Memory: Use cues to improve yours

Have you ever noticed how a whiff of your grandma’s curry or the sound of an old Bollywood track takes you right back to a specific moment?

So what is going on?

Memory driven by a stimulus is called context-dependent memory. Your brain’s way of tying memories to the environment where they were formed.

Think of it as your brain bookmarking a page with sensory cues. The lighting, the sounds, even how you felt that day.

In a study done on divers, scientists found that divers showed that their memory gets better underwater. The location being a cue for memory.

Sometimes, though, your brain gets confused. The same cue and memory can work against you.

Imagine that you studied while listening to loud music. Now, you suddenly find yourself in a quiet room filled with lots and lots of restless people.

You can sense the fear and anxiety, not just in yourself but in everyone around you.

Your brain can get confused. Stress and distractions making things worse. You might find yourself unable to recall anything.

What can you do?

The trick is to use your mind to do the work for you. Fortunately, the mind cannot tell the difference between reality and what it imagines.

Recreate the scene. The same music, the same spot where you were sitting. Visualize it. Picture the room, the smells, how you felt.

It is like putting yourself into a mental time machine.

The memories will come rushing back, the same cues now forming in your head instead of your environment.

Forgetting is easily one of the biggest challenges for humankind. Use every trick possible to improve your memory.

Cues being one such trick.

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