How To Improve Memory - Acrostics

Acrostics can be a great way of showing people how to improve memory.

What's an acrostic? Well, an acrostic is generally a sentence in which the first letter of each word stands for something else.

For example, many people can recite the colours of the rainbow, in order, by using a simple acrostic.

The colours are:

• Red
  
• Orange
  
• Yellow
  
• Green
  
• Blue
  
• Indigo
  
• Violet
  

Using the first letter of each word, we get R, O, Y, G, B, I, V

The simple acrostic used (by people in the UK anyway) is:

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain

Again, using the first letter of each word, we get R, O, Y, G, B, I, V

So remembering a simple sentence helps you remember the colours of the rainbow and the order they appear in.

Solar System

Here are another couple of examples:

Planets of the solar system in distance order from the sun:

• Mercury
  
• Venus
  
• Earth
  
• Mars
  
• Jupiter
  
• Saturn
  
• Uranus
  
• Neptune
  
• Pluto
  

Simple acrostic to help you remember this (should you ever need to):

My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Up Nice Pineapples

So there's another simple technique that may help with your memory. Again, it's not a strategy that will cover every angle, but it might help.

If you're looking for a complete programme on how to improve memory, this one is guaranteed to work in only five minutes a day.

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How To Improve Memory – The Ponderosa and Scottish Islands

I’m always looking for things that show me how to improve memory.

Here’s a little story demonstrating a little memory trick that links The Ponderosa (remember Bonanza?) three island groups and some geography stuff.

Let me explain ...

It all started in a pub quiz. There was a question about geography, here it is:

‘Starting from the most westerly and moving in a clockwise direction, put these island groups in order – Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides’

Guessing at the answer, because I didn’t know and nor did anyone else on the team, we got it wrong. In the end we lost the quiz by one point. OK, if we’d got the island question right we still wouldn’t have won outright but it kind of grated on me.

If you don’t know anything about these island groups then they are all situated off the coast of Scotland. Starting with the most westerly and moving clockwise, the correct order is:

Hebrides

Orkneys

Shetland

For a few weeks afterwards I tried to remember the correct order but, whenever I tried to recall it I almost always got it wrong. It was driving me nuts … absolutely NUTS!

I tried lots of things to get it right (yes, I was a very sad person at the time) but couldn’t ever nail it. Then something occurred to me as I wrote down the island names for the umpteenth time.

Hebrides

Orkneys

Shetland

The capital letters were, in order H … O … S

Instantly, Bonanza sprung to mind. Why? Well, as a kid I used to watch it all the time. If you don't know what I'm on about here then Bonanza was a TV cowboy series that ran from 1959 - 1973 about the Cartwright family and the Ponderosa ranch. There was a larger than life character in it called Hoss. A real heavy set fella best described as a lovable ‘galoot’ played brilliantly by Dan Blocker. Hoss always wore a giant ten-gallon hat. Once seen, Hoss was never forgotten.

So, what did I do? I simply imagined Hoss, with his great big hat, riding around the coast of Scotland on his horse.

Every time I think of Hoss I think of the Hebrides, Orkneys and Shetland. Every time I think about the geographical location of those islands I think about Hoss.

The image of Hoss and those islands is firmly fixed in my mind now and I’ll never forget their location again. Will you?

The brain likes images and using them to remember things can be a simple process. Maybe try it yourself and see how you get on.

What I've outlined here is a very simple process about linking an image to some facts to be remembered. It works very well for simple things. If you're looking for something that will provide substantially more benefits then here's a guaranteed method that will show you how to improve memory.

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How To Improve Memory - A Cowboy Series and the Islands

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