Read It. Forget It. If You Can.

By Black Stars Press

At its best, memory is tricky. At its worst, it's the most frustrating element of being human.

Why is it we can perfectly remember, in excruciating detail, the hazelnut latte and cranberry scone we had that one time, at that little airport cafe on a layover in Boston—yet completely blank when a medical form needs our kid's birthday?

Why do the songs from our senior prom playlist evoke all the excitement and novelty of our teenage years, while today's music often sounds like nails on a chalkboard?

As long as science has studied the brain itself, it's been fascinated by memory recall.

From the reminiscence bump phenomenon (why our childhood, teen years, and twenties are so crisp and vivid, while all the years to follow get a little hazy), to emerging neuroscience on recall therapies for dementia—we've only begun to scratch the surface of what memory really is…and all the incredible things it can do.

Perhaps most incredible of all is that memory recall, like a muscle, can be honed and trained.

Recall techniques can improve and transform our daily lives, and even improve our memory going forward…no matter how young or old we are when we start.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Stars Press
• Release date: Apr 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393111832

Book preview

Types of Memory

Why Does Memory Recall Seem So Arbitrary?

Harnessing Memory Through Recall Techniques

The Reminiscence Bump

Why Can’t All Our Years Feel That Way?

A Second (DIY) Reminiscence Bump

Emotions, Memory, and Mental Health

Mental Health: An Overview

Signs of Mental Illness

Improving Your Mental Health (Even If You Don’t Have a Diagnosis)

How Can Improving My Memory Recall Address All These Areas at Once?

Read More

Play an Instrument

Exercise

Meditate

Journal

Reconnect with Old Friends

Talk to Family Members (Especially Siblings)

Look Through Old Photos

Listen to Music You Loved as a Teen

Learn Something New (or Brush Up on Something Old)

An Example: Narrative Exposure Therapy

How to Use Your Past to Inform, and Improve, Your Future

Cued Recall

Free Recall

Serial Recall

Which Kind of Recall is Best?

Practical Recall Applications

Recall Therapy Is Only Part of the Solution...But a Powerful One

Introduction

In the impressive and far-reaching catalog of human discovery, memory occupies a newer slot than you might think: it wasn’t until the late 1800s that a clear-cut, scientific approach to studying memories came to be, courtesy of Herman Ebbinghaus. [1]

Ebbinghaus was a philosopher, not a neuroscientist, as the field didn’t exist yet—and wouldn’t for nearly another century—but his then-groundbreaking research on our abilities to learn, retain, and forget information paved the way for deeper insights into memory recall.

What’s more, Ebbinghaus was the first to classify memories as short-term, long-term, and sensory (our ability to ignore stimuli when more important things are happening, such as tuning out the radio when searching for an address).

The stereotypical idea of running rats through mazes actually led to huge advances in our understanding of memory encoding.  In the 1940s, Karl Lashley realized through his experiments that not only were memories stored throughout our cortex (rather than one part of the brain), but that other areas could compensate should that cortex become damaged.[2]

This knowledge eventually led to more conclusive studies that confirmed the plasticity of the human brain.  We learned that our brains could heal from damage, trauma, and stunted development—and, when healing wasn’t possible, other sections could pick up the slack.

We’ve also seen incredible instances of the brain’s compartmentalization—like how stroke victims can still sing, even when they can no longer speak.[3]

On the neuroscience side, it’s certainly fascinating.  But it’s just as impactful from an emotional standpoint.

Undoubtedly, we’ve all known someone whose memory tragically began to deteriorate, and that person’s true self seemed to fade with it.  But when sparks of memory did return—either temporarily, or retained in a separate area, such as music—a sense of relief would come flooding back, too.

Simply put, memories have a powerful link to our emotions and sense of wellbeing. They play crucial roles in our lives, from our productivity and cognitive abilities, to our overall happiness and sense of self.

Only in recent years have scientists and psychologists fully grasped the importance of memory recall on our happiness.  While a link was always fairly obvious (for example, how difficult