The Memory Improvement System .
The Memory Improvement System Audio Programme Workbook
By Adam Eason Copyright Adam Eason Personal Development 2006. All rights reserved. Reproduction and/or duplication is strictly forbidden 23 Sanderling Court 10a Boscombe Spa Road Bournemouth Dorset BH5 1BH United Kingdom 0845 890 9000
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Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Introduction Welcome to The Memory Improvement System. This workbook is for you to work through with this audio programme in order that you can do the exercises and make notes to consolidate and enhance your learning throughout. Knowing how to use your brain more fully and effectively is one way in which you can improve your memory. But you can also grow your own brain power – quite literally: You know, while the number of brain cells we have actually declines from our midtwenties on, research has demonstrated that the number of connections between braincells can continue to grow – provided the brain is exercised and given new material to deal with. The power of your brain, in other words, does not just relate to the number of brain cells you have: it relates to the use you make of them, and the way this stimulates the brain to grow new connections between cells. When we research and model people who use their brains effectively, it shows that new challenges, new learning, and new connections are what keep the brain in good and fluid working order, what keeps it fit and firing wonderfully well, so that you have synapses popping in your head like electricity firing through a circuit. That is where your memory will get some major improvement. Please ensure that you practice and practice the various exercises and skills, strategies and techniques, it is their continued practice that will enhance your memory to amazing new levels. If you have any questions or queries with regards to any aspect of this programme, then please do get in touch with me, I am always delighted to assist. With my very best wishes,
Adam Eason
www.adameason.com
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Making More of Your Brain Notes:
Too often people talk as if they were born with a certain “amount” of brain power or memory. Like our computers having a certain memory limit. Believing this is a very effective way of limiting what you can achieve.
SelfLimiting Beliefs I would like you to take some time out to check out any selflimiting beliefs that you may have about learning. Let me give you some common examples:
I am not academic I was no good at school I am too old to learn I cannot do maths I am not creative I have a poor memory I have a brain like a sieve.
Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Representational Systems Describe a momentous occasion from your life, or talk about your work or a hobby. Just talk about something that you have an attachment to or that you have emotions engaged in. Do this for 30 seconds nonstop writing: Notes:
Visual Words: Admire Appear Attractive Blurred Bright Clear Cloudy Colourful Dark Disappear Display Exhibit Flash Focus
Foggy Gaze Glance Gleam Glow Graphic Hazy Illuminate Imagine Obscure Observe Look Perspective Picture
Preview Reflect Reveal See Scan Shiny Show Sight Sparkle Surface Twinkle Vanish Vivid Watch
Visual Word Phrases: An eyeful Appears to me Beyond a shadow of a doubt Clear cut Eye to eye Get a perspective In light of In view of Make a scene
Mind’s eye Paint a picture Pretty as a picture Showing off Snap shot Sight for sore eyes. Take a peek Tunnel vision Well defined
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Auditory Words: Announce Answer Argue Asked Attune Call Cheer Crescendo Cry Deaf Discuss Echo Expression Growl Grumble
Harmonise Harsh Hear Hum Inquire Insult Lecture Listen Loud Melodious Mention Mumble Noisy Question Quiet
Reply Request Sang Shout Sighs Silence Sound Talk Vocal Yell
Auditory Word Phrases: Be heard Blabber mouth Clear as a bell Describe in detail Express yourself Grant me an audience Hold your tongue Loud and clear
Make music Manner of speaking Outspoken Rings a bell To tell the truth Tonguetied Voice an opinion Word for word
Kinesthetic Words: Angle Beat Bends Bounce Break Brush Carry Comfortable Crumble Exciting Feel Firm Force Grab
Grasps Hard Hold Hug Hurt Irritate Movement Pinch Pressure Pull Rub Run Scramble Shaky
Smooth Soft Solid Spike Stuffed Suffer Sweep Thick Touch Tremble Twist Warm Wash Weigh
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Kinaesthetic word phrases: All washed up Boils down to Chip off the old block Come to grips with Control yourself Floating on air Get a hold of Get a handle on Get a load of this Hand in hand Hang in there Heated argument
Hothead Keep your shirt on Lay the cards on the table Make contact Moment of panic Pain in the neck Pull some strings Slipped my mind Smooth operator Start from scratch Stiff upper lip Turn around
Olfactory/Gustatory Words: Bitter Fragrant Fresh Odour Pungent
Salty Savour Smell Smoky Sour
Spicy Stale Sweet Taste
So, now when I asked you to pause and describe an event or talk about a hobby earlier, what words did you use? Have a think carefully. So now take some time to speak and write up some of your favourite memories or experiences or talk and write about a hobby or something that you like to do. Then see which type of words you use the most and you will begin to see which representational system you use the most. Which one dominates? This is going to be useful to us later on in the programme and will show you how you have encoded and stored much of your memories. Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Eye Accessing Cues The eye movements of any person when they are communicating tell us whether they are representing information in their mind visually (you know, whether they are seeing or constructing images in their mind), auditorily (whether they are hearing sounds in their mind of sound kind) or kinaesthetically (whether they have feelings associated to the thought). Eyes moving level in the head to the left indicate recalling of remembered words. Eyes moving level to the right indicate the constructing of sentences. If the eyes go down and to the left, the person engages in an internal dialogue. When eyes move down and to the right, they access kinaesthetic awareness (feelings and sensations) and emotions. Eyes centred and defocused indicates that the person is making pictures, however, many also process internal dialogue this way. Notice where you point your eyes when you answer these questions or you can work out where you find it easier to point your eyes when you answer these questions;
What colour is your front door? What colour would the front door be of your dream home? How does your best friend usually say hello on the phone? How does your favourite love song go? Remember the last time you felt joy? How would you feel if you won the lottery? What kind of voice do you use when you talk to yourself?
Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
The eye accessing cues.
SubModalities The five senses are sometimes referred to as modalities, because each is a mode or a way of processing information. These are, as I have already said, visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gustatory. These are very broad categorisations, so if we think about the different distinctions in one of these categories, visual for example, we can make an image and ask of it:
Is it in colour or black and white? Is it clear or fuzzy? How far away is it? Is the image moving or still? Is the image flat or threedimensional? And so on.
We refer to these distinctions as submodalities, because each one of them is a particular way of describing or refining something that happens within the specific modality. Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Build your mental versatility: Notes:
Exercise 1: Brain booster 1. Spend a few moments imagining some activity or event that you enjoy. Notice what you are most aware of first. If what you notice are the feelings, pay attention to how you feel and the sensations of it. As you do so, start to look around in your mind’s eye and see what goes with this experience visually, what are you seeing in your imagination. Next pay attention to the sounds that are part of this experience. (Sometimes this may include the sound of silence.) Explore how you imagine this activity. If, on the other hand, you began by focussing on the visual dimension, you made pictures in your mind, now you need to add a soundtrack. So what are the sounds you would be hearing? Run the movie again, adding in those sounds. And what would you be feeling in your body? Run your movie again, adding these in too. If your lead system was auditory, let the sound lead you to the pictures and the physical feelings and sensations. What you are doing here is overlapping from a sense which is familiar to ones you are less so familiar with. As you do so, you are helping yourself to build your skill in using your representational systems more fully, more fluently and automatically. That is the key, you are teaching yourself to do this automatically. Exercise: Brain booster 2. You can help yourself engage different representational systems more quickly and effectively by deliberately using the eye accessing patterns which are associated with each. Notice which direction you naturally tend to look in as you see pictures, hear sounds and feel feelings, in order to check whether your accessing corresponds to the pattern. Many people share the same pattern I have illustrated in the workbook and talked about earlier. Some people reverse it and others may have their own variations.
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Become aware of what your patterns are. Knowing your own patterns is necessary if you want to access them deliberately. You should have done this part already. So now, think of another pleasant scenario, and decide on which of your less favoured representational systems you would like to engage. As you begin to run through your scenario, look in the direction that accesses that system. For example, if you are picturing walking along a beach and want to access what you could hear, look horizontally left. Again, practice will help you. We are overlapping the systems and using more of your brain here. Exercise: Brain booster 3. When you listened about submodalities, which did you find to be the most influential for you? If your lead system is auditory, are you most influenced by tone? Or pitch? Or Volume? What happens if you make the sounds in your favourite scenario more mellow? Or crisper? Or Higher? Or more distant? Play with these variables until you get the sound quality just how you want it. Then take one of your less familiar representational systems. Let’s suppose it is visual. What kind of picture quality have you been getting, as you added visual information to your pleasant scenario? Use the analogy of the visual controls you have on your television to help you improve your picture: brightness, contrast, colour balance. You can also add definition and distance. You can go black and white. You can freeze frame. Altering these variables will have an effect: find out which are most influential for you.
Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Give Yourself Even Richer Experiences One way to do this is to remind yourself from time to time to pay attention to all the sensory information that is coming in. Notes:
Cultivate Your Dreaming Pay attention to your dreaming and your daydreaming. Here are some ways you can cultivate and work with your daydreams: Notice when you have been daydreaming. Is there any pattern of circumstances that helps bring about your particular daydreaming state? Once you find what helps you daydream, use it and make space for it in your life on a regular basis, imagine that you are in that experience, recreate those circumstances inside of your mind. Next time you have a decision to make, or a problem to solve, or a challenge to overcome, you can set up the circumstances so that you can trigger your daydreaming state – and allow yourself to explore your problem or decision in this way. Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Play To Your Strengths Some people have a strong belief in endeavour, and in trying to take on and improve personal weaknesses. At its extreme, this approach can mean that you spend time and effort bashing away at your limitations, often feeling miserable and worthless, rather than recognising and enjoying your strengths. Notes:
Feed Your Mind Physical: What do you do to take care of your body? Did you take any exercise yesterday? Is exercise a daily part of your life? Did you get enough sleep last night? Do you usually? Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Emotional: How rich is your imaginative and emotional life? Notes: Intellectual: What else can you do to feed your mind? Keep asking questions, keep challenging the world around you and enquiring about it. Notes:
Make The Most Of Your Time Here Paying attention to the full range of your sensory experience enriches your mental and physical functioning, and enables you to realise your potential more fully. Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Be In Charge Of Your Habits We are all creatures of habit, programmed to store and repeat what we have learnt Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
SelfLimiting Beliefs Let me give you some examples of things people say to me individually or in my seminars:
“I do not have a good memory.” “That is too much for me to remember.” “I have a memory like a sieve.” “I am afraid my memory is failing now that I am getting older.”
Memory is not about volume and it is not about content, it is about processes. It is about something we do, not something we have: it is about remembering. Notes:
Encoding And Storage If you want to improve your ability to encode accurately and store information, you will need to check out: Attitudes, beliefs and feelings:
Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Paying attention: Notes:
Internal Processing: Encoding information means processing it internally; and internal processing involves your representational systems or senses. Notes:
Exploring Your Memory: What do you find easy to remember? What do you tend to forget? Do your own patterns tell you anything about what is important to you and what is less so? Or what kinds of representation come most naturally and you store most easily? Find out how you go about remembering. Do you: make pictures of the information? Tell yourself stories? Hear someone telling you? Try it on and experience? Like to get your hands dirty? What has to happen for you to forget something? Does your mind “Just go blank”? Do you steer away from something and find yourself thinking of something else?
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
How do your remembering and forgetting relate to your interest in the information and your feelings about it? What kind of things do you have a “poor memory” for, and why? Do you have a good memory for things you would rather not? Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Retrieval Encoding and retrieval are closely linked: Notes:
Mnemonics: Notes:
The Importance of Sequence: Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Choosing the Triggers: Notes:
Think of some anchors you have for particular memories or states. Songs, smells, colours and places can all act as anchors. Think of something you remember easily. What are the anchors you use? So how can you apply this skill you already have to what you want to remember? Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Exercises: To improve your visual memory: Look at a group of objects, say on a mantelpiece, take a mental snapshot of them, then close your eyes and see what you recall in your mind’s eye. Open your eyes, look again, close your eyes and see again in your mind’s eye – only in more detail. Using the visual submodalities mentioned earlier, notice which ones you got and which you need to begin to pay more attention to. To improve your auditory memory: Listen to a song you like and hear it in your head. Notice what you remember. Then listen again and hear more. Hear it in your head then hum it out loud. Repeat often. Use the submodalities mentioned before to help you distinguish which auditory elements you need to attend to in particular. To improve your kinaesthetic memory: Think of a physical activity you would like to learn. Suppose it was a particular dance step. Find a teacher and imitate them. Learn the steps in manageable chunks and keep repeating until you have this learning “within your muscles”. Now do it again with another physical activity. If you keep expanding your repertoire, you will find you will not just get good at remembering a particular step, you will become much more proficient at remembering entire routines. Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Memory Techniques How about Designing your own Mnemonics: Imagination, Association and Location are the three fundamental principles underlying the use of mnemonics are imagination, association and location. Working together, you can use these principles to generate powerful mnemonic systems. Imagination: is what you use to create and strengthen the associations needed to create effective mnemonics. Notes:
Association: This is the method by which you link a thing to be remembered to a way of remembering it. Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Location: gives you two things: a coherent context into which you can place information so that it hangs together. Notes:
Elaboration and the Keyword Mnemonic: Elaboration is the most basic of all memory techniques. The more meaning you are able to give to the thingtoberemembered the more successful you will be in recalling it later. It has been shown that it is more effective to emphasize higherlevels of meaning. Professor Prlwitzkowski (perlitcowski) You concentrate on 'prlw' as an unusual combination and start by trying to remember that one. Then, you proceed with 'tzk' and 'wsk'. These are all examples of lowlevel processing, concentrating on the surface form of the word (name). Higherlevel processing would be to attach meaning to the name. Since the name does not have obvious connotations, we must help a little. Let us break the name up into words that sound similar to the name: Prlwitzkowski = pearl with cow ski. Now we are in a position to apply higherlevel elaboration. One of the best ways to do is by visualizing a bizarre image: A cow skiing downhill wearing a pearl necklace. It is a good idea to add more modalities to the image, for example, by imaging (and feeling, hearing sounds of it) how you are skiing along this cow. This method of elaborating an otherwise meaningless word (name) is sometimes called the Keyword Mnemonic. This type of elaboration has also been shown to be very effective for learning foreign language vocabulary. Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Association: Giving meaning to a word or a name is only half the work, in most cases this meaning must be attached to something. With a face goes a name: they must be associated in memory. The better you become at association, the more successful your general memory skills will be. Suppose, that we meet Prof. Prlwitzkowski's at a party and that we want to remember his email address, so that we can mail him later. It is:
[email protected]. We had already elaborated his name to 'pearl with cow ski', visualized by a cow with pearls skiing downhill. To remember 'global', we have him skiing down a gigantic globe, and to remember 'org' we imaging that all of this happens in a church to the sound of a massive church organ. Imagine how the low pipes will make those pearls tremble! Notes:
The Story System: Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
So, to get to remember the southern regions of England, Avon, Somerset, Cornwall, Wiltshire, Dorset, Devon, Hampshire, Gloucestershire and Surrey, you can use this method. Alternatively you could code this information by imaging the following story vividly: An AVON lady is walking up a path towards a strange house. She is hot and sweating slightly in the heat of high SUMMER (Somerset). Beside the path someone has planted giant CORN in a WALL (Cornwall), but it's beginning to WILT (Wiltshire) in the heat. She knocks on the DOoR (Dorset), which is opened by the DEVil (Devon). In the background she can see a kitchen in which a servant is smearing honey on a HAM (Hampshire), making it GLOSsy (Gloucestershire) and gleam in bright sunlight streaming in through a window. Panicked by seeing the Devil, the Avon lady screams 'SoRRY' (Surrey), and dashes back down the path.
Link System: In the Link System, positional ordering is achieved by associating the thingstobe remembered with each other. They are simply chained, starting with the first item, which is associated with the second, the second with the third, etc. The very first item can be associated with the goal or the reason for the list that must be remembered. A typical list could be: Buying cold medicine Writing a letter to a friend who lives in Australia Giving the dog a bath Mending a flat bicycle tire Making sure there is enough dry wood for the hearth To apply the Link System, we first pick a single word to represent each task, for example iceberg, kangeroo, dog, bicycle, hearth. If you want to start doing them after finishing work, then that would be the starting point of the association, for example, the moment you step into your car. For a possible list of links imagine the following: A big iceberg sitting inside your car A kangeroo jumping around on the iceberg, throwing snow balls at you Your dog, climbing out of the the kangeroo's pouch Your dog then proceeding to ride on a little bicycle The little bicycle growing until it explodes into flames Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Journey System: The Journey System uses a journey that is very familiar to you and you position your ideas along the way. When you need access to an idea, you mentally run through your journey until you find the desired idea. Notes:
Loci System: Based on mentally positioning thingstoremember in a wellknown room. An obvious application would be a speech, provided that the location is familiar. Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
The Number/Rhyme technique: The Number/Rhyme technique is a very simple way of remembering lists in order. It is an example of a peg system using a system where information is 'pegged' to a known sequence (here the numbers one to ten) to create pegwords. By doing this you ensure that you do not forget any facts, as gaps in information are immediately obvious. It also makes remembering images easier as you always know part of the mnemonic images. The technique works by helping you to build up pictures in your mind, in which you represent numbers by things that rhyme with the number. You can then link these pictures to images of the things to be remembered. The usual rhyming scheme is: Bun Shoe Tree Paw Hive Bricks Heaven Gate Line Hen Let me give you an example, you could remember a chronological list of ten Greek philosophers as: Parmenides a BUN topped with grated yellow PARMEsan cheese Heraclitus a SHOE worn by HERACLes (Greek Hercules) glowing with a bright LIghT Empedocles A TREE from which the Mshaped McDonalds arches hang hooking up a bicycle PEDal Democritus think of a PAW print on the voting form of a DEMOCRaTic election Protagoras A bee HIVE being positively punched through (GORed?) by an atomic PROTon Socrates BRICKS falling onto a SOCk (with a foot inside!) from a CRATe. Plato A plate with angel's wings flapping around a white cloud Aristotle a friend called hARRY clutching a bOTtLE of wine vaulting over a gate Zeno A LINE of ZEN Buddhists meditating Epicurus a HEN's egg being mixed into an EPIleptics's CURe. Try either visualizing these images as suggested, or if you do not like them, come up with images of your own.
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Notes:
Reading Intelligently: Good reading strategies help you to read in a very efficient way. Using them, you aim to get the maximum benefit from your reading with the minimum effort. Notes: Knowing what you want to know: Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Knowing how deeply to study the material: Where you only need the shallowest knowledge of the subject, you can skim material. Here you read only chapter headings, introductions and summaries. Notes: Active Reading: When you are reading a document in detail, it often helps if you highlight, underline and annotate it as you go on. Notes:
How to study different sorts of material: Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Reading 'whole subject' documents: Notes:
Using glossaries with technical documents: Notes: Review Techniques Keeping Knowledge in Your ShortTerm Memory Notes:
Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.
The Memory Improvement System .
Conclusions I have included lots of different strategies and methods for enhancing and improving your memory, please employ as many of these as you can and continue to work at it and then it will happen naturally and will flow more and more. Make sure that you listen to the introduction and explanation of hypnosis before you listen to the hypnosis sessions, you will get lots more from them that way. Read your weekly edition of Adam Up and listen to the Adam Up live podcast every week to keep up to date with all the latest tips, strategies and insights that Adam is researching and developing.
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Copyright 2006 Adam Eason Personal Development. All rights reserved.