Greater Good Magazine: How to Improve Your Memory for the Things That Matter

 

How to Improve Your Memory for the Things That Matter

A new book explains how our brains selectively remember and forget, and how to use that knowledge to our advantage.

Have you ever forgotten a lunch date and stood up a good friend? This can be embarrassing and disconcerting, a potential sign that your memory just isn’t what it used to be.

But, according to a new book by researcher Charan Ranganath, Why We Remember, this kind of gaffe is less about a faulty memory and more an artifact of how memory works.

“Although we tend to believe that we can and should remember anything we want, the reality is we are designed to forget,” he says.

As Ranganath explains, our memory isn’t just a repository for everything that’s ever happened to us; it’s much more fluid than that, affected by the context of our past experiences as well as what’s happening in the present moment. Because our lives are full of incoming sensory information and our reactions to it, the laying down of a memory needs to be a competitive process, with priority given to more important, novel, or salient experiences at the expense of others. That’s why we might forget about our lunch date in the midst of a pressing work deadline.

Ranganath argues that if we understand how and why we remember things, we’ll be better prepared to use our memories wisely. And, he writes, this is important, as memory plays a pretty all-encompassing role in nearly every aspect of our lives.

“[Memories] are the driving force behind life-changing decisions, from what career to pursue and where to live to what causes you believe in, even how you raise your children and what sort of people you want around you,” he says.

Note:  The above comes directly from their website.  Click here to read more.