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Five Simple Techniques to Improve Your Memory
"All improvement in memory consists of one's habitual method of recording facts"
- Dr. William James, Father of American Psychology
Introduction
Most of us might have complained about our memory one time or other. But some of you have been frequently complaining about your poor memory. When we generally talk about poor memory we are really talking about poor recollection. Recollection is possible only if the content is retained in memory. This is possible only if we have recorded it into memory. That is, unless we have not assimilated, we cannot recall at all. That is why William James and many others including mnemonists give emphasis to how we record things into our memory.
Even if we record something correctly in our memory, we may not be able to recall it. This is due to many reasons, the main reasons being problems in retention and stress. The former can be solved by systematic revision and the latter by practicing some Stress Management Techniques or using Stress Management Tools like HIT (Holistic Integration Technique) of Dr.V.George Mathew or the Award winning Guided Somato-Psychic Relaxation (GSPR) Technique of Dr.Krishna Prasad Sreedhar The latter can be learned by using audio cassettes.
Now let us discuss five simple techniques to improve memory: Four of these techniques are used to improve assimilation and thus to have longer retention. The last one is a simple strategy for recollection.
Chunking
Perhaps Chunking is the oldest method used in memorization. In this method, the items to be memorized are divided into small and easily memorizable chunks or groups. This method works best when the order of the items is not important.
This method is found to be particularly well suited for memorizing multi-digit numbers (eg., ID nos., telephone nos., etc.) and for committing complicated spellings to memory.
Example:
- The number 472627607 may be memorized easily if it is grouped as 472, 627,607 or as 47, 26, 27,607.
These chunks may then be learned by rote. Learning and retention are much facilitated if you further explore the nos. by finding some relationship among these different chunks. Finding the digital root will also be helpful. The more explorations or relations you do, the better. - Words like mathematics may be divided into mat +he +mat +ics, Together may be divided into to + get + her; Important may be divided into im + port + ant. This technique will make us learn much faster.
- The list Apple, cucumber, paper, ink, cabbage, banana, grapes, beans, stapler, orange can be better learned by rearranging and applying chunking as :-
Apple, banana, grapes, orange, cucumber, cabbage, beans, paper, ink, stapler
-- 4 fruits, 3 vegitables and 3 stationary items.
If possible, organize the material as meaningfully as you can and think out relationships among each group. This not only improves learnability and retention but also aids in faster and effortless recollection.
Psychologists doing research on Human Memory have found that the capacity of Short Term Memory (STM) for humans is 7± 2 that is from the range 5 to 9 items. So you should take care to keep the chunks you create within this limit.
Rhyming
This is also one of the popular and oldest methods in memorization. This technique makes use of the fact that we have a natural tendency to remember rhymes and rhythms. The following is a very popular example of application of this technique which almost all school students are familiar with.
"Thirty days haveth September
April, June and November
All the rest have thirty-one
February has twenty-eight alone
Except in leap year, then the time
When Febs days are twenty-nine."
If possible create rhymes like this and it will not only aid in improving your memory but in improving your creativity as well.
Mediation/Bridging
In this method, a bridge is built in between the items given to be memorized. This technique is best suited for learning material involving word pairs or material that can be reduced to word pairs. An example often cited by memory experts is the learning of the capital of Poland. The capital of Poland is Warsaw. World War II started with Germany's attack on Poland. Thus it may be arranged as Poland SAW War first.
Here, the word pair to be connected together is Poland and Warsaw. The additional information of the World War II is used as a bridge or mediator in bringing these two words together.
Again, like other techniques, the mediation technique calls for the learner's active participation in the learning process. This is because one is to bring in the mediator or the bridge from relevant items one has learned.
Bed-time Recital
In this technique, you do your recital or rote learning just before going to bed. The mind in the process of sleeping would then arrange the information in a systematic and effective way when you are sleeping. Psychologists have also found that if you sleep after thinking about your problems there is a better chance that you arrive at a solution the next day.
Steps for Memory Improvement
- Be in a relaxed mood
- Write down the things that you are supposed to remember in a piece of paper.
- Read it aloud (if possible) once or twice and recite it two to three times.
- Now go to sleep without worrying or thinking about anything.
You will surely retain the item longer and find it more easy to recall it when in need.
Trying by Not Trying
All of us apply this method knowingly or unknowingly. Sometimes when you try to recall you may not be able to recall it at that time even if you are sure that you know it very well. You experience a blocking that prevents you from recalling it. Normally you tend to try again and again but in vain. To handle this situation you just keep away from trying to recollect it and do something else; to your pleasant surprise that information automatically pops up into your mind after some time. This is because even if you stopped trying, the mind is searching for that information and brings it to awareness when it is found. Sometimes the information was blocked when you wanted, and mind brings it forward when the blocking is removed. This is where stress plays its role in hindering recall.
If you are very anxious by nature or very stressful in nature, you may encounter this type of blockage very often. In such case, it is highly recommended that you practise some kind of relaxation technique and thus keep your anxiety and stress away. This is very important because this behavior can bring many undesirable psychological and physiological conditions. You may even consult a Clinical Psychologist in extreme cases.
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Personality and Personal Growth
The personality of an individual can be described in terms of how much Inertia (Thamas), Activation (Rajas) and Stability (Sathwa) he has. Inertia is uncontrolled inactivity and social withdrawal. Activation is compulsive over-activity both physical and social. Stability is freedom and flexibility.
A stable person can act or not act, be in the midst of people or be alone as he chooses or as the situation demands. The personality of an individual is the result of a large number of causative factors. Heredity is cumulative ancestral experience over past generations of the individual. Climate influences personality. Hot climate produces Inertia, Cold climate induces Activation and a moderate climate favors Stability. Food also influences temperament. Too much of cereals tends to increase Inertia, hot, spicy, non-vegetarian food produces Activation and raw food (fruits and vegetables) is conducive for Stability. Temperament is contagious. You tend to develop the characteristics of people with whom you associate. The way a child is reared at home influences his personality. The socio-political system also influences personality. Social
oppression and oppressive forms of government and the laissez-faire situation, lawlessness, etc. induce Inertia in people. People tend to have Activated temperament in highly competitive societies. Real democracy and the type of economic system which may be called benevolent market economy favors the development of Stability.
Self-realization is the result of pure Stability. Stability increases when the other
two components of personality, namely Inertia and Activation decrease. Pure Stability leads to Transcendence. A whole lot of confusion has arisen as a result of not differentiating between people with different types of personality while prescribing practices for self-realization. What practice is best for person depends on his personality. People with high Inertia have to take up a practice to decrease their Inertia, while people with a high degree of Activation have to attempt to decrease their Activation.
People with high Inertia have to practice morality. They must learn to be punctual,
meticulously keep their word, be honest and truthful, etc. People with high Inertia generally are group dependent and therefore they must gradually learn to develop autonomy by moving away from their social support group by travelling, being alone, etc. A person with high Inertia can develop Stability without necessarily developing Activation.
Individuals with high Activation should develop the habit of channellising their
energy into altruistic channels. They should practice social service. They should get rid of their dogmatism and narrow group identifications by serving groups of people other than their own, learn religious philosophies other than their own, etc.
Practice of awareness and mediation are effective depending on the degree of
Stability a person already has. Mediation will be very effective for a person with at least a moderate amount of Stability. A very high degree of Stability makes meditation superfluous. Only pratice of awareness is required.
Ultimately, Stability is freedom from fear. When fear leads to withdrawal
and inhibition, it is expressed as Inertia and when the same fear is manifested as compensatory aggression and self-aggrandizement, it becomes Activation. Pure Stability is absolute courage and freedom from conditionalities and dependencies.
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WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE
There are many books available in the market on this and related topics advising you how to win friends and influence people effectively. These books give you considerable insight and also offer many useful suggestions and hints. Above all, they make you think. But these books are written mostly by Western people for Westerners. Westerners tend to be more homogenous in temperament and what is found in these books is true mostly for Westerners. Indians are a more mixed type of people and therefore the principles in these books may not fully hold good for all people here.
Personality
According to an ancient Indian theory, the personality or temperament of a person can be understood as a sum of three components: Inertia (Thamas), Activation (Rajas) and Stability (Sathwa). Inertia is fear, inhibition and withdrawal. Activation is characterised by compensatory aggressiveness and competition. Stability is awareness, freedom, and flexibility. Food, climate and many other social and psychological factors influence a person's temperament. In societies where the majority of persons have a temperament characterised by high Inertia, the emphasis will be on sensuous pleasures and friendship gatherings will be centered on eating and merry making as well as defensive ceremonies to relieve fear. In Activated societies the emphasis will be on competition and rivalry and social interaction will be centered on competitions and sports as well as organised solution to practical problems. In Stable societies the main social activity will be centered around fine arts, as well as philosophical discussions.
Personality of the person you are trying to influence
Proper understanding of the temperament of the person you are influencing is very important in selecting the means. What is effective in the case of a high I (Inertia) person may have no effect or it may produce negative effect in the case of persons with a different temperament. Try to understand how much I, A and S the person has. If he has I predominantly he is likely to be influenced by sensous things. Give him lots of cooked food. He may appreciate force feeding also. If on the other hand, you want to influence a person who is highly activated, praise him, thank him profusely for small favours done and do any thing to inflate his ego. While the high I person values presents for their immediate utility, presents are appreciated by the high A person for the self-importance he feels when given a present. A high A person can be influenced by your offer to be on his side, fight along with him and for him, against his rivals. An individual having high S is influenced by genuine sincerity and friendship. As he is very sensitive, he may see through artificial attempts to influence him. All human beings appreciate food as well as enjoy eating in company. But the high S person may not appreciate force feeding of huge quantities of cooked food. He may appreciate fruits and he may value presents not for their utility but as token of your regards for him, unless of course he practices aparigraha (non-acceptance of gifts). A highly stable person is most likely to be influenced by your showing that you are sensitive to his feelings and preferences and act accordingly. An individual with pure high S (I and A being zero or near zero) is often known as a sage.
A story is told about Chattambi Swami, a sage who lived in Kerala at the beginning of the present century. The swami was once invited for lunch at a house. The people of the house, while serving food served a large quantity of a curry prepared from a vegetable which grew abundantly in that area. The swami did not like the curry. He thought he would finish off that curry first and them start enjoying the meal. So he ate the whole of that curry first. The person who was serving misunderstood this as the swami 's liking for the curry and served another helping of the same curry. According Indian tradition, a Bhikshu is not expected to refuse anything that is served. Therefore the swami went on eating the repeated helpings of that curry which he did not like, repeatedly put in his plate till the end of the meal. It is said that after that incident that vegetable ceased growing in that locality. It is supposed that the family elicited a curse instead of a blessing from the swami, because of their inability to understand him. Often a word of caution is made when people go to meet sages that they should be careful not to rub him the wrong way.
Your Personality
Your personality is a limiting factor in this situation. You will be able to easily understand the temperament of another person only if you have at least moderately high S because rating ability is correlated with S. A dog cannot help wagging its tail when it sees a person it likes or licking him . Similarly if you are high I, you are likely to show your friendliness by overfeeding a person with food you like, when you meet a person you like, regardless of his preferences. Similarly if you are high A, you try to influence everybody by offering dogamtaic commitment to his dogma or and identification with his group regardless of whether that person has any such dogmatic identification. Therefore if you want to be effective in influencing people the best way is to develop Stability. Stability is awareness which enables you to diagnose the other person's personality and Stability gives you the flexibility to act differentially in accordance with his needs and preferences.
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AWARENESS as the Method, Tool and Goal to Self-Improvement/Self-Realization
Elements of Experience
Awareness is the common factor in all experience. All experiences have three elements in common- a cognitive (= knowing) element, an affective (=emotive) element and a conative (=will) element. Relative experiences take place in a framework of our own personal construction of our self (=limited self). In other words, between the object of perception and the experiencer, there is the self constructed framework of the perceiver which distorts the perception/experience. Because of our identification with and attachment to this self construct, we tend to conserve, defend and develop this limited self. Ordinarily, we are not fully aware of this process.
Awareness of Awareness
The more we are aware, the more we become aware of the process of our identification with the limited self. This relative awareness gradually leads to the awareness of awareness or pure awareness ( or absolute awareness). First, one becomes aware of one’s body, and then of the mind and still later, of the process of identification itself. This increasing awareness leads to a change in behaviour: one becomes less defensive (=less egoistic) and less aggrandizing. This leads to loosening of the tie-up with one’s own limited self and thus awareness becomes more and more pure. Pure awareness is awareness that doesn’t involve any trichotomy of (1) the person who is aware, (2) the process of awareness and (3) the object of awareness. In pure awareness, these three merge together into one simple pure awareness. This may be called the awareness of true self or the awareness of awareness. This is beyond space and time.
Purification of Awareness
The purification of awareness is not a mere cognitive, affective or conative process. It is a holistic process and involves the transformation of one’s own root self-directed effort. One cannot achieve this without changing one’s own deep rooted defensive or aggrandizing motivation. Any selfish motivation behind the effort will have to be get totally dissipated before awareness can become pure. All egoistic effort, possessiveness and dissociation will have to dissolve into unitiveness before awareness gets purified. All the defensive and aggressive tendencies will have to get totally wiped out in the fire of awareness before the mind becomes spontaneously quiet and still. It is not possible to confirm objectively that one has attained pure consciousness (awareness) as there is no separate experiencer, or experience to validate. It is intuitive self-validation.
Transformation of Relative Awareness into Pure awareness
The transformation of relative awareness into pure awareness will be a short or long process depending on the degree of defensive tendencies in the person. A person who is relatively free of deep-rooted fears can easily achieve this transcendence whereas a highly egoistic person with a lot of complex and defensive habits will take a long time for the same. Hyper intellectualization and manipulative cleverness are also blockades to the process of purification of consciousness. Persons with strong guilt feelings cannot achieve unity unless they dissipate the guilt. Guilt often leads to non-awareness, as awareness of the same is unpleasant to the person himself/herself. So the purification of awareness cannot happen in a person with a great deal of guilt unless he nullifies his guilt by performing sufficient good karma to compensate the guilt.
Stages of Awareness
There are three stages of awareness. The first one is, doing whatever you do with full awareness. The second stage is just simply sitting with full awareness. And the third stage is sitting without doing anything physical of mental, which is meditation. Only a person with a minimum amount of ‘sathwic’ qualities can directly practice meditation.
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DECISION MAKING TECHNIQUES
There are 3 main categories of Decision Making Techniques:
- Decision Making Using Method of CHANCE
- Decision Making Using Method of ANALYSIS
- Decision Making Using Method of INTUITION
I. METHOD OF CHANCE
Chances are LTD: Lottery Toss Dice
Sometimes, what is important is to decide quickly or let it to luck. In some cases, analytical method of decision making can even be illogical or impossible. For example, in various game-matches, we rely upon this method. This method can also be used to decide when the consequences of the decision are not important or immaterial. If the choices we are of equal rank. This is the only way left.
Method of Lottery
In this, each choice is first written on a different identical but small piece of paper. Then these pieces of paper are either folded or rolled up so that what was written on it is not visible. It is now mixed up and someone is allowed to take one from it. The choice given in this piece of paper is decided.
Coin Tossing (Head or Tail Method)
This is one of the simplest and easiest methods of decision making. It is applied when there are only two choices which have the almost the same importance to the decision-maker. If head turned up when the coin is tossed, you decide on one thing and if tail turned up you decide on the other thing.
Dice
If there are six choices of almost equal importance and if there is no need to resort to serious analytical methods, this method is followed. Assign each choice to each of the six faces of the die. Now toss the die and decide accordingly.
II. METHOD OF ANALYSIS
You need to make a FIBER analysis.
FIBER:
FGL : Fear Greed Laziness
Ideal Solution Method
Best Home Method
Easyway Out Method
Read out/Spell out method
This is the most practical and most used decision-making method. It involves a detailed analysis of all the available info, choices, characteristics of the decision, context of decision, problem type, time available etc. In this method, the choice that is found rational or logical is selected. The criteria values & priorities – we have is the governing factor here.
The FGL Method
The FGL method is based on the fact that the decisions we make depend on fear, greed, and laziness. It helps the decision-maker to get insights into himself because it reveals how much these three factors have influenced him in his decision and gives him a chance to reevaluate his decisions. In this method, you first number down all the possible choices and see how much these factors affect each of the choices. Then you could select one as per your requirements.
Ideal Solution Method
The Ideal Solution Method creates an ideal criterion for the decision for the decision first. Now, make a list of choices. Taking one item from the list at a time, the decision-maker compares it with the ideal solution. The choice that is more nearer to the ideal solution is made.
Best Home Method
Best Home Method looks for the vest fit of the idea to the situation or environment or context or background. The environment or background that helps to develop or improve the idea is the best place for that idea. In other words, an idea & its environment should be mutually fit.
Easy Way Out Method
When taking action on the decision is more important than making the very best possible decisions, this method is used. We make decisions to act upon them. So in this method, such decisions that are easy to implement are made. This does not mean that you decide upon the easiest choice. The choice is to pass the test of the criteria you have or it should bring desired results. In this method, the easiest one among these choices are selected, which can be easily implemented.
Readout or the Spell out Method
In this method, you take the choices one by one and read out or spell out why you decide on a given choice. Write these down. Then read then again one by one and decide on the best choice.
III. METHOD OF INTUITION
At times, we depend upon our intuition or gut feelings for making a decision. When the problem is very complex and complicated, analytical methods of decision making cannot solve it. In such cases, we rely upon our sub-conscious mind. Most of us get such intuitions through our dreams. Many inventions & scientific theories were revealed to inventors and scientists through their dreams. The invention of the sewing needle, the finding of the structure of DNA etc. are only a few of them.
One Simple Procedure for Using Intuition for Decision Making or Problem Solving
- collect all available info about the problem
- make detailed analysis of the problem based on these info
- write everything down in a piece of paper
- before you go to bed, read the piece of paper once or twice
- sleep calmly without thinking of anything else
When you sleep, your sub-conscious mind will evaluate the choices and most probably arrive at a suitable solution. This solution may be communicated to you through your dreams or it will come to your consciousness suddenly when you woke up the next day.
The better communication between your conscious mind and sub-conscious mind, the more chances are there to get a solution through intuition.
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Ideas for this page taken from Edward De Bono’s Writings. Rights and Copyrights acknowledged.
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