Cahill - Improve Your Memory: How to gain more clarity, retain knowledge and obtain mental mastery

For the purpose of this book well focus on the process of receiving and storing information in your brain with the ability to recall it later. Memory is much more complicated than that, but I would need an entire book just to explain everything we know about it so far, and there is plenty we still dont know. For now, lets concentrate on what we consciously use.

There are many different types of memory in neuroscience, but if you want to improve yours, you should only focus on short-term and long-term memory. Short-term memory is what allows you to make sense of your surroundings and to understand this sentence, for example. It usually doesnt hold information for more than thirty seconds and gives you the ability to retain four or five pieces of data at a time. This means that if I give you a set of ten random numbers and tell you to memorize them in ten seconds, odds are you wont be able to.

Long-term memory is what makes you you. Its a collection of almost all the information youve stored over the years in a gradual progression. Some of it you can easily recall, like when your birthday is. Some of it is a bit trickier and requires a special stimulus for recollection (for example your mother telling that embarrassing story from when you were four suddenly reminds you of the situation and youre able to remember it). Were still not sure what the limit of long-term memory is, but we know its capacity is huge. This is why if I give you a list of numbers (1-100) and tell you to memorize them in ten seconds, youll just need to glance at the list and remember it because you already know all the numbers and theyre logically connected (unless you see those numbers for the first time, in which case you wont be able to remember more than four or five, the capacity of your short-term memory).

Can memory be improved?

This brief and rather narrow overview of memory brings up an interesting point. Your brain has the capacity to store tremendous amounts of information. Then why are you sometimes struggling with the simplest tasks? If you can remember half the dialogue from your favorite movie, surely you can also remember a phone number, right? Well, thats actually true. You can, but you arent doing it because youre not mindful of what youre trying to remember. Youre not a master of your own memory. The Information Age has made your attention too scattered around. In most cases you cant remember something simply because youre not focusing on it. But even when you do, your short-term memory has its limitations. However, the human brain is wonderful thing and allows you to create different connections, including between your long-term and short-term memory. There are also some techniques you can use in order to make things easier to remember. Well explore all of this in more depth. By the end of this book, you will learn how to be more mindful and how to master your own memory.

The benefits of having good memory and concentration are much greater than you think. Having better memory and focus will allow you to introduce many awesome changes to your life. You will be able to remember facts, dates, birthdays, faces, numbers, and whatever you want. Not only that, but you will also be much more focused when youre doing something, be it work or hobby. Finally, lets not forget all that information youre being blasted with every minute. Some of it is important and some if it isnt. You will learn how to better filter out what you dont need and how to retain what you do need. Acquiring a new skill always takes time, though, so you should keep that in mind. After all, youll be trying to change a lifetime of habits which wont be easy. Its a journey, and like every journey it requires time, preparation, and motivation. That being said, by the end you will see that it was all very well worth it.