Boost Your Memory by Darren Bridger

Author:Darren Bridger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Publisher: Infinite Ideas Ltd
Published: 2008-09-19T07:00:00+00:00

26

Find the rhythm

Using rhythm and rhyme will really boost your memory powers.

Ever had a tune stuck in your memory all day? Irritating, perhaps, but rhythm, rhyme and melody are often overlooked as memory boosters.

Recite the alphabet in your head. Chances are that you ‘hear’ it in a certain way, with a certain ‘sing-song’ rhythm and melody. It’s probably the way you were taught it at school, almost like a song. It’s an extremely effective way to encode information into memory which otherwise might be hard. It also naturally breaks down the information into bite-sized chunks, making it easy for your memory to digest. So if it works for the alphabet, why not use it for other things too?

People have known for thousands of years that rhythm and melody are natural memory boosters. Epic poems and songs were encoded using this method. Before paper and books the only way to pass down large amounts of information, such as tribal wisdom, history and religious texts, from generation to generation was to tap into the memory-enhancing powers of rhythm. It also made the information more entertaining, as the elders sang the history of their tribe to the younger members around the flickering fire at night.

If you think it’s amazing that information the length of a whole book could be memorised in verse, think about your own ability to remember song lyrics. The chances are that you can, fairly easily, recall the words to tens or hundreds of entire songs. And that’s a lot of words. All you need is the title or a little snippet of the melody and it will, typically, trigger off the whole song in your mind. You can probably also still recall with ease songs and nursery rhymes from your childhood.

Equally, the advertising industry knows the power of rhythm and melody to put information into our memories. Jingles, catchy little songs containing the advertiser’s message and brand name, have been used on radio and TV for decades. They clearly work - and you’ve probably experienced this effect yourself, and cursed it as you can’t get a jingle out of your head!

Music has a natural structure to it which, even if we aren’t musically trained, makes it easy for us to remember. Another reason why songs are so easy to remember is that each line triggers the next. This is especially true when the words rhyme, as the end of one line suggests the kind of sound that must come at the end of the next line. Equally, the melody or rhythm plants clues as to what the next line or section must be.

You can make information easier to remember by injecting some musical qualities into it. You probably find you already do this, for example when remembering a phone number. If you repeat the phone number in your head, the chances are that there is at least a bit of a rhythm to it. You can take even longer numbers, such as your credit or debit card number (usually around sixteen digits), and remember them the same way.

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