The Secret to Improving Your Memory

If you want to improve your memory, you need to know how your brain works. You might be surprised to hear that your lifestyle habits might be making it difficult for you to correctly record each piece of information, experience, or learning.

It would appear that the secret to improving your memory is really simple. It’s to take breaks. As a matter of fact, the brain has more limited energy resources than you probably think. Therefore, it tires quickly and its levels of attention begin to drop after about 30 to 45 minutes.

The hippocampus is the area of your brain that’s responsible for consolidating (巩固) your short-term memories in the long term. Furthermore, for this consolidation to be possible, there must be an connection with different regions of the cerebral cortex (大脑皮层). Currently, we know that, for best connectivity, we must rest. Therefore, factors such as tiredness, negative feelings, or stress make it difficult to connect one area to the other.

Michaela Dewar, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, conducted a study with other experts to understand how to improve memory consolidation processes. What they found was that something as simple as taking breaks of between nine and 15 minutes improves memory, both in healthy people and in those with neurological damage.

However, there’s one small detail that’s important. The rest must be real rest. In other words, you should go to a quiet space and not have any distractions (分心的事) around you. This includes not having your cell phone nearby. The secret to improving your memory requires you to rest for between ten and 15 minutes leaving your mind completely empty. In fact, knowing how to rest is decisive for your cognitive function, balancing your emotions, and renewing your energy.

Your lifestyle plays an extremely important role in the way your memory functions. Rest isn’t wasting time. In fact, allowing yourself small breaks is investing in your health and well-being.

A few years ago, I stood in a small classroom just outside of New York City, watching a high schooler named Serena Stevenson answer math questions. An instructor read outnumbers — 74,470, 70,809, 98,402 — and Stevenson added them in her head. For each question, she closed her eyes, and then the fingers of her right hand began to move. She answered most of the problems correctly.

The key to her success was an ancient technology called the abacus. Stevenson used a practice called “mental abacus”, imagining the abacus in her mind and then using her fingers to work through the problems.

From watching Stevenson, I knew that gaining skill at the abacus was more than a matter of counting beads, so I decided to sign up for an abacus course with my two daughters to see if we could also improve our math skills. I was one of the many who had some math doubts and I felt a touch of fear. My typical solution was avoidance, and if I had to calculate something like a percentage change, I would go online.

Then after a few abacus classes and a good amount of practice, math seemed a little less frightening. I didn’t become Euclid, the founder of geometry. But the practice brought my numerical fears down. This is a time-tested power of the abacus. Confidence grows easily in the device, and abacus students are less likely to be nervous about an upcoming math test, according to one study. Part of the reason, it seems, is that practice and outcomes appear to move in step.

My kids gained much as well. My youngest daughter could work out those math problems that once baffled her, while my older child brought her abacus to school to show it to her classmates and teacher. These were just small successes for them, but that was how they finally developed confidence.

Supporters of education technology have always imagined the bright future in the past twenty years: that by 2019, half of all middle school courses would be online; videos and practice apps could let students learn maths at their own speed; or that students with internet-connected computers could learn anything without the help of schools or teachers.

Then in 2020, 1 billion students around the world turned to online learning as the pandemic( 疫情) shut down schools. It was education technology’s big moment, but for many students and families, online learning has been a disappointment. When the world needs it most, why has education technology seemed so lackluster?

Technology education has a long history, but throughout the history there have been two main challenges. The first is that most people depend on human connection to stay motivated. When a student fails to concentrate on what the teacher is saying in a classroom, the teacher can notice it and take action. But when the same thing happens while using an education technology product, no one can see it. Assessments(评价) are also a challenge. Computers can show students standard answers. In some subjects, like maths, education technology can immediately tell whether the answer is right. But if we ask students to write a passage that explains why the Second World War broke out, computers can not assess the answer, part of which may be incorrect.

Education technology has long promised to change education, but for large areas of school learning, we don’t have online tools that are any better than printed books. For most teachers, the road to successful teaching with technology is not a total change to traditional education, but a slow process towards finding a right tool or way that is suitable for students.