Comments on: How To Remember Things

By: Med Student

Med Student — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:57:30 +0000

Your tips are very useful! I'm a second year med student studying for Boards step 1, and the amount of information we are expected to know is daunting. I don't even know if my mind can hold all that information at one time!

Med Student: It is daunting. But you can do it! Alex

By: mike

mike — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:37:51 +0000

What Anne describes is similar to what I experience. My visual memory seems very poor. I have a very difficult time imaging things with my “minds eye.” If I close my eyes and try to imagine the inside of my house for example, I can tell you what pieces of furniture are where, but I can’t “see” them. I have no concrete picture in my mind…more like a fuzzy representation. I can tell you some of the features of my child’s face or my wife’s, but I can’t seem to see them clearly in my imagination. If I look at something and close my eyes, I can’t really picture it too well (detailed that is). Most of my childhood memories are in third person, which leads me to believe that I am actually using my imagination to create an image of what was going on rather than seeing the event itself.

I have 2 small children and feel like I’m being robbed every day since if you asked me what we did yesterday, I can provide a rough narrative, but can’t really see it or in any way re-live the experience.

By: Anne

Anne — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:52:19 +0000

Do you know anything about poor memories? I sense that I have only foggy memory of my childhood. Without photos I wouldn't remember the houses where I lived growing up. My later memories are sketchy, not specific. For example, I couldn't offer close memories of holidays or birthdays or vacations. I am in my mid-60s and healthy. The one shadow is alcoholism, from which I am in long-term recovery. I worry that teenage drinking may have affected my ability to remember. Do you know people who have this blurry sense in their lives? It is disturbing, although it prompts one to live very much in the moment.

Anne: I've seen nothing in the medical literature that talks about what you're describing. However, anecdotally, I do know of recovered alcoholics whose memories from different periods of their lives remain fuzzy or even non-existent, especially during periods in which they were drinking heavily, so I don't think you're alone. Alex

By: Serra

Serra — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:17:34 +0000

I studied for Air Traffic Control in Canada and as part of our training we had to memorize the Manual of Operations. We had these really awful tests where we literally had to write out, word for word, huge paragraphs from the manual including knowing the article numbers. Because they are basically like laws, legal stuff, we had to know them word for word. Even one word, or one missing comma could change the meaning.

I have never been very good with my memory and so while some students simply read the manual a couple times and remembered, I spent many many hours every single day re-writing the articles until I could do it without looking at the book. I had an average of about 96% in the course (there were a couple students at 99%) so the method does work.

However after I was out of the course and not using it anymore the memory was gone. And I have had this problem before…constantly in University I would get to the next course in a progression of topics and although I got a B+ in the previous course all that information was gone and I would struggle with then having to learn twice as much in the 2nd course. Even when I am really really interested (like with a hobby) I often can remember WHERE the information is, even sometimes seeing the page of the book visually, but I can not actually remember the information itself.

My brain likes to figure things out and sometimes I wonder if it forgets on purpose so that it can figure it out again. That is all fine for doing mechanical type things where I will do something that will trigger a memory of what I did before (let’s say I’m fixing a sink) but it REALLY does not work when it comes to remembering facts or having a discussion with someone about something. I just don’t know how to fix this, it’s really starting to bother me.

If you know of any links or have any ideas I would really appreciate hearing them
Thanks!

Serra: Sometimes connecting information to other senses (particularly sound and smell) helps to reinforce long-term recall. This is why, for example, when people hear certain songs on the radio they haven’t heard for a long time memories associated with it often pop into their minds that they haven’t thought about literally for years. You might find it helpful to creatively connect the information you need to retain to sounds or music. Certainly, even information contained in long term memory will decay without reinforcement, so periodically rewriting the information you need to remember should help as well. I hope this helps!

Alex

By: Judy

Judy — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:12:59 +0000

Thank you, Alex. Thanks all, especially Keith Beatty. I’d like to add to the emphasis on studying mindfully and paying attention. People who are hard of hearing often hear less than they are able to because they forget to listen. I am one of these people, and I find I must really concentrate when I listen, but that when I do, conversations are much clearer. Likewise, when my mother was ill with Alzheimer’s, we found that helping her to narrow her focus, along with drinking enough water, helped her most of all.

When we have difficulty concentrating, we tend to stop concentrating, and it becomes a habit. “Gathering our wits” won’t compensate for injury or disease, but making it a habit can really help.