technique you can learn and use right now starts with a walk around the house. Pick ten locations or permanent objects in your home or office. Memorize these in some logical order (this is the hardest part). Now when you want to remember a list of things, associate each item on the list with with one of your ten locations or objects. Do this with mental imagery and even sounds, always in a ridiculous way. When you need to consult your list, you'll simply walk around your home in your mind, and you will "see" the items on the list.
Make the images very vivid and this technique rarely fails. It was used two thousand years ago by Roman orators who would "place" parts of their speech in locations along a garden path, then mentally walk the garden "picking up" the topics as they gave the speech. I use this one a lot, when I can remember to, and it always works.
