How To Improve Your Memory When Reading Or Listening

One of the major benefits that come from improving your memory is the ability to remember more of what you read and more of what you hear.

Improving ones memory can therefore help to benefit virtually every aspect of your life, and is especially useful for students who are trying to study for exams.

In addition to these benefits, learning how to improve your memory will actually help to make your brain healthier and stronger.

You will also be using your brain more efficiently, since the memorization techniques you will learn about work because they take advantage of how the brain naturally operates.

Below you will find some quick memorization advice which will help you to improve your memory when reading or listening.

Improve Your Memory By Guessing

Whenever you set out to read a chapter in a book, an article or a document, try to make a guess from the title as to what it is about.

The very act of making such an educated guess actually prepares your brain for what you are about to read, almost like how an athlete warms themselves up before a big event.

The next step is to quickly skim over the rest of the text, paying particular attention to the subheadings. This entire process should take you no more than one or two minutes.

Once you have a general idea as to what the text is about, take a quick break of five or ten minutes. This break is essential because is allows your brain to process what you have just reviewed.

When you return to the text you will not only have a good idea about what it is you are going to be reading about, but your brain will now be ready to read and remember it.

Improve Your Memory By Identify Important Questions

Very often the reason you are reading a particular text is because you want to get certain information out of it.

For example, you may have a set of questions you need to answer, or you may just want to know what the text is about in general without getting into too much detail.

It is therefore very important that you have these reading goals in mind, because they will help direct your brain to pay attention to the information which is relevant to your needs.

This helps to improve your memory because the brain tends to remember the information which it sees as being the most important.

Therefore, by establishing your reading goals beforehand, you will find that your memory will improve dramatically because you will easily remember the important information.

Improve Your Memory By Thinking About Someone Else

An excellent way to improve your memory when reading or listening, is to think about how you would explain the subject material to someone else.

For example, whilst you are listening to a speech someone is giving, think about what you would say if your friend asked you what the speech was about.

This type of active thinking forces you to pay closer attention to the speaker, and also to summarise the material in your head as you go along.

To help improve your memory even further, try to tell someone about what you just read or heard. Teaching other people is one of the best ways to learn and remember new material.

Improve Memory By Recalling What You Know

The reason why people find certain types of information difficult to remember, is because they have no previous knowledge of that subject matter.

Therefore, when they try to remember it, the brain has nothing to relate it to which makes the information seem alien to them.

Having a good memory involves having the ability to relate new information to things you already know.

Memory works in a similar fashion to those brainstorming diagrams people to do generate ideas, where each new idea links from or links to something else.

The more you can “link” what you are learning to what you already know, the easier it will be to remember and the better your memory will be of it overall.

This memorization technique can be done in two ways. The first involves linking material whilst you read, and the second involves linking material after you have finished reading by quickly reviewing what you have read or reviewing notes you have made.

Be warned however, that this memorization technique will take more time than just simply listening or reading something once, but your memory will improve a lot by making this extra effort.

Recall What You Learn In Your Head

To help you remember more of what you learn, try to recall what you have just learnt in your head. For example, when you are walking back from a lecture, try to think about the main points that have been discussed in your head.

Or if you are revising at home, think about the main points in your head when you go to bed at night. The more clearly you can recall information in your head, the better you will memorize it.

Improve Your Memory By Getting Emotional

Depending on the type of text you read, you are bound to feel certain types of emotions. Perhaps you feel happy, anxious or sad?

Whatever it is you feel pay attention to those feelings, because another way the brain remembers things is by the strength of their emotional content.

The more something makes you feel a particular way, the better your memory will be about it. This is why people often have strong memories about times in their life when they were feeling very happy or very sad.

Speak to Improve Your Memory

A digital voice recorder is a very useful device which can be used to improve your memory and the amount of information which you are able to recall at a later date.

The basic idea is to record the main points you are trying to learn, and then play them back to yourself.

The very act of you speaking the material forces you to use more of your brain, and the more something stimulates your brain, the more likely you are to remember it.

What you record can then be played back to you whenever you desire as a revision review.

The Review Memorization Technique

Another way the brain remembers information is by how often it is exposed to something. The more often it comes across certain information, the deeper and longer lasting your memory will be of it.

You can exploit this natural tendency of the brain by increasing the frequency at which you expose yourself to the material you are trying to learn.

Ideally, you should read something once, review it the next day, then in a weeks time, a months time and three months time.

This amount of exposure will produce remarkable recall results and improve your memory dramatically.

However, it is important to remember that you don’t need to fully re-read the material each time, but rather to review it instead.

One of the best ways to do this is by taking notes the first time you read something or speaking notes to yourself in a digital voice recorder.

Another memorization technique involves highlighting important chunks of text as you read, and then reviewing only those sections when you re-read the material again.

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