The other day I wrote a top and at the end of the writing I had no memory of what I had just written. Should it be interpreted as a warning signal about my neuronal degeneration? Certainly yes. But we are not here to talk about my health problems and I will rather tell you a lot of folichons tips on memory, because our beliefs and our received ideas on this subject are abundant.
1. We use 10% of our brain
This legend is awesome. It is one of the worst beliefs about the brain that has yet been widely spread as in these films based on received ideas (hello Lucy). In reality, no region of our brain remains inactive over time, it’s just that certain regions are useful at a given time and not all regions of the brain at the same time.
2. Eating fish would help you have a better memory
Oh no sorry. It is not enough to inquire about a sea bream ceviche to remember the multiplication table of 7 by heart. good for your health but it never made anyone a genius. In short, eat a balanced diet, stop the firecrackers and you will have as much chance of having a not too bad brain.
3. Learning by heart is useless
On this subject there is debate. In the 70s we started to shit on this stupid and nasty learning instilled during our schooling, learning by heart not necessarily allowing us to understand (we can know all important dates in the history of France without hindering anything at stake) . In reality, rote learning is far from useless and on the contrary allows us to exercise our memory. The more we memorize, the more we train our brain to memorize. But in itself, it’s not so much that we muscle our memory. We just develop learning skills, which is significantly different.
4. Our memories don’t move
Haha, sacred mytho this business and I think that everyone will agree to recognize it even if that bothers us. We tend to believe that our memories are carved in stone, but in fact it’s more complex than that. When you evoke a memory, you reconstruct it and therefore without realizing it, you modify it, you revisit it. Your memory is therefore there, but it can cause you some infidelity.
5. By dint of writing down everything so as not to forget, we make our memory work less
Stop feeling guilty about your diminished brain because you still write your best friend’s digital code on your forearm or because you can’t do without a shopping list. On the contrary, it’s the best way to sort out your memory by leaving room for things a little more important than this kind of unexciting information.
Especially since the simple fact of writing down something in a reminder means that we won’t forget it. That’s why we should allow cheat sheets, from the moment you write down a date or a formula to remember for a DST you have every chance of remembering this precious information.
On the other hand, never again make the effort to search your brain to find information and go directly to seek the answer on your phone, there yes it forges you a shitty memory. So write whatever you want on your arms but put the phone down, it’s your brain’s worst enemy.
6. Goldfish have a 3 second memory.
I don’t know what the goldfish did to us, but first we decided it would be cool to lock them in jars, then we chambered them with their memory of teubes. Well that’s wrong and it’s very easy to prove: they are able to remember the path of a maze several weeks after having learned it, or they are also able to associate a sound with food or anything just to be trained. In short, the fish are far from stupid. On the other hand, as the incomparable Max Bird explains to us, it is more pleasant to tell us that fish are devoid of neurons, so that we feel less guilty when we lock them up in tinny aquariums.
7. Failing memory is a fatality
Today, we can no longer say that we know nothing about memory and if science cannot yet restore a shaky memory, we can at least improve our lifestyle to best avoid the problem.
Basically it’s not very complicated, what’s bad for your heart is also bad for your brain so by eating a balanced diet, carrying out regular physical activity, you’ll put a little more luck on your side to have a brain to functional for as long as possible.
8. Old people only have lousy memories
A dark received idea leads us to believe that the older we get, the more we will keep only negative memories in order to reach this beautiful sourness of the third age. Well, not only is this false, but it would rather be the opposite, the older we get, the more we idealize our memories, also reducing the gravity of the most tragic memories.
Moreover, I take this opportunity to remind you that we do not lose our memory as we age, it is at least much less widespread than what we would like us to believe.
9. There is ONE good way to improve your memory.
Ditch the miracle tricks that will boost your shitty memory. Memory works differently from person to person and depends on what you want to memorize and why you want to memorize it and how long you have to memorize it. So I’m sorry to tell you that there are no miracle methods and you have to try everything and adapt according to the situation to find the memorization process that suits you best.
10. There are people who have no memory
Nope. In the same way that one does not have a good memory. Memory is not a concrete thing like a tibia or a bicep. People who worry about having a shitty memory just haven’t found the right memorization patterns that could work for them. Unless, therefore, you are suffering from an illness or the consequences of an accident, you have no reason to insult your miserable memory.