Many people will sigh "are you old" and "your brain is not working", but in fact, this is a very normal situation. Why? The following is a collection of reasons I collected for you. Let's have a look!
Memory is getting worse and worse. What should I do?
Text / lachel
In this era, poor memory has become a common urban modern disease.
For example:
When someone tells you to do something, you promise and forget it all when you look back; When I see a certain concept or knowledge point, I feel as if I have seen it somewhere, but I can't remember it all the time; There are a lot of trivial things at hand. I always want to take time to do them, but when I am free, I often forget them; Just now I was still muttering in my heart. After taking a few steps, I suddenly forgot what I wanted to do and say
Every day I don't sigh a few words "I forgot again", "how did I forget again", as if I'm embarrassed to say that I'm a modern man.
Many people will sigh "are you old" and "your brain is not working", but in fact, this is a very normal situation.
Why? The reason is simple:
Our brains are not designed for this information age. At the beginning of its evolution, it never thought that one day, the information we receive and need to process will increase thousands of times.
The computer can simply change the hard disk and add memory, but the brain can't. It can only be continuously optimized and shaped on the basis of the original form.
Therefore, it is not that you are old or your memory is not good, but that the development speed of this era is far beyond the limit that the brain can adapt to.
Therefore, when we talk about "memory", what is more meaningful is not the memory inside the brain, but the larger "group memory system" that connects the brain with everything around it - electronic documents, fragmented information, networking, the Internet, etc.
If you forget a concept, you can check it; Forget a piece of information, you can search; If you forget one thing, you can ask someone; If you forget a file, you can find it
We don't need to remember all the information, because most of the information can be obtained and touched through the people, things and things around us.
In this "group memory system", the brain plays the role of a commander - used to give instructions, summarize information, analyze and compare, make decisions, sort out and output... These meaningless information are "combined" in a meaningful way.
In short: if you think of this "group memory system" as a huge website, then the brain is the navigation of this website. Through navigation, we can continue to extend and jump along the tortuous route to reach endless corners.
I often say that "the brain is for thinking, not for memory", which is what I mean.
In 2011, Betsy sparrow of Columbia University and others published a heavyweight study on science. Through a series of experiments, they found that when people realized that "information will be stored in the computer", their memory of the information itself decreased.
Instead, people's memory of "where to find this information" has been significantly strengthened.
In other words, with the development of the Internet, our memory mode will be more and more transferred from "what" to "where".
Therefore, this conclusion is named "Google effect". It refers to the influence and substitution of "search" on memory.
This study has received extensive attention and discussion. Many people use it as proof that the Internet is poisoning our brains - but I don't think so.
From another perspective, what is this actually? It is an update of the brain to itself.
In order to adapt to this information age, the brain needs to transform and optimize itself. But it is well known that it is unrealistic to require the brain to change its biological form. Therefore, it tries to combine with the Internet and the "outside world" and embark on a new development branch.
This is not a bad thing.
As mentioned above, the brain, as the central commander, directs the efficient operation of this "group memory system". As long as it can operate continuously, stably and effectively, there will be no problem.
But what is worthy of our vigilance? The central commander of the memory system is paralyzed.
The premise of everything mentioned above is "effective operation", that is, what? We must be able to remember "what I want to find, where I find it and how to find it" before we can implement it.
These things that need to be remembered are called "clues" of memory.
The problem we face now is that we can't even remember these "clues".
We can't remember what we're looking for, what we're going to do, where we're going, how we're going... Naturally, there's no way to command and use this memory system well.
So why does this happen?
The biggest problem is not memory, but attention.
Let's review the memory model. What processes does your brain go through when you need to remember something?
Directional attention → processing (short-term memory) → coding storage (long-term memory) → retelling call (avoid forgetting).
In this process, each step actually requires a high degree of participation of attention.
Directional attention: you need to focus on the things you want to remember, so that your attention can be focused without being disturbed by external signals. Processing: information needs to be kept in short-term memory for a period of time so that they can be integrated. Code storage: it needs to be deeply processed and repeated in a period of time to "embed" the information into the neural network. Retelling call: it is necessary to give the memory a "recall" operation according to the external situation, and then extract the previously written information.
Only after four complete steps can a piece of information be firmly remembered by us.
But in this era, it is very difficult to concentrate on completing this process. Because we have been disturbed too much.
According to the calculation of Basex company in the United States, an ordinary employee will be interrupted 70 times on average every day. This will cause at least 2.1 hours to be wasted in the "switching" process.
These interruptions may come from superiors, colleagues, customers, QQ, wechat, e-mail and new news... Our time is endlessly cut and refined, accurate to "seconds". We are forced to switch back and forth between many different transactions, which makes our attention "tired".
Over time, we will get used to "switching" and it is difficult to focus on something.
The direct result of this is that it is difficult for us to actively call the memory system to "remember" things. We can only let it passively receive information and make a difference.
Further, these constant interruptions and disturbances will fill our cognitive resources and overload our brain - thus making us feel tired and further reducing and weakening the motivation of memory.
Think about it: do you always feel tired when you don't do anything every day? A large part of the reason is the lack of some undisturbed and focused time - what I call "golden time".
This may be the culprit that makes you "forgetful".
Another reason is that there is too much information from the outside world.
In this information age, there is a special technical field that teaches you how to catch other people's attention.
We have to say that the media we see every day are really proficient in this move.
The brain likes to be different, so they make all kinds of gimmicks to pursue "exclusive" and "pop point", and use "strange" to attract your attention. The brain likes emotions, so they use nationalism, binary opposition, emotional catharsis, standing in line and scolding and other means to stimulate and incite your emotions. The brain likes stories, so it is full of "story lessons", "story thinking", "how to tell a story well", "influencing others with stories"; The brain likes to peep into private affairs. Therefore, a large number of lace news and gossip are rampant. Even if it is just groundless and groundless, it can be seriously prepared into a big meal; The brain likes to hoard, so all kinds of fragment knowledge and "bean knowledge" flock to package itself with nice names, simplifying all the support and logic behind it, just to instill you with the satisfaction of "knowing"
Under these well-designed external "feeding", our brain is prone to a phenomenon - what I call "the illusion of knowing".
What do you mean? A piece of information just enters your short-term memory and has not been written into your long-term memory, but in the brain's view, it has been "remembered" - so we begin to lose interest in it and turn our attention to new information.
Why? There are also two reasons.
1) the vast majority of information will constantly compete for your attention through well-designed stimuli, so that you are in a state of "being indifferent" all the time, and your attention is constantly "forced" to wander between various information.
In order to receive these large amounts of fresh stimuli, the brain must shorten the time spent on each message as much as possible. Therefore, it will deceive itself to "remember" and take "familiarity" as internalization to save time and cognitive cost as much as possible.
In order to reduce the cost of receiving most of your information, 2) become more and more comfortable. Try not to use your brain, "no need to think". The information is packaged into canned products, fed to your mouth and into your blood.
As a result, the brain does not need to spend mental energy and encounter any obstacles in understanding and cognition - which will also give the brain the illusion of "I understand".
Over time, our attention will become lax, like muscles that do not exercise for a long time, it is difficult to concentrate and focus.
This leads to another consequence: for slightly more complex information, we will begin to "exclude".
Ask yourself: how long have you not read and thought about some complex information?
Are the messages you receive every day specious gossip, stories, gossip, short sentences, pictures and titles that lack a lot of logic and information?
In the long run, all you can remember is these fragmented fragments.
Therefore, the whole set of memory strategy I adopted is the coexistence of externalization and internalization.
I have a habit: whenever I think of anything useful, I write it down immediately. To do things, write them down in the to-do list; In addition, all chat records, reading notes and inspiration ideas are recorded in electronic notes.
Then, regularly arrange time to organize and optimize them, so that these notes "flow".
In this process, what is the core practice? Unification.
The reason why many people's group memory system fails is that they do not properly optimize its structure - information is placed in a "convenient and labor-saving" place, without rules or sorting, which is a mess.
This leads to: on the one hand, due to the existence of Google effect, information is transferred from the brain; On the other hand, it is not properly placed, resulting in the "loss" of the link with our brain and becoming isolated fragments.
How to improve it? The most critical step is to set a set of rules for myself: no matter what information I put in one place, I will sort it out with a set of rules; When necessary, I can go in through this entrance, find and call.
Don't underestimate the role of "unification": if you have five entries, one message is five possibilities, and two messages are 5x5 = 25 possibilities - its complexity increases exponentially.
This is equivalent to increasing the burden on the brain in disguise.
For example, in my notes, I made a page workbench, which recorded the indexes of all items. For any information, the first step is to collect it and the second step is to sort it out and link it to the project index.
In this way, no matter what information, I can easily find it by opening this page workbench.
You can use any tool, as long as you can establish a set of "unified" information storage rules.
This is the externalization, and the internalization part, I will exercise my attention and memory through these practices to remember more "clues".
1. Improve signal-to-noise ratio
Signal to noise ratio is an information academic term, which refers to the signal divided by noise. The higher the signal-to-noise ratio, the less irrelevant noise, and the stronger our ability to remember and recall important information.
How to improve the signal-to-noise ratio? The key is to "reduce noise".
As mentioned above, most information is actually noise and worthless. The only result is to pollute your memory system. So try to shield them.
What you need to do is to establish a valve and an effective "information screen":
Unreliable source, do not look; Too fragmented to see. Not interested in the subject, do not see; Do not look at the content with low value;
Don't underestimate the noise. The brain has a characteristic that it will put similar things together and sum them up in memory. Therefore, if these "noises" are similar to the theme of "signals", it will seriously interfere with the brain's memory of truly valuable information.
In the long run, you will easily be confused: what is true, what is false, what can be trusted, and what needs a question mark.
2. Exercise short-term memory
In the whole memory system, short-term memory plays the role of "table" - all information needs to be placed on the table for preliminary processing before it can be stored in the "warehouse" by category.
So, simply put: the size of the table determines the upper limit of information you can process.
Although our short-term memory is limited to four units, the brain gives us a chance: it does not limit the size of each "unit".
In other words, what we need to train is the ability to reorganize and integrate fragmented things into a whole "block".
The simplest way is to consciously force yourself to calculate and memorize some long and complex information in daily life, such as:
Try to recite and memorize the mobile phone number, license plate number, store name, etc; Observe the picture in front of you, close your eyes, outline and recall it in your mind; Always do some mental calculations, such as calculating the passenger flow and monthly income of a store;
This can strengthen their "chunking" ability and make memory no longer a burden.
3. Recall and output
What is the best way to remember an article? After reading it, recall its main content, write it in your own words, and then check and confirm it.
Similarly, remember some key clues. The most important thing is to recall it and call it more - so that the brain will think "it is important".
At ordinary times, you can do more of these exercises and call the stored information from long-term memory to enhance your recall ability. For example:
Log once a day: what have you done, learned and thought today?
Try to recall what you saw recently. For example, I recently watched the distance between us and evil. What is the name of each character in it?
Connect new situations and new things with known knowledge and ask yourself: what will it remind me of?
Try to make it your daily habit. You can do it when walking, waiting and boring. On the one hand, it can kill time. On the other hand, it can help the brain constantly ruminate information and improve memory.
4. Keep a good sleep
This may easily be overlooked.
In fact, psychology has long found that an extremely important function of sleep is to "prune" our memory: eliminate unimportant neuronal connections, so as to strengthen and highlight the more important information.
Therefore, we often have the experience that after a good sleep, we feel refreshed and the problems encountered yesterday have been solved - in fact, this is because the brain has cleared the redundant neuronal connections, allowing us to see the whole picture of the problem.
What you need to do is to keep sleeping for at least 6 hours a day, and be regular and stable, falling asleep and getting up at a fixed time. In addition, try to improve the environment, including comfort, light, sound, etc. to avoid being disturbed.
If you can't keep a good sleep, you can take a nap. The study found that even a five minute nap can play a role in "pruning neuronal pathways". But it's best to develop a good work and rest.
I hope this article can help you break the myth and establish your understanding of the memory system:
1) the memory system can be divided into external and internal, which are closely connected - internal memory is combined with the external system through "clues".
2) we don't need the memory of "never forgetting". What we need is an effective externalization system, which can domesticate and operate it well.
3) our forgetfulness of "clues" is essentially a lack of attention. Therefore, the essence of improving internal memory is to protect attention.