sweetredbirdviaFlickrHow do you remember the names of new business associates?
A) repeat their name five times in your head while shaking their hand?
B) try to cement the image of their face with their name by sheer mental power?
C) associate the name with a famous actress and picture her doing a headstand on a balance beam?
If you answered A or B, you are fighting an uphill battle, one that–if you’re over 40, especially–you’re probably losing.The best answer is C, according to journalist Joshua Foer, who has discovered and elucidated memory-enhancing strategies in his memorably-titled book, Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, a story of his journey from Joe Average Memory to winner of the U.S. Memory Championship.
Foer stumbled into the world of memory athletics by chance, but was driven to delve into it because of what he and the rest of us are facing today in our hyper-technological world. On the one hand, we rely on our memory less as technology–cell phones, auto redial, Google searches, etc–provide us with a wealth of information at the tap of some keys. Yet we’re also bombarded with information (passwords anyone?), and it would be nice to be able to remember at least some of it.
Foer said he was skeptical when he first started researching memory enhancement techniques and the promises from authors trying to profit on our fears of losing our minds. But he learned that memorizing techniques date back to the Ancient Greek Simonides. But he also learned that that’s all they are, techniques. “You can’t improve an underlying memory ability,” he told WNYC radio host Leonard Lopate. “What you can do is, in certain limited ways, is learn techniques that help you remember more.”
According to Foer’s research, if you need an assist in remembering names at a conference, your credit card number, or to pick up milk on the way home, use these techniques and you’ll be able trust your memory to come through for you (plus it is bound to make your day-to-day inner life more exciting):